At your next all-hands meeting, look to your left, then look to your right. Odds are one of those people is either actively looking for a new job, or at least watching for new opportunities.

One of the two people sitting next to you would also report that they experienced stress “a lot of the day” yesterday.

In the U.S. and Canada:

• 49% of employees are watching for or actively seeking a new job
• 49% experienced stress "a lot of the day" yesterday

Are your most-valued people looking for a new job? For the average business, the answer is a coin toss. Not exactly comforting odds.

Engagement

These statistics come from Gallup’s annual State of the Global Workplace survey. The 2023/2024 results included over 128,000 respondents from around the world.

Among many other measures, Gallup trends employee engagement, which gauges the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in their work and workplace.

Employees become engaged at work when:

• Their basic needs are met
• They have a chance to contribute
• They feel a sense of belonging
• They have opportunities to learn and grow

The alternative is employees who are either “not engaged,” or “actively disengaged.”

In Their Own Words

Here’s what those three groups sound like:

Engaged

From Calista, a Contract Manager in Australia:

“I really enjoy my job. I think I work with really, really fantastic people, and the work that we do is really, really meaningful.”

Not Engaged

From Archana, a Marketing Supervisor in India:

“I am getting a salary from this work. So, I have to do it, but there is a bit of boredom in doing the same work every day.”

Actively Disengaged

From Steven, a Line Operator in Canada:

“I could push it, but I’m so frustrated with the way things are going that day that I’m like, ‘You know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna do nothing.’”

It should be fairly obvious that too many employees who feel like Archana (not engaged) and Steven (actively disengaged) is not a recipe for corporate success or human flourishing.

So, How Are We Doing?

In the United States and Canada, only one third of employees are engaged. The remaining two-thirds are either not engaged (51%) or actively disengaged (16%).

That’s actually a little better than the global average, but not exactly results to cheer about.

Does It Actually Matter?

Companies in the top quartile of employee engagement were 23% more profitable than those in the bottom quartile.

Companies with the most engaged workforces have 63% fewer safety incidents, and 78% less absenteeism.

This is but a sampling of the ways in which the most engaged workforces significantly outperform the least engaged.

So, yes, it matters.

Gallup estimates that lack of employee engagement hurts the global economy to the tune of 8.9 trillion (with a “T”) dollars per year. That's 9% of global GDP.

Having disengaged employees is arguably worse than not having employees at all. As the saying goes, what’s worse than having someone quit and leave?

Having them quit and stay.

And, of course, we have yet to consider the impact on workers—the actual human beings involved. The data show clearly that their level of engagement at work and overall wellbeing are tightly linked.

“On many wellbeing items (stress, anger, worry, loneliness), being actively disengaged at work is equivalent to or worse than being unemployed.”

Okay, But What Can We Do About It?

This problem is complex, not complicated. There are many factors, all interacting with each other, meaning there is no single solution.

One factor, however, seems to stand out as particularly impactful: managers.

Managers account for 70% of the variance in team employee engagement.

Faced with the reality that two-thirds of employees are disengaged, we must conclude that our current processes for hiring and developing managers aren’t working very well.

How Did We Get Here?

Short answer: Employees seek management roles, and employers give them to them.

The Employee's Role

Employees seek management roles for increased pay, higher status, and because we are conditioned to feel that we are failing if we are not “moving up.”

They do this without really understanding what a management role means, whether they are prepared for it, or if they will actually like it.

The Employer's Role

Employers promote employees into management roles partly because of the practical need to fill management positions, but also as a reward for good performance as an individual contributor.

They often do this with little consideration of whether the person has a desire or talent for management, nor much of a plan for how they will train and develop them.

Unintended Collusion

The desire for a management role is not unfounded. Managers are more likely than non-managers to be engaged and thriving in life. (Yet, they also experience higher levels of stress, anger, sadness, and loneliness.)

Likewise, the shortcomings in selection, training, and development are understandable. Effective management is harder to define and measure than the accuracy of a financial statement or the number of parts made per hour. Harder, but not unknown. We tend to equate “soft skills” with “untrainable skills,” but that’s simply not true.

We all got here together. Employers and employees are complicit in creating the conditions neither party wants.

But now we know, and we can do better.

Getting Better

Improvement starts with recognizing that high levels of engagement do not happen by accident. High engagement requires intentional effort from leaders, consistently, over the long-term.

It is not easy, but nor is it mysterious. Gallup found that the most engaged organizations focussed on three elements.

1. Hiring and Developing Managers is a Top Priority

The one-to-one relationship between manager and employee is central, not only to employee engagement, but to thriving in life overall.

The best organizations are meticulous about hiring or promoting managers who are skilled at engaging their teams. They do not assume new managers will just figure it out.

Rather, they invest in training and developing them to be effective coaches who create clarity, give meaningful feedback, and demonstrate real caring for the people on their teams.

2. Engagement is Integral, Not Separate from “Real” Work

Engagement cannot be created outside the “real” work. Engagement must be integral to the organization’s real-world operations. It must be part of a cohesive strategy that informs how you hire, onboard, coach, and develop people.

It has to be part of project team meetings, performance management, and the conversations managers have every day with their people.

You can’t “do” engagement. You must be authentically engaged.

3. Employee Wellbeing is Central

Highly engaged organizations really do care about employee wellbeing. Their commitment is visible and consistent. They support not only physical health and mental health, but also social and emotional wellbeing, community engagement, and the practicalities of their employee’s lives.

Sometimes just a little schedule flexibility can relieve a lot of stress. It doesn’t have to be hard or expensive.

Ultimately, however, a commitment to employee wellbeing is not demonstrated by the poster on the wall or the words in the handbook. It is demonstrated by the manager who has the conversation.

The Longest Lever

When organizations do these things, they simultaneously improve employees’ lives and organizational performance.

In all three elements, there is a common thread: Managers are your longest lever for creating high engagement.

Retexo offers practical help for developing and honing real-world management skills.

Becoming the manager who fosters high engagement requires:

• Well-developed emotional intelligence
• The ability to direct and delegate, motivate, develop talent, and manage up using your unique management style
• Engaging in productive conflict

We offer specific, actionable tools for each of those areas, and coaching to help you apply them in your everyday challenges.

We're excited to help you be a better manager, and make work a more engaging place for everyone.

Until next time,
Greg