10 Things You Need to Know About Employee Engagement

Modern Survey recently wrapped up its Spring 2015 U.S. Workforce Employee Engagement Study, which looked at how employees feel about their organizations, their leaders and their individual sense of future at work. The study revealed 10 things that every HR professional and business leader needs to know about the mindset of their employees:
1. Engagement is still high. In the eight years Modern Survey has been measuring engagement, the level of “Fully Engaged” employees is at the second highest point (at 14%) ever recorded, only slightly lower than Fall 2014 (16%). The level of “Disengaged” employees is also low in comparative terms at 23%. The only time it was lower was in the Fall of 2014 (22%).
2. Managers are looking elsewhere. According to the study, 31% of people managers are “currently looking for a job at another organization.” That compares to just 23% of individual (non-managerial) contributors.
3. Values are important in making engagement possible. Of the people who said their organization doesn’t have a set of values, only 1% are “Fully Engaged.”
4. Corporate Social Responsibility is an employment brand imperative. Across the U.S. workforce, 61% of employees say it’s is important for them “to work at an organization that is socially responsible.”
5. People want security. The strongest driver of employee engagement is “belief in the future of the organization” followed closely by the ability to “grow and develop.” Both of these drivers strongly support the notion that employees continue to be concerned about their job security.
6. Social media use at work differs widely by generation. Only 26% of Baby Boomers follow their organization on social media. Among Gen-Xers it’s 40%. For Gen-Y it’s 49%.
7. There’s a lot of untapped creativity out there. While 61% of the U.S. Workforce consider themselves “very creative,” only 48% of employees feel they have the opportunity to use their creativity at work.
8. There’s a big gender gap. On a list of 44 items covering aspects of employee engagement, organizational capabilities and the direction of the organization, women responded less favorably than men in all cases, and they were significantly less favorable on 34 of the 44 items.
9. The sales team is engaged. 21% of sales employees are “Fully Engaged” compared with only 13% of non-sales employees.
10. Wellness programs are becoming increasingly popular. Only 27% of employees say their organization don’t have a wellness program. Among employees working at organizations with a wellness program, 43% say they’re “actively involved” in the program.
For more information on this study, go to www.modernsurvey.com/spring2015