24 Must-Read Employee Engagement Statistics

Employee Engagement: Is this another passing fad amongst HR professionals or are there real benefits from having a highly engaged workforce?

We’ve collated some of the latest statistics showing why employee engagement is a meaningful metric for managers to measure, and the impact it can have on the bottom line

The Stats

  1. Two-thirds of workers are satisfied with their jobs overall (CIPD)
  2. 18% of workers are very satisfied with their jobs (CIPD)
  3. 46% of workers are satisfied with their jobs (CIPD)
  4. Roughly one-fifth of workers are dissatisfied and are likely to quit their role in the next year (CIPD)
  5. 59% of UK workers would work even if they didn’t need the money (CIPD)
  6. Nearly half of all jobs fail to provide decent career development (CIPD)
  7. 30% of workers have workloads that are to some extent unmanageable (CIPD)
  8. 1 in 20 workers are swamped by what they do each day at work with ‘far too much’ work (CIPD)
  9. 80% of employees rate their relationship with their managers positively (CIPD)
  10. 44% of workers say work has a positive impact on their mental health (CIPD)
  11. 55% of workers feel under excessive pressure, exhausted or regularly miserable (CIPD)
  12. The average employee works five hours per week more that they would like to (CIPD)
  13. Nearly two-thirds would like to reduce their hours (CIPD)
  14. Employees in the private sector are the most positive about having a voice in the workplace (CIPD)
  15. Employees in the voluntary sector are the most least about having a voice in the workplace (CIPD)
  16. Organisations with high employee engagement levels outperform their low engagement counterparts in total shareholder returns and higher annual net income (EngageForSuccess)
  17. Companies with high and sustainable engagement levels had an average 1 year operating margin that was close to 3 times higher than those with lower engagement (Towers Watson)
  18. 70% of the more engaged companies have a good understanding of customer needs against only 17% of the disengaged (PWC)
  19. 59% of the more engaged employees say that work brings out their most creative ideas, against 3% of the less engaged (Gallup 2007)
  20. 94% of the world’s most admired companies believe that their efforts to engage their employees have created a competitive advantage (Hay)
  21. Companies with highly engaged staff report employees taking an average of 7 absence days per year, approximately half the 14 days per year reported in low engagement companies (EngageForSuccess)
  22. Highly engaged organisations have the potential to reduce staff turnover by 87%; the disengaged are four times more likely to leave the organisation than the average employee (CLC 2008)
  23. Rentokil found that their teams that most improved engagement saw retention increase 6.7%, providing an estimated saving of almost £7million
  24. 54% of the disengaged say work has a negative effect on their physical health as against 12% of the engaged (Gallup).