Recently posted on the Gallup website, a survey shows that the engagement of US employees fell to it’s lowest monthly average of the year in May 2015, with just 31.5% of the workforce feeling engaged in their jobs.
According to the report, while the figure runs in line with the previous months, with January, March and April of this year all witnessing a 31.7% engagement level it means that May had the lowest monthly average so far this year.
However, despite employee engagement remaining continuously flat, the number of “actively disengaged” US employees appears to be falling. From April to May this tear, the proportion of actively disengaged workers fell from 17.5% to 16.5%- the lowest yet this year and, along with December 2014’s figures, the all-time lowest active disengagement number on record. Since Gallup’s daily assessment of US worker engagement began back in 2011, active disengagement has reached as high as 21.8%.
It’s encouraging to see that active disengagement rates are going down while engagement rates are going up. The report summary notes that while US employers were able to reduce their proportion of actively disengaged employees in May, they were unable to increase the proportion of engaged members of staff. This suggests that employees are simply “not engaged”, conducting their daily tasks with little passion or enthusiasm.
As Gallup explains, while disengaged workers are not as destructive as actively disengaged ones, their lack of energy and drive means they are not being as productive as they could be, limiting an organization’s potential growth.
In order to resolve this issue, company bosses should be employing high-performing managers and implementing development strategies and incentives that play on the strengths of their employees.
Read the full article here.
