At the beginning of 2019, we were bombarded with a new onslaught of “trends” lists. With respect to HR Trends in 2019, there were few surprises, with most being ones that have been around for the last few years. But generally speaking, and not surprisingly, there was a thread that ran through most if not all of them.
“Employee Engagement."
This trend continued to take the top spot in most lists. Other trends include the mental health of employees and employee turnover. But these are often tied directly to engagement. Employees who are invested in their work are less stressed and do not have one foot out the door. Six months later it still dominates as a most disturbing and persistent problem of our workplaces.
Gallup’s last State of the Global Workplace Report reported a staggering 85% of employees worldwide are not engaged and/or actively disengaged, with the majority of companies unaware of this crisis affecting their workforce.
Gallup’s definition of engaged - employees who are psychologically invested in their job and motivated to be highly productive; not engaged - employees put in the time but little discretionary effort at work; and actively disengaged - employees are openly resentful that their workplace. The latter group are the most disruptive as they tend to spread negativity and damage their organization’s bottom line. They monopolize management time, have more on-the-job accidents, account for more quality defects, contribute to theft, miss more workdays and quit at a higher rate than engaged employees do.
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