Study Shows Workers Still Not Engaged in Their Jobs

According to numbers published in a Gallup poll, less than a third of all American workers (approximately 31.5 percent) were considered to be “engaged” in their jobs in 2014. While this is the highest level since Gallup first began tracking employee engagement, the amount of employees who qualified as “not engaged” (51 percent) and “actively disengaged” (17.5 percent) still vastly overwhelm those who are engaged.

Gallup’s definition of engaged employees is an employee who is enthusiastic about, involved in and committed to his or her workplace. These numbers are based on interviews conducted by Gallup Daily between January and December 2015. There were 80,837 employees represented in the study.

Perhaps not surprisingly, engagement levels were highest among executives, managers and officers, who were engaged at a 38.4 percent rate. Employees that work in production and manufacturing were at the lowest levels (23 percent).

In terms of generations, Millennials were the least engaged group (28.9 percent) while traditionalists were the most engaged group (42.2 percent), followed by baby boomers (32.7 percent). Millennials are not as likely to be getting positions they desired out of college, and they also respond that they have not had the opportunity to “do what they do best” in their work.

Based on these numbers, one thing is clear: if a company is able to provide workers with a job that they can truly care about and engage with, it has an advantage in terms of attracting and keeping employees over approximately two thirds of the market. Engaged employees are more likely to do great work, so companies should make every effort to increase engagement in their teams.