In yesterday’s webinar, I shared a blizzard of engagement factoids. As promised, here’s a handy listing of each by topic, followed by the source.

Introduction

• Only 29% of employees are truly engaged. (Gallup)
• Despite all the investment and attention in recent years, engagement is actually decreasing. (Gallup, Conference Board)
• HR professionals identify engagement as their absolute #1 biggest challenge going forward. (SHRM)

Disengagement Dangers

• Disengaged employees are 5 times more likely to leave than engaged employees. (Cornell)
• Only 13% of disengaged employees recommend their company’s products/services, compared to 78% of engaged employees. (Gallup)
• Disengaged employees are more likely to suffer from coronary disease, be hospitalized and have negative carry-over impacts on their children and marriages. (Various)
• Generally, IT is the least engaged department and Sales is the most. (BlessingWhite)

Cleanse

• Only 50-59% of meetings are useful. (Blawg)
• We spend 744 hours a year in meetings. (Verizon/Infocom)
• Therefore, the average person wastes 9 weeks each year in useless meetings (a total of 57.3 billion hours in the U.S. each year). (Blawg; Bureau of Labor Statistics)
• 66% of us spend less than an hour each week thinking about employee engagement. (Blawg)
• After vendor-administered surveys, the next most popular means of tracking enagement is exit interviews. (SHRM)

Warm-up

• Only 50.3% of our audience conducts engagement surveys, compared to the 42% national average. (Blawg; SHRM)
• How frequently does our audience conduct surveys? The top 3 responses: “Never” (49%), “Annually” (30%) and “Every Two Years” (10%). (Blawg)
• 44% never follow up their surveys with concrete action plans, while 30% sometimes do and 26% always do. (Blawg)

Core

• Pay doesn’t rank among the top 4 engagement drivers. (Right Management and others)
• Higher-ranking employees tend to be more engaged, as are those who are longer tenured, older employees and who work most closely with clients. (BlessingWhite)
• Engagement doesn’t appear to vary significantly by gender or whether an organization is centralized vs. decentralized. (BlessingWhite)
• It’s all about LOVE. The #1 thing senior leaders can do to engage employees is to “value” them (Right Management), “care” about them (Monster/Unum) and be “genuinely interested in their well-being” (Towers Watson)
• 48% of employees feel un-loved/un-valued at work. (American Psychological Association)

6 E’s of Engagement: ENVISION

• The more you help employees focus by giving them a clear vision, the more engaged/happy they’ll be. (January/February 2012 Harvard Business Review)
• Our minds wander up to 50% of the time and when they wander our mood tends to drop. (January/February 2012 Harvard Business Review)
• Only 52% of employees trust their executives. (BlessingWhite)

6 E’s of Engagement: EMPATHIZE

• Only 43% of employees say their manager has any idea what motivates them. (Orange Revolution)
• One of the 3 key “job misery” factors is “no one knows me.” (Patrick Lencioni)

6 E’s of Engagement: ENHANCE

• The best way for a manager to engage employees is to have a 1-1 discussion about development. (Right Management)
• The #1 engagement factor across most geographies is “career development opportunities and training.” (BlessingWhite)
• The #1 source of work discontent is limited opportunities for enhancement/growth. (American Psychological Association)

6 E’s of Engagement: EMPOWER

• A 200,000-person study found empowerment to be a critical engagement factor. (Orange Revolution)
• “Irrelevance” (aka “me and my job don’t matter) is one of the 3 key “job misery” factors. (Patrick Lencioni)
• Flexibility is one of the top 3 engagement factors. (BlessingWhite)
• Nearly 80% of employees would stay with their company longer if offered flexible work options, nearly half would swap pay for flexibility (with a 6% average pay cut). (Mom Corps)
• Virtual work results in significant productivity and well-being gains, including more time, more sleep (52 minutes a day), reduced family conflict and reduced stress. (University of Minnesota)
• 88% of engaged employees feel empowered and believe they can positively impact the quality of their organization’s products and services, while only 38% of disengaged employees feel the same. (Towers Watson)

6 E’s of Engagement: EVALUATE

• “Immeasurement” is another one of the 3 key “job misery” factors. (Patrick Lencioni)

6 E’s of Engagement: ENCOURAGE

• The best way to boost your mood and productivity during a work-day break is to praise/help a co-worker. (May 2012 Harvard Business Review)
• In high-performing teams, positive feedback outweighs negative feedback 5:6 to 1. In low-performing teams, positive feedback is only .36 as frequent as negative feedback. (January/February 2012 Harvard Business Review)
• Only 47% of employees are satisfied with the encouragement they get from managers. (Employee Engagement 2.0)
• When employees feel truly appreciated/celebrated, engagement jumps to 70%. (Orange Revolution)
• If you generally ignore your employees, the chances they’ll be disengaged are 40%. If you focus on their weaknesses, the chances they’ll be disengaged are 22%. If you focus on their strengths, the chances they’ll be disengaged are 1%. (Right Management, Gallup)

Power

• There is a 5x difference in shareholder value between organizations with the most engaged workers and those with the least. (Kenexa)
• Total shareholder return is +18% for the top 25 most engaged companies versus -4% for the bottom 25. (Kenexa)
• Engaged employees are 1.3 times more likely to be high performers. (Intuit)
• Companies with above-average engagement have 6% higher net profit margins. (Towers Watson)