https://www.gallup.com/workplace/352949/employee-engagement-holds-steady-first-half-2021.aspx

In the last 20 years, 40% more employees are “engaged” at their workplace and one-sixth less are “disengaged”. American employers have bought into claims by Gallup and others that “engaged workers are productive workers” and made the investment in building culture, training managers, measuring managers and work teams and attending to basic employee satisfaction dimensions. Firms have made these changes out of self-interest, believing that the investment in helping employees to be engaged will pay off.

While 26% or 36% “engaged” may seem like poor numbers, consider that the global average in Gallup surveys is just 20%. Gallup defined “engaged” at a high enough level in their survey to ensure that corporations would see the low numbers and turn to Gallup and other organizational development consultants for help.

Note that even with 36% engaged, that means that 64% are un-engaged or actively dis-engaged. Hence, the “Great Resignation” is not unexpected in a tight labor market.

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/great-attrition-or-great-attraction-the-choice-is-yours

How Did They Do It? (Firms Improve Workplaces)

Gallup points to 4 factors.

https://www.gallup.com/workplace/284180/factors-driving-record-high-employee-engagement.aspx

More companies now take culture and management seriously, from CEO to front-line workers, making real, sustained changes as they did with total quality, lean six sigma operations and branding. Firms define mission, vision and values and operationalize these “soft” dimensions in performance reviews, promotion and retention.

Second, firms focus their organizational development efforts on front line managers, the people who impact the most employees. Good front-line managers are then prepared to be good middle managers, so this makes sense. Companies embrace organizational behavior research which says that managers must consider both task and people dimensions. Managers must be the responsible parties, adjusting their style and decisions to the situation. Gallup published a book that helps to train managers in applied situational leadership.

Other consulting firms and authors provide training materials and seminars to help managers be more effective.

Third, firms take communications seriously, overcommunicating, teaching communications, reviewing communications, etc.

Fourth, firms hold managers accountable for results. These measured results include employee satisfaction. Firms have learned to use 360-degree feedback systems to identify very weak managers, help average managers to develop and promote the most effective managers to greater responsibility and impact.

Most firms employ some version of “The Balanced Scorecard”, ensuring that managers are evaluated on, and therefor focus upon all four dimensions: earnings/mission, customer satisfaction/sales, operations effectiveness, asset management (including human resources).

Higher Paid Employees are More Satisfied

How Does Gallup Measure Engagement?

Gallup statisticians crunched numbers from prior work to identify a small number of questions that are correlated to results such as turnover, productivity, sales, profits, etc. The Q12 survey is disarmingly simple. It can be administered monthly for all work teams and employees. Once managers are trained to understand the meaning of the results, opportunities for improvement are straightforward. Once employees see that managers are responding to their feedback, a positive feedback loop can be started. Q12 is not a “magic bullet”, but the questions touch on dimensions that employees truly value and improvements in management performance are noticed by employees.

https://www.gallup.com/workplace/356063/gallup-q12-employee-engagement-survey.aspx

PostScript: Engagement Fell Back a Bit in Late 2021

https://www.gallup.com/workplace/388481/employee-engagement-drops-first-year-decade.aspx