Dive Brief:

• Employees have mixed feelings about how their organizations are handling engagement, according to McLean & Co.’s latest report on engagement trends. On the favorable side, employees feel good about job drivers, the factors that motivate them to perform and stay committed to their day-to-day roles: Nearly 6 in 10 are positive about career advancement and development. About 82% say they feel positive about relationships with co-workers, the findings, released April 19, showed.
• By contrast, retention — a second key driver of employee engagement — received the lowest score from the more than 157,000 employees surveyed, McLean said. Retention drivers influence an employee’s desire and likelihood to stay at an organization; they include total compensation, working environment and work-life balance, according to the report. Organizational drivers, a third key factor, received mixed reviews: Employees feel good about culture and inclusion but gave lower marks to department collaboration and executive leadership, signaling a need for improved communication, McLean noted.
• “Individual employee engagement is the outcome of a strong overall employee experience, which is measured simply by asking ‘How likely would you be to recommend this organization to a friend or family member as a great place to work?’” Amanda Chaitnarine, McLean’s director of Advisory Services, said in a statement. “If the answer isn’t ‘yes,’ it’s a good indication that an organization’s employee engagement and experience need evaluation and intentional effort to improve,” Chaitnarine said.

Dive Insight:

As a component of an employee’s overall work experience, engagement affects productivity and retention, and it should be a priority for employers, McLean said.

Yet research shows employee engagement is on a downward trend in the U.S. A Gallup survey published earlier this year found that 32% of full- and part-time employees said they were engaged in their work in 2022, compared to 34% in 2021 and 36% in 2020. 2021 marked the first annual decline in engagement in a decade, Gallup said.

Given this trend, employers need to fundamentally rethink what employee engagement means, the CEO of a consulting firm pointed out during an April 17 presentation at the Society for Human Resource Management’s Talent Conference. This can involve focusing on strategies that emphasize an employee’s strengths and goals rather than on actions meant to keep an employee happy.

Effective strategies also involve helping “nonengaged” employees create a psychological attachment to the job that they may presently lack, the speaker said. That means ensuring the employees feel they’re getting a return on investment from the work they put into their jobs, find meaning in that work and are able to use their strengths on the job.

Notably, then, the employee experience, including engagement, has become a key part of attracting and retaining talent, according to the majority of C-suite and human capital leaders who responded to a recent survey by Randstad Enterprises. The findings make a critical point: Businesses need to stand out by delivering an outstanding talent experience throughout an employee’s experience at the organization, from initially attracting potential hires through their career transitions and retirement, Randstad said.

To prevent disengagement, it’s cost effective to invest in existing employees, a VP of people previously told HR Dive. And that goes back to prioritizing the areas (retention drivers like total compensation and work-life balance) that impact the likelihood an employee with stay with the organization, according to McLean.

Read the full report here