Low Employee Engagement: New research shows just over a third (36%) of British staff are highly engaged at work, while 48% claimed to be only moderately engaged with the remainder having no or low engagement.
The 2015 Employee engagement: how British business measures up survey, commissioned by incentive and reward experts, Red Letter Days for Business, explores employee engagement levels and how these correlate to key workplace practices.
“UK productivity is static and stands at nearly 20% below the average for G7 countries. I believe the Government is missing a trick to solve the issue; how can we start to increase productivity if most employees across the country are not engaged?” asks Bill Alexander, CEO at Red Letter Days for Business.
The research shows that managers who elicit highest engagement from staff:
- encourage their development
- let staff get on with their job
- give staff opportunities to grow
- listen to opinions
- praise staff and recognise good performance
- give staff regular training
- give staff the equipment they need to do their job
- make sure staff know what is expected of them each day
- show they care for each employee
“Staff who feel valued, involved and recognised are more likely to be highly engaged,” says Alexander. “With 79% of UK GDP being generated by the service sector, government investment should go into helping companies increase staff engagement. Just a small increase will have an impact on productivity, which in turn will have a huge impact on our economy.”
The research also reveals a high correlation between high engagement and:
• Believing your job is an important contributor to the purpose of your company (63%)
• Having someone who encourages your development (97%)
• Having colleagues who are committed to quality work (57%)
• Being able to do your best every day (56%)
Alexander continues, “Too many businesses aren’t succeeding on engagement because they’re following a textbook approach. Companies getting it right are doing elements outside of the textbook; they’re adding colour to their employee campaigns and enriching their lives – in fact, they’re making their employees’ lives better. These companies support staff to master skills inside and outside of work, implement staff ideas and reward staff with prizes they wouldn’t get to do every day.”
The research also found that while 80% of highly engaged staff received some form of reward or recognition for work well done, just 35% of those who have no engagement at work receive such treats.
Just 18% of all British employees received a verbal thank you from their manager in the last 12 months.
There are also a few elements that have no effect at all on engagement: your gender, your line manager’s gender, your age, length of service or size of company you work for.
“The research shows it doesn’t matter what company you work for, where you are in the country, your age or gender, even your line manager’s age or gender – the engagement results for these factors were more or less the same. This strongly highlights that any business can get on the road to solving engagement issues. My advice would be, look after your staff and they’ll look after everything else,” finishes Alexander.
Bill Alexander is CEO at Red Letter Days for Business.
For additiopnal information on Red Letter Days for Business visit their Website
