Employee Engagement levels at a ‘disturbing’ low

Trust and support emerge as key factors in the continuing low levels of employee engagement in a global economy stuttering out of recession 

Overall employee engagement at work remains low, with engaged employees representing 52% of nearly 2,000 workers surveyed online from a wide range of age groups, industries and levels of responsibilities.

This is one of the key findings from the latest Rewards of Work Study research produced by Sibson Consulting. Additional findings include:

• The highest correlations to employee engagement are employee feelings about affiliation with the employer and the content of a person's work. The top four measures with the highest correlation to engagement were organizational support of the employee, understanding of performance management, trust in management, and performance management effectiveness.
• Specific measures of affiliation showed positive increases between 2006 and 2009, despite the onset of the recession. For example, favourable attitudes toward an organization's reputation were up 6 percentage points to 81% in 2009. Trust in management increased by 7 percentage points but was still at 64% of those surveyed in 2009.
• Employers should pay particular attention to Millennials, a segment that was less satisfied, less engaged and more likely to leave than any other age group.

"Particularly disturbing," said David Insler, senior vice president at Sibson Consulting and one of the survey's authors, "is that although 69% of those surveyed know what to do, not all of those want to do it.

Employers need to provide strong leadership in strengthening employee engagement. They can do this through clear leadership direction, improved communications, support and feedback to employees, setting a high performance bar and rewarding top performers accordingly."