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Gallup scientists have been exploring the demands of a life well-lived since the mid-20 th century. More recently, in partnership with leading economists, psychologists, and other acclaimed scientists, we began to explore the common elements of well-being that transcend countries and cultures.

In our initial research, we asked people what "the best possible future" for them would look like.

As part of this research, Gallup conducted a comprehensive global study of more than 150 countries, giving us a lens into the well-being of more than 98% of the world's population. From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, we asked hundreds of questions about health, wealth, relationships, jobs, and communities. We then compared these results to how people experience their days and evaluate their lives overall.

In our initial research, we asked people what "the best possible future" for them would look like. We found that when evaluating their lives, people often give disproportionate weight to income and health: Across the groups we surveyed, "good health" and "wealth" were two of the most common responses. Perhaps this is because these things are easy to measure and track over time -- we can monitor our height, weight, blood pressure, and household income. Yet we do not have a standard way to measure the quality of our careers or the health of our relationships.

So to construct a comprehensive measure of individual well-being, Gallup designed an assessment composed of the best questions we have asked over the last 50 years. To create this assessment, the Well-Being Finder, we tested hundreds of questions across countries, languages, and vastly different life situations.

Upon completion of the research, five distinct statistical factors emerged. These are the universal elements of well-being that differentiate a thriving life from one spent suffering. They describe aspects of our lives that we can do something about and that are important to people in every situation we studied.
The elements
These elements are the currency of a life that matters. They do not include every nuance of what's important in life, but they do represent five broad categories that are essential to most people.

The first element is about how you occupy your time or simply liking what you do every day: your Career Well-Being.

The second element is about having strong relationships and love in your life: your Social Well-Being.

The third element is about effectively managing your economic life: your Financial Well-Being.

The fourth element is about having good health and enough energy to get things done on a daily basis: your Physical Well-Being.

The fifth element is about the sense of engagement you have with the area where you live: your Community Well-Being.

While 66% of people are doing well in at least one of these areas, just 7% are thriving in all five. If we're struggling in any one of these domains, as most of us are, it damages our well-being and wears on our daily life. When we strengthen our well-being in any of these areas, we will have better days, months, and decades. But we're not getting the most out of our lives unless we're living effectively in all five.

Although these elements are universal across faiths, cultures, and nationalities, people take different paths to increasing their individual well-being. For many people, spirituality drives them in all these areas. Their faith is the most important facet of their lives, and it is the foundation of their daily efforts. For others, a deep mission, such as protecting the environment, inspires them each day. While the things that motivate us differ greatly from one person to the next, the outcomes do not.

There are many ways to create thriving Career, Social, Financial, Physical, and Community Well-Being. Because these critical elements are within our control, we have the ability to improve them (for example, exercising, spending more time with friends, or using money wisely). However, the single biggest threat to our own well-being tends to be ourselves. Without even giving it much thought, we allow our short-term decisions to override what's best for our long-term well-being.
Working against our own best interests
We know that physical activity will improve our health, yet we skip exercising. Missing one workout won't give us a heart attack or cause a stroke -- so we let ourselves off the hook for a day.

We know that too much sugar and fried foods are bad for our health. But we grab a handful of candy or chips without even thinking. One french fry can't cause diabetes or obesity, right?

As long as we allow short-term desires to win, it will be difficult to effect long-term behavioral change.

Similarly, we know it's important to spend quality time with our friends and family, but when work is pressing, we don't stop to ask a friend how he is doing.

When we think about our personal finances, we often spend instead of saving. Putting money into a retirement plan would yield several times its original value later on, but spending it on an indulgent purchase is so much more appealing right now.

With so many options to satisfy ourselves in the moment, it can be difficult to make the right long-term decisions. It is, after all, in our nature to do things that will provide the most immediate reward. This is wired into our DNA for basic survival. For decades, psychologists have described increases in the ability to delay gratification as a cornerstone of human development from childhood to adulthood.

But the reality is, our short-term self still wins and gets dessert, despite objections from our long-term self that wants a healthy body and a long life. For example, when we asked more than 23,000 people about their purchasing habits, only 10% said that they buy candy regularly. But when we asked the same group of people later in the survey if there was a bowl of candy sitting right in front of them if they would eat some, more than 70% admitted they would.

As long as we allow short-term desires to win, it will be difficult to effect long-term behavioral change. However, we learned from people with the highest levels of well-being that there is a simple solution to this problem: If we can find short-term incentives that are consistent with our long-term objectives, it is much easier to make the right decisions in the moment.

For example, we're more likely to skip a cheeseburger and fries not when we ponder the long-term risk of obesity or diabetes, but when we consider the short-term reality that devouring it will lead to a "high-fat hangover" that ruins the rest of the day. Or we might choose to exercise tomorrow morning because we know that just 20 minutes of activity can boost our mood for the next 12 hours.

When we can see an immediate payoff, we are more likely to change our behavior in the moment. This aligns our daily actions with our long-term interests.
References
Gallup, G., & Hill, E. (1960). The secrets of a long life. New York: Bernard Geis.

Schelling, T.C. (1978). Egonomics, or the art of self-management. The American Economic Review, 68(2), 290-294.

Sibold, J.S., & Berg, K. (2009, May 29). Mood enhancement persists for up to 12 hours following aerobic exercise. Poster session presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine, Seattle, WA.

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The Five Essential Elements of Well-Being

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Gallup scientists have been exploring the demands of a life well-lived since the mid-20 th century. More recently, in partnership with leading economists, psychologists, and other acclaimed scientists, we began to explore the common elements of well-being that transcend countries and cultures.

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SurveyMonkey. (n.d.). SurveyMonkey's guide to writing survey questions like a pro. Retrieved from https://www.surveymonkey.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Survey_Writing_Guide_NEW.pdf

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Assignment #5

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Engaged employees are rare. Gallup's most recent global research finds only 15% of employees worldwide are engaged at work. According to the latest State of the American Workplace report, just 33% of employed residents in the U.S. are engaged at work.

Engaged workers stand apart from their not-engaged and actively disengaged counterparts because of the discretionary effort they consistently bring to their roles. These employees willingly go the extra mile, work with passion, and feel a profound connection to their company. They are the people who will drive innovation and move your business forward.

Contrast this with actively disengaged employees, who are more or less out to damage your company. Not only are they unhappy at work, but they are intent on acting out their unhappiness. They monopolize managers' time and drive away customers. Whatever engaged employees do -- such as solve problems, innovate, and create new customers -- actively disengaged employees will work to undermine.

The majority of the global workforce is not engaged: most employees reluctantly head to work, lacking energy and passion for their jobs.

Not-engaged employees offer perhaps the greatest untapped opportunity for businesses to improve their performance and profitability. Not-engaged workers can be difficult to spot. They are not overtly hostile or disruptive and likely do just enough to fulfill their job requirements. They sleepwalk through their day, uninspired and lacking motivation. They have little or no concern about customers, productivity, profitability, safety, or quality. They are thinking about lunch or their next break and have essentially "checked out."

The majority of the global workforce is not engaged: most employees reluctantly head to work, lacking energy and passion for their jobs. Converting this group of employees into engaged workers is the most effective strategy that any organization can implement to increase performance and sustainable long-term growth.

Increasing engagement should be a strategic priority.

Measuring employee engagement is important. Measuring the right things -- those that matter most to performance and provide a framework for positive change -- is crucial. Gallup's Q ¹² employee engagement measurement tool is designed to initiate companywide transformation to create sustainable growth. This tool is backed by rigorous science linking it to nine integral performance outcomes.

Every two to four years, Gallup completes meta-analysis research -- a statistical technique that pools multiple studies -- on the Q ¹². In 2016, Gallup conducted its ninth meta-analysis on the Q ¹² using 339 research studies across 230 organizations in 49 industries and 73 countries. Within each study, Gallup researchers statistically calculated the work-unit-level relationship between employee engagement and performance outcomes that the organizations supplied.

Researchers studied 82,248 work units, including nearly 1.8 million employees. This latest iteration of the meta-analysis further confirmed the well-established connection between employee engagement and key performance outcomes:

customer ratings

profitability

productivity

turnover (for high-turnover and low-turnover organizations)

safety incidents

shrinkage (theft)

absenteeism

patient safety incidents

quality (defects)

Gallup researchers studied the differences in performance between engaged and actively disengaged work units and found that those scoring in the top half on employee engagement nearly doubled their odds of success compared with those in the bottom half.

Work units in the top quartile in employee engagement outperformed bottom-quartile units by 10% on customer ratings, 17% in productivity, 20% in sales, and 21% in profitability. Work units in the top quartile also saw significantly less turnover (24% in high-turnover organizations and 59% in low-turnover organizations), shrinkage (28%), and absenteeism (41%) and fewer safety incidents (70%), patient safety incidents (58%), and quality defects (40%). (See graphic "Engagement's Effect on Key Business Outcomes.")

The 2016 meta-analysis verified once again that employee engagement relates to each of the nine performance outcomes studied. Gallup also finds that the strong correlations between engagement and performance are highly consistent across different organizations from diverse industries and regions of the world.

Building a Constituency of Engaged Employees

Though important at the organizational level, engagement starts with each person and is subjective. Employees don't check their personalities at the door when they come to work. Knowing that they are respected as individuals at work can have a significant impact on how employees view their overall lives.

Each person's potential extends well beyond his or her job description. And tapping that potential means recognizing how an employee's unique set of beliefs, talents, goals, and life experiences drives his or her performance, personal success, and wellbeing.

Managers and leaders should know their people -- who they are, not just what they do. Every interaction with an employee has the potential to influence his or her engagement and inspire discretionary effort. How leaders manage their employees can substantially affect engagement levels in the workplace, in turn influencing the company's bottom line. Here are five strategies organizations can use to help build their constituency of engaged employees:

1. Use the right employee engagement survey.

When a company asks its employees for their opinions, those employees expect action to follow. But businesses often make the mistake of using employee surveys to collect data that are irrelevant or impossible to act on. Any survey data must be specific, relevant, and actionable for any team at any organizational level. Data should also be proven to influence key performance metrics.

2. Focus on engagement at the local and organizational levels.

Real change occurs at the local workgroup level, but it happens only when company leaders set the tone from the top. Companies realize the most benefit from engagement initiatives when leaders weave employee engagement into performance expectations for managers and enable them to execute on those expectations. Managers and employees must feel empowered to make a significant difference in their immediate environment.

Leaders and managers should work with employees to identify barriers to engagement and opportunities to effect positive change. Employees are familiar with the company's processes, systems, products, and customers. They are also experts on themselves and their teams. So it makes sense that they will have the best ideas to maximize these elements and deliver improved performance, business innovation, and better workplace experiences.

3. Select the right managers.

The best managers understand that their success and that of the organization relies on employees' achievements. But not everyone can be a great manager. Great managers care about their people's success. They seek to understand each person's strengths and provide employees with every opportunity to use their strengths in their role. Great managers empower their employees, recognize and value their contributions, and actively seek their ideas and opinions.

It takes talent to be a great manager, and selecting people who have this talent is important. Whether hiring from outside or promoting from within, businesses that scientifically select managers for the unique talents it takes to effectively manage people greatly increase the odds of engaging their employees. Companies should treat the manager role as unique, with distinct functional demands that require a specific talent set.

4. Coach managers and hold them accountable for their employees' engagement.

Gallup's research has found that managers are primarily responsible for their employees' engagement levels. Companies should coach managers to take an active role in building engagement plans with their employees, hold managers accountable, track their progress, and ensure that they continuously focus on emotionally engaging their employees. The most successful managers view the Q ¹² as the elements for great managing, not just questions for measuring. By doing so, they gain a powerful framework to guide the creation of a strong, engaged workplace.

5. Define engagement goals in realistic, everyday terms.

To bring engagement to life, leaders must make engagement goals meaningful to employees' day-to-day experiences. Describing what success looks like using powerful descriptions and emotive language helps give meaning to goals and builds commitment within a team. Make sure that managers discuss employee engagement at weekly meetings, in action-planning sessions, and in one-on-one meetings with employees to weave engagement into daily interactions and activities and to make it part of the workplace's DNA.

Leaders in the best companies strategically align their employee engagement efforts. They find ways to communicate engagement's effect throughout the year and share best practices across the organization. They use every opportunity, touchpoint, and communication channel to reinforce and recognize the organization's commitment to employee engagement. They integrate employee engagement fully into the business' lexicon.

If employees truly are a company's best asset, then leaders and managers should make caring for them a priority. Organizations have a valuable opportunity to transform their employees' work experiences into ones that are fulfilling and motivating -- and that allow workers to bring their best to work every day.

Learn how to build an exceptional and thriving workplace:

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5 Ways to Improve Employee Engagement Now

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Engaged employees are rare. Gallup's most recent global research finds only 15% of employees worldwide are engaged at work. According to the latest State of the American Workplace report, just 33% of employed residents in the U.S. are engaged at work.

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Definition of Best Practices in Worksite Wellness

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Definition of Best Practices in Worksite Wellness

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A successful worksite wellness program increases the health, productivity, and retention of the company’s employees.  There is a strong connection between well-being and engagement (Robinson, 2013).  Companies must engage their employees, at the individual and organizational level, in certain strategies that include interventions such as health related programs, policies, health benefits, and environmental support.  The strongest workplace programs are ones that build a culture of health by a combination of individual health needs and the company’s overall goals and are backed by senior leadership (Scovill, n.d.).  This will help employees achieve physical, mental, and emotional well-being by promoting healthy behaviors such as diet, physical activity, stress management, and tobacco cessation (Workplace health program, n.d.).  These days, worksite wellness centers offer a continuum of care and can be seamlessly integrated with offsite resources, which makes it easier for employees to participate and optimize their well-being, while also helps the company better manage its healthcare costs and maintain productivity (Khoury, n.d.).

Resources

Khoury, A. (n.d). The evolution of worksite wellness. Corporate Wellness

Magazine.com. Retrieved from http://www.corporatewellnessmagazine.com/worksite-wellness/the-evolution-of/

Robinson, J. (2013, March 19). How to create a culture of organizational wellbeing. Business

Journal. Retreived from http://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/159080/create-culture-organizational-wellbeing.aspx

Scovill, S. What is best practice? [Video file]. Retrieved from

https://uwpks.instructure.com/courses/244381/pages/video-presentation-best-practices?module_item_id=3614980

Workplace health program definition and description. Retrieved from

https://www.cdc.gov/workplacehealthpromotion/pdf/workplace-health-program-definition-and-description.pdf

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Toolkit - HAP Worksite Wellness Workbook

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Toolkit - HAP Worksite Wellness Workbook

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Unlock More

About this Survey

The 24th annual Willis Towers Watson Best Practices in Health Care Employer Survey was completed by U.S. employers between June and July 2019, and reflects respondents' 2019 health program decisions and strategies. Respondents collectively employ 11.3 million employees and operate in all major industry sectors. Results provided are based on 610 employers with at least 100 employees.

U.S. employers' top priority for the next three years is controlling health care costs while making health care affordable for employees. Already high health care costs are projected to rise again nearly 5% next year, well above the rate of inflation. Although two-thirds of employers say they've made progress containing health care costs and improving affordability over the past three years, work remains to be done.

of employers see affordability and costs as an important priority over the next three years.

Our survey reveals a number of levers - short- and longer-term strategies - that employers can pull across all areas to address this challenge.

At the same time, recognizing that employees value health benefits, 95% ¹ of employers are very confident their organizations will continue to sponsor health care benefits in five years. Moreover, employers' longer-term commitment to sponsoring these benefits in 10 years grew to 74% ¹ (up from 69% in 2018), reaching the highest level in the past decade.

of employers are very confident their organization will continue to sponsor health care benefits to active employees in five years.

Increasingly, employers are putting employees at the center of their health and wellbeing strategies. Consequently, there is a growing emphasis on understanding employee wants and needs. With better insight into what employees value, employers can build programs that prioritize affordability and focus on the following three objectives:

This approach will help employers in today's tight labor market develop more holistic benefit programs that attract and engage talent, enabling employees to thrive and organizations to prosper.

Source: 2019 Willis Towers Watson Best Practices in Health Care Employer Survey, companies with at least 100 employees
1 Sample: Companies with at least 1,000 employees

Survey results at a glance

74% are confident that the organization will continue to sponsor health care benefits in 10 years, an increase of 5 percentage points from 2018 ¹

Tackling affordability and costs

Cost increases remain steady at 5% before plan changes

68% have made progress over the past three years

93% say affordability and costs for the business and members is a top priority over the next three years, but...

63% indicate that continued progress will be their biggest difficulty over the next three years

50% have made progress on enhancing employees' total wellbeing over the past three years

83% think it's important to enhance employees' total wellbeing in the next three years, but...

Only 41% agree that their wellbeing programs meet employees' needs

Only 30% say their programs inspire employees to achieve their personal goals

Top wellbeing actions by 2021

Top clinical condition

will emphasize mental/behavioural health over the next three years

will enhance navigation to services to improve mental/behavioural health during this period

Capture the potential of telebehavioral health

89% are expected to offer coverage for telebehavioral health services by 2021, up from 72% today

Prioritize technology to support employee wellbeing
Actions by 2021

55% have a formal technology strategy to support wellbeing programs and goals

70% offer apps and connected devices for condition management or reducing health risks

78% integrate wellbeing vendors and employee experience across physical, financial, social and emotional wellbeing

Highlights

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2019 Best Practices in Health Care Employer Survey Highlights

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Unlock More About this Survey The 24th annual Willis Towers Watson Best Practices in Health Care Employer Survey was completed by U.S. employers between June and July 2019, and reflects respondents' 2019 health program decisions and strategies. Respondents collectively employ 11.3 million employees and operate in all major industry sectors.

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Mind Map Free - Free Mind Mapping Software | MindMeister

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WELCOA Employee Needs & Interests Survey

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WELCOA Employee Needs & Interests Survey

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Used to determine what your employees are interested in getting out of your wellness program

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WELCOA-Employee Needs and Interests Survey

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Comparing Two Models of Employee Engagement_ An Examination of An

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As artificial intelligence technology continues to develop, the demand for workers with the ability to work alongside and manage AI systems will increase. This means that workers who are not able to adapt and learn these new skills will be left behind in the job market.

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How to Develop and Sustain Employee Engagement

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Discover proven strategies to enhance employee engagement and drive business success. Explore our comprehensive toolkit to develop and sustain engagement.

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December 2017 / January 2018

Most companies spend a great amount of time and money to make sure employees are fully committed each day to giving their all to help the organization succeed. But polls show that employee engagement has hardly budged in the past 15 years. Programs and annual engagement surveys aren't the answer. Giving managers the right tools to motivate the workforce is. My company has studied the specific actions managers can take to maximize engagement with their teams, and I share those insights inRaise Your Team's Employee Engagement Score: A Manager's Guide (Amacom, 2017).

Here are 10 ways your organization can determine whether supervisors are building highly engaged teams, along with suggestions to help make it happen:

1. Rate supervisors on engagement-building behaviors and give them their scores. Hold supervisors accountable for desired behaviors and outcomes associated with building highly engaged teams by periodically giving them their own engagement survey scores.

2. Monitor whether they build trust. Start with how they manage their relationship with their own supervisor. Are they completely transparent? Willing to admit a mistake and apologize? Publicly support company policies and decisions?

3. Determine whether they are courageous enough to hire top performers. Substandard supervisors tend to hire moderate performers, employees they like or employees who remind them of themselves, rather than employees who can think better and do more than they can. Top-level supervisors appreciate an occasional smart challenge from below.

4. Encourage them to coach top performers to do even better. The tendency is to coach poor performers and assume top performers don't need help. In fact, coaching top performers to perform even better provides the best opportunities to increase productivity.

5. Gauge their ability to identify poor performers early, coach them and fire them when necessary. Top supervisors know there are a limited number of chairs and each must be filled with someone who pulls their weight and makes colleagues better. Co-workers often see performance weaknesses before supervisors do and start the clock on whether action will be taken.

6. Make sure they address employees who disrupt the team. Some employees perform their jobs well but make work difficult for others. Unusual ways of working are OK, but those that make others uncomfortable or sabotage work are not.

7. Ask your supervisors to conduct periodic stay interviews with their teams. Train supervisors on how to conduct stay interviews so they can build interview skills, ask questions and create engagement-boosting plans that work.

8. Ask them to forecast engagement levels for their teams. Supervisors should learn to forecast each of their team's engagement scores and present their results.

9. Monitor employee turnover and inter-company transfers. Tell supervisors from day one that your policy is to meet with employees who are leaving to learn the reasons why.

10. Be available to two-levels-down employees. Call them by name, build relationships with them, find ways to work on assignments with them, and be available. Walk the fine line between not encouraging end runs but being there for someone who reports to a supervisor below you.

Raising engagement isn't a short-term project. Helping managers learn and apply practices that boost engagement is a long-term solution.
Richard P. Finnegan is the CEO of C-Suite Analytics, a consultancy specializing in engagement and retention solutions based in Orlando, Fla.

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Employee Engagement Issues? Use These 10 Tips to Get Managers Engaged

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December 2017 / January 2018 Most companies spend a great amount of time and money to make sure employees are fully committed each day to giving their all to help the organization succeed. But polls show that employee engagement has hardly budged in the past 15 years.

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Much has been studied about the impact of employee engagement on company performance, and there is general agreement that increased engagement drives results: Gallup, for example, suggests a 20% or better boost to productivity and profitability for companies with high engagement. Such companies, however, may be few and far between: Gallup also reports that only 30% of American workers, and 13% of global workers, are engaged in their jobs.

Taken together, it's easy to see why so many companies are talking about it and making it a priority. But when you look at how engagement gets measured, that's where things start to break down a bit.

The typical approach is an annual engagement survey where employees are effectively asked, through various types of questions, to rate their own level of engagement. Assuming honest survey responses, this approach provides good input into the employee attitude side of the equation (for example, how engaged they perceive themselves to be), but, unfortunately it doesn't do a good job of gathering objective data on just how engaged employees actually are (for example, discretionary effort). While knowing what employees think certainly has value, this data suffers from the same challenges of any other survey-based effort: it becomes dated quickly, there's availability bias from respondents thinking of only recent events, and potentially gamed results - people telling you what they think you want to hear rather than what they really think.

The field of people analytics is opening the door to much better data, and there are more direct measures for companies trying to better understand engagement levels. A company might begin by analyzing the following:

The amount of work that occurs outside of normal working hours (e.g., evenings and weekends). This is a good indicator of discretionary effort.

The number of network connections and time spent with people outside of immediate team or region. Building of broad networks beyond core team is a sign of high engagement.

The percentage of participation in ad-hoc meetings and initiatives vs. recurring meetings and processes. Participation in only highly structured events can be an indicator of low engagement.

Time spent collaborating directly with customers outside of normal scope of work. This and other measures like it can indicate people are highly engaged enough to help their colleagues even though they might not get credit for it.

This approach allows you to measure actual engagement rather than self-perceived engagement. Further, you can deploy a number of additional metrics to understand what may actually be driving these engagement levels. Some metrics we have found to be valuable are:
Management quality and time investment, which can consist of:

Time spent in one-on-ones with their manager per week. Engagement typically increases as an individual gets more time with his or her boss.

Time spent in presence of skip-level leadership. Engagement can increase as people get more exposure to colleagues up the ladder.

Network quality and breadth of their manager. Engagement often increases in people who have well-connected direct managers.

The percent of a manager's time spent with team. A number that's too low or too high typically decreases engagement.

Influence from colleagues - because the engagement levels of colleagues is infectious - including:

The ratio of highly engaged employees vs. low on a current team.

The ratio of highly engaged employees vs. low with a person's most frequent co-collaborators.

Relationships:

The number of strong tie connections, defined as strong relationships characterized by frequent and relatively intimate interactions. Engagement typically increases as people have more, and stronger, relationships.

The number of weak tie connections, which are infrequent interactions with people outside of an individual's core working team. Engagement typically increases as people are exposed to ideas from beyond their core relationships.

Variability of network over time, or the extent to which an individual's core network fluctuates month over month. Very high volatility can indicate a rapid change in role and be unsettling for employees, while very low variability can indicate someone stagnating.

Work schedule:

Hours per week spent in meetings with more than 20 attendees. Not surprisingly, engagement typically decreases the more time people spend in very large group settings where it is hard to be much more than an audience member.

Calendar fragmentation, which is when people don't have enough meaningful time - about a two-hour break - to work between meetings and other events. Engagement typically decreases when people are overly fragmented.

When this information is paired with traditional attitudinal data such as satisfaction scores, pulse surveys, or annual survey-driven engagement measures, they come together to give an even more accurate picture of what engagement truly means - and where your company is falling short. You can then monitor changes in the data in the form of anonymized dashboard tools, often in real-time, or it can be shared transparently with employees so they have a better context for engagement and how they compare with their colleagues in aggregate.

Through my work at VoloMetrix, I've seen first-hand the results that measuring employee engagement can have on firms. One company with an extraordinary talent shortage ran a study with several quarters of anonymized voluntary attrition data in combination with a number of people analytics metrics to see if there was a correlation. The results were staggering. You could literally see a steady week-by-week change in behaviors for employees starting a full 52 weeks in advance of the event, leading right up to the moment they quit. With very high correlations, these employees were spending less time interacting with people outside of their department or region, less time in ad-hoc interactions, and less time being active outside of normal working hours, among other things. What this data makes clear is that the majority of these employees hadn't decided to quit a year in advance; rather, their engagement levels started dropping... and dropping... and dropping... until they got to the point where they realized it was time to quit. With this information in hand, the company started measuring engagement and providing feedback to managers with plenty of time to make appropriate adjustments to retain their top people.

There are many factors that contribute to employee engagement - ranging from corporate culture to management style to competing priorities outside of work - and the pertinent factors are different for each employee. This complexity is what makes it so challenging to measure and understand engagement in an actionable way. While still in its infancy, people analytics is beginning to give organizations the data and tools to understand what drives engagement, perhaps even better than employees understand themselves. Qualitative data from Gallup's engagement survey and others like it has been sufficient to prove the case for greater investment. Now, with the ability to directly measure engagement, there is no telling what organizations and employees themselves will learn about what drives them.

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A Primer on Measuring Employee Engagement

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Much has been studied about the impact of employee engagement on company performance, and there is general agreement that increased engagement drives results: Gallup, for example, suggests a 20% or better boost to productivity and profitability for companies with high engagement.

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Statistics provide insight into the importance of being engaged at work. Where employees are happiest, productivity is 147% higher than in industries or companies where engagement is low. Happy employees are less likely to make mistakes on the job and they suffer fewer safety problems, both likely due to their ability to focus on work rather than thinking of other things to help them get through. They care more about their jobs as well which contributes to a higher level of concentration. Absenteeism and turnover are greatly reduced when employees are satisfied at work. There is 65% less turnover in low-turnover jobs and 25% less in jobs where turnover is higher.

Financial Costs of Employee Disengagement

The opposite is true for companies, which suffer from low levels of engagement among their workforce. Where staff are actively disengaged, companies lose between $450B and $550B each year. Much of the cost is due to staff turnover, absenteeism, and the re-hiring/training process. One might imagine dissatisfied employees phone in sick because they do not care about their jobs, but often they are suffering from job-related stress.

What Causes Employees to Dislike Their Jobs?

The second most common source of stress in the lives of Americans is their job and 60% of those who disengage at work say that stress is the cause. Stress can easily account for many lost days considering the impact this issue has on health. Of those surveyed, 53% were working overtime; 5% were feeling burned-out because they took work home with them; and 38% felt overwhelmed by the demands of their job.

Another problem was finding a reason to go to work apart from earning a paycheck. About half of those surveyed said they were unable to see a purpose in what they were doing, while only 3% of people who were happy in the workplace felt as though they were not contributing to society in their current line of work.

Who is Happiest?

The most engaged generation is in the 70+ age-bracket where only 34% of people are actively seeking new employment. Step back one generation to the Baby Boomers and they are almost as deeply focused on work: 33% are engaged versus 22% seeking new jobs. Many older Americans would say this proves what they believe to be a problem among young people; that they do not commit to anything and fail to stay in jobs, which do not serve their interests. Among Generation-X Americans, engagement is just 2% while almost 40% are looking for a different line of work. The least engaged are Millennials, the youngest group of employees, of which 42% are actively disengaged, but 29% are engaged with work compared with 2% among those classified as "Generation X." According to the figures above, however, this attitude does not reflect how easily accessible employees are outside of work, thanks to technology which connects them via internet during what should be family time.

Broken down according to industries, statistics from 2015 show levels of engagement in construction, office work, services, sales, manufacturing and production. These industries see only about 20% to 30% of employees actively engaged and happy in their work while the rest are either dreaming of or actually looking for another job.

Rules of Engagement

Americans cited stress but also lack of teamwork attributed to poor management as a cause of unhappiness and likely as a cause of stress too. Teamwork is a significant factor in establishing a happy, engaged staff; 69% people said this was a priority.

About three quarters of people, however, said they felt their employers should be setting goals and doing more to improve teamwork. One problem here, however, is that management is frequently responsible for the feeling that teamwork is not important to a company and that employee happiness does not matter. Managers and supervisors either focus on their team members' weaknesses or they ignore their staff entirely.

Where managers concentrated on finding and pointing out an employee's strengths, 61% of staff were satisfied with their jobs. Managers need to develop and engage team-building strategies and reduce staff turnover by setting goals, but 6% had not established a program by the time they were surveyed and 16% had initiated programs that were not doing any good. About 40% of interviewees described manager strategies as either fair or good, respectively. Increasing these figures could lead to considerable cost savings in the form of reduced turnover and significant improvements in efficiency.

A new trend in American workplaces, wherever possible, is for individuals to work from home. Employees in America are strongly in favor of flexible working schedules, which allow staff to take work home with them and even telecommute. Where flexibility is promoted, more than half the workforce is happy. Roughly one third of employees are unhappy where the job is considered inflexible even though the work could feasibly be taken home and telecommuting is a logical option to relieve workplace stress. This subject is so significant that statistics show it rates as the third most important factor contributing to engagement or disengagement at work.

Social Responsibility

Finally, half those surveyed wanted to be more involved in their employers' socially responsible initiatives; programs promoting fair and ethical trade and ecologically friendly behaviors, for example. More than 90% of employed Americans consider social responsibility to be a priority while 62% cited sustainability as an important consideration as well. Employers who pay attention to these priorities among their staff, adding them to employee retention goals, would be able to increase employees' sense of purpose and decrease dissatisfaction among staff.

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Statistics provide insight into the importance of being engaged at work. Where employees are happiest, productivity is 147% higher than in industries or companies where engagement is low. Happy employees are less likely to make mistakes on the job and they suffer fewer safety problems, both likely due to their ability to focus on work rather than thinking of other things to help them get through.

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Constructing a Driving Question for Employee Engagement

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Constructing a Driving Question for Employee Engagement

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For a wellness program to be successful, the needs, interests, and concerns of the employees must first be well understood to enhance employee engagement.  In 2015, more than 50% of US employees reported that they weren’t engaged in their work (Increasing employee engagement, 2013), which identifies that there are some fundamental problems that need to be addressed. To help increase employee engagement, we need to understand the issue at the root.  What are the financial costs for employee disengagement? What are the causes of employee disengagement? What employees are happiest? Does the company encourage/mandate employee engagement? Is there any social responsibility in the organization’s employee engagement? How can we incorporate employee engagement? With the business competition growing, its important for organization leaders to provide a workplace that is appealing to their employees, who will provide them with a high performing workforce.  This will ensure increased productivity, innovation, retention, and cost reduction for the organization (The impact of employee, 2016).

Resources

The Impact of Employee Engagement on Performance. (2016, April 20). Retrieved from

https://hbr.org/sponsored/2016/04/the-impact-of-employee-engagement-on-performance

Increasing Employee Engagement Strategies. (2018, July 13). Retrieved from

https://appliedpsychologydegree.usc.edu/blog/lack-of-engagement-in-the-workplace/