15 Employee Engagement Statistics You Should Know in 2022

Employ­ee engage­ment is a top­ic that has dom­i­nat­ed HR pub­li­ca­tions in the past few years. With each day, we learn a new per­spec­tive and insight about employ­ee engage­ment — what influ­ences it, how it impacts employ­ee per­for­mance and how to adapt your per­for­mance man­age­ment sys­tem to improve engage­ment levels.

Here, we look at var­i­ous stud­ies, polls and research and delve into the fig­ures. These employ­ee engage­ment sta­tis­tics show us exact­ly how big a busi­ness con­cern employ­ee engage­ment is, how we can improve it and which sec­tors are doing it right.

Mea­sur­ing the Impor­tance of Employ­ee Engagement

For a more in-depth look at rel­e­vant stud­ies, check out our arti­cle dis­cussing lead­ing employ­ee engage­ment research

1. 85% of the Glob­al Work­force Are Not Engaged at Work

This sta­tis­tic comes from Gallup’s 2017 State of Glob­al Work­force Report. The report found an incred­i­ble 85% of employ­ees around the world are either not engaged with their work or are active­ly dis­en­gaged. This sta­tis­tic is stag­ger­ing and shows us the scale of the prob­lem and why it’s an issue that needs addressing. 

2. 93% of Employ­ees in Non­prof­it Work Are Engaged

93% is a hap­py sta­tis­tic, but a star­tling one when you com­pare it to the sta­tis­tic above. Accord­ing to a sur­vey by Work for Good, an incred­i­ble 93% of employ­ees in non­prof­it work are engaged. Why would this be?

This is, most like­ly, down to the fact that employ­ees in non­prof­it work feel a great sense of mean­ing when it comes to their work. They under­stand their com­pa­ny’s pur­pose, its direc­tion and so align with what the com­pa­ny is try­ing to do. They are like­ly to believe what they do is mak­ing a real dif­fer­ence. The real ques­tion is — how can we make our employ­ees feel just as ded­i­cat­ed and engaged with their work?

Mod­ern employ­ees seek mean­ing in their work — they aren’t work­ing pure­ly for pay. They want to know their com­pa­ny stands for some­thing and they want to play a mean­ing­ful role in fur­ther­ing that pur­pose. To help your employ­ees become more engaged, you should first make sure your com­pa­ny has a clear­ly defined pur­pose. You should then take the time to artic­u­late and com­mu­ni­cate this pur­pose with your employ­ees. Allow your pur­pose to guide your recruit­ment meth­ods, your work process­es and any oth­er work­place deci­sion. This will help to uni­fy your work­force and engage them in what you’re doing.

3. The UK Has an Aver­age Employ­ee Engage­ment Score of Just 45%

What does employ­ee engage­ment look like here in the UK? Appar­ent­ly, we’re lag­ging behind most of the world. A sur­vey of more than 4,500 work­ers, based on a com­bi­na­tion of six pos­i­tive engage­ment fac­tors, com­pared employ­ee engage­ment around the world. The UK record­ed aver­age engage­ment scores of 45%. This score is low­er than France (54%), Aus­tralia (56%) and the USA (60%). The only coun­tries who scored low­er were Sin­ga­pore and Hong Kong.

4. Organ­i­sa­tions with High Employ­ee Engage­ment Out­per­form Those with Low Lev­els of Engage­ment by 202%

This Dale Carnegie sta­tis­tic shows the real pow­er of employ­ee engage­ment and why it is a per­for­mance man­age­ment con­cern. It’s sim­ple — engaged employ­ees work bet­ter. They want to per­form well. They care about their com­pa­ny and their role in it. They go the extra mile, go above and beyond and they’re more loy­al (mean­ing less turnover — we all know how turnover can impact com­pa­ny per­for­mance). Invest­ing in employ­ee engage­ment strate­gies and tools does pay off for com­pa­nies will­ing to put the right resources in place.

5. High­ly Engaged Com­pa­nies Result in 21% Greater Profitability

You might think this sta­tis­tic is implied by the sta­tis­tic above, but not nec­es­sar­i­ly so. Per­for­mance doesn’t equate to pro­duc­tiv­i­ty or prof­itabil­i­ty. This sta­tis­tic shows us the dif­fer­ence between an engaged employ­ee can make to a company’s bot­tom line. Invest­ing time and effort to increase lev­els of employ­ee engage­ment ben­e­fits every­one in the long run, keeps com­pa­nies prof­itable and keeps them competitive.

6. 37% of Engaged Employ­ees Are Either Open to, or Look­ing for New Oppor­tu­ni­ties, Com­pared to 73% of Active­ly Dis­en­gaged Employees

This Gallup sta­tis­tic explores the rela­tion­ship between employ­ee engage­ment and vol­un­tary turnover. We can see the more engaged an employ­ee is at work and with their com­pa­ny, the more loy­al they are to the organ­i­sa­tion. Engaged employ­ees are excit­ed by their work, but they are also con­tent with the com­pa­ny cul­ture. They are less like­ly to uproot them­selves than an employ­ee who is dis­en­gaged and unhap­py with their work­ing environment.

7. Dis­en­gaged Employ­ees Have a 60% High­er Error Rate

It’s not only high turnover you need to wor­ry about when con­sid­er­ing dis­en­gaged or active­ly dis­en­gaged employ­ees. The real­i­ty is, they make more mis­takes, too. Accord­ing to this Achiev­ers’ white paper, dis­en­gaged employ­ees have a 60% high­er error rate than those who are more engaged. 

Check out our blog on com­mon bar­ri­ers to employ­ee engagement

8. Dis­en­gaged Employ­ees Cost the UK up to £70 Bil­lion per Year in Lost Productivity

We know dis­en­gaged employ­ees are more like­ly to leave. We also know they’re more like­ly to under­per­form and to make more mis­takes. But do you know the actu­al cost of a dis­en­gaged employ­ee and what it can mean for your busi­ness? To put the prob­lem in per­spec­tive, dis­en­gaged employ­ees are thought to cost the UK £52 – 70 bil­lion per year in lost productivity.

9. 53% of HR Pro­fes­sion­als Say Employ­ee Engage­ment Lev­els Rise with Improved Onboarding

This sta­tis­tic high­lights the impor­tance of jump­ing on employ­ee engage­ment ear­ly. You can begin to engage employ­ees before they even start at your com­pa­ny. But from day one, your com­pa­ny needs to make a con­cert­ed effort to engage employ­ees and show them they’re a part of your team.

10. The Real Estate Indus­try Has the High­est Lev­els of Employ­ee Engage­ment (32%)

We should point out that employ­ee engage­ment varies from indus­try to indus­try. Some put more of an empha­sis on improv­ing employ­ee engage­ment than oth­ers. One source looked into lev­els of employ­ee engage­ment across indus­tries. It found the real estate indus­try has the high­est lev­els of employ­ee engage­ment, with 32% of their estate agent par­tic­i­pants claim­ing to be engaged with their work.

11. The Tech­nol­o­gy Indus­try Has the Low­est Employ­ee Engage­ment Aver­age (15%)

Con­verse­ly, the same study found the tech­nol­o­gy indus­try has the low­est lev­els of employ­ee engage­ment. If you are man­ag­ing a team in the tech­nol­o­gy indus­try, you should con­sid­er putting mea­sures in place to deter­mine the lev­el of employ­ee engage­ment at your com­pa­ny — and how you can improve engage­ment in the long run.

12. Man­agers Account for a 70% Vari­ance in Employ­ee Engagement

Part of the rea­son Clear Review is so pas­sion­ate about one-on-one meet­ings between man­ag­er and employ­ee is because of the impact it can have on employ­ee engage­ment. This often-cit­ed Gallup sta­tis­tic states man­agers can account for a 70% vari­ance in employ­ee engage­ment. To devel­op a mean­ing­ful, authen­tic and trust­ing rela­tion­ship between man­ag­er and employ­ee that pro­motes high lev­els of engage­ment, con­sid­er hav­ing a catch up at least once a month.

If you are think­ing of incor­po­rat­ing fre­quent coach­ing ses­sions in your organ­i­sa­tion, you can down­load our free one-on-one meet­ing template

13. 1 in 5 Employ­ees Is High­ly Engaged and at Risk of Burnout

Engaged employ­ees tend to work hard. They vol­un­teer for more respon­si­bil­i­ty and they gen­uine­ly try to go that extra mile to help the com­pa­ny — because they find mean­ing and reward in their role. But that doesn’t mean they can’t push them­selves too far. In fact, as this sta­tis­tic from Har­vard Busi­ness Review shows, even high­ly engaged employ­ees can (and do) suf­fer from burnout. 

14. 35% of Lead­ers Say Focus­ing on Employ­ee Engage­ment Is a Dis­trac­tion from Get­ting ​“Real Work” Done

Even today, not every­one is con­vinced of the mer­its of employ­ee engage­ment strate­gies. This sta­tis­tic high­lights some lead­ers still see employ­ee engage­ment as a mean­ing­less HR buzz­word that stands to impede ​“real” work.

15. 85% of Lead­ers Say Employ­ee Engage­ment Is a Pri­or­i­ty, but Only One-Third Make It One

On the one hand, we have good news — the major­i­ty of busi­ness lead­ers claim employ­ee engage­ment is a pri­or­i­ty for them. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, what these lead­ers say and what they do don’t match up, with only one-third of them mak­ing employ­ee engage­ment a pri­or­i­ty. By not putting employ­ee engage­ment strate­gies in place, these lead­ers are pay­ing the price in terms of engage­ment, per­for­mance and (ulti­mate­ly) profit.

Are you look­ing to improve lev­els of employ­ee engage­ment at your organ­i­sa­tion? Start with your tech. Our employ­ee engage­ment soft­ware enables con­ver­sa­tion, improves per­for­mance and helps com­pa­nies become more pro­duc­tive. Book a free demo today.

Our new eBook explores the con­nec­tion between engage­ment and per­for­mance. Down­load it here.