5 employee engagement statistics to raise HR managers’ eyebrows

Organisations that tick all three boxes tend to perform better and grow faster – Forbes goes as far as to estimate that companies with engaged employees enjoy 6% higher net profit margins.

To explore the lay of the land for employee engagement, we surveyed 2000 workers across the UK. While the project unearthed some concerning statistics, it also opened up a load of opportunities for HR managers looking to get ahead of the game.

Five shocking employee engagement statistics

Although it’s disheartening to find that so few employees have bought into their organisations' visions, the silver lining is that only 13% said they didn’t want to become more aligned. HR’s duty is to enable this transition.

Goal alignment strengthens leadership and creates flexibility; with a mobilised team working towards shared objectives, businesses can execute strategy faster and with more agility. Achieving this means encouraging your workforce to think beyond their personal and team objectives, towards a wider company movement.

This figure increases down the generations, with 49% of millennials identifying as likely to move company – or quit outright – within a year. Imagine the amount of time and resources that would go into replacing over a third of your entire workforce.

Although the study found that pay is the most important factor to lead an employee away from their organisation, it’ll be welcome news to HR managers that more budget-friendly initiatives such as engagement and career development programmes ranked highly as incentives to remain.

That’s right – six in 10 employees said that a personalised benefits package would either influence or highly influence their decision to remain at their companies, while a further 15% were on the fence.

Benefits packages can vary hugely. Google, for example, offers its employees bi-weekly massages, while learning allowances are popular among many organisations. Whatever the programme, it’s clear that competitive salaries are only one item in HR’s arsenal for earning their employees’ loyalty.

In other words, almost a quarter of the people who keep our businesses ticking over have fundamental issues with those in charge. The employee-manager relationship will always be prone to stresses and strains, but the way in which these problems are prepared for and addressed is rapidly changing.

If your company hasn’t undergone some form of management training, this study suggests it might be time to make the first move. In addition, frequent dialogue through feedback loops and both formal and informal conversations is a good way to devise a plan for addressing these latent frustrations.

Unless unknown and radical external influences transform the nature of work, payment will usually take precedence – but clearly that doesn’t mean it’s the only criteria. Employee benefits packages were ranked the second biggest consideration, followed by management styles and office culture.

Despite many compelling arguments against its very existence – or at least its practicality as a theory – work-life balance also ranked as hugely important to employees. In a world of Glassdoor reviews, organisations must not only be transparent, but also creative in how they attract and retain talent.

To learn more about using employee engagement to boost company performance, download the full report

.