Engagement falls as confidence in senior managers falters

Employee engagement in the UK slipped four places to 17th in ORC International’s employee engagement rankings as confidence in senior management has dropped

ORC International blames the faltering job market and the £95billion government spending cuts for a drop in employee engagement. When asked about the relationship between senior management and staff in an organisation, only 43% of respondents said it was positive - trailing the US by a whopping 13%.

Rory MacNeill, Managing Director of ORC International’s Employee Research division comments: “This year’s results show that good management continues to play a key role in driving employee engagement up.

“Effective leadership has led to positive scores in US organisations, but employers in the UK must look at their approaches and put measures in place to improve perceptions of management. If they don’t, they risk a continuing downward engagement trend.”

India remains top of the ranking, with an overall engagement ranking of 74%, while China jumped seven places to claim second. The global average for employee engagement was 57%, which is identical to last year’s score.
Meantime The John Lewis Partnership offers the best employee benefits to enable diversity and work life balance, according to Workingmums.co.uk.

Awarded the Overall Top Employer award prize at the website's annual Top Employer Awards, the John Lewis partnership was praised for its emphasis on work life balance. The company also took the Top Employers Award for Childcare, with judges applauding its comprehensive and broad-based range of policies and practises to help working mums and dads.

Prudential won the Top Employers Award for Employee Engagement for making significant and innovative progress. The Top Employers Award for Innovation in Flexible working was won by Accenture, as within this company, flexible working was deemed to be "the norm".
Gillian Nissim, founder of Workingmums.co.uk, said: "Through these Awards we hope to inspire other employers by offering them examples of outstanding practice which clearly demonstrates the benefits of flexible working and good work life balance policies and practice for both employees and employers."