Research from Gallup has found that global employee engagement stagnated and employee wellbeing declined in 2023 after multiple years of steady gains.
Its latest State of the Global Workplace report found that low employee engagement in 2023 cost the UK over £257bn annually, similar to the amount it cost to run the NHS the previous year (11.3% of GDP).
Employees in the UK lag behind Europe across a number of engagement measurements. The report shows that just 10% of workers in Britain are engaged, with nine in 10 either not engaged or actively disengaged in their work. By comparison, 13% of European workers are considered engaged.
Globally, employee engagement held steady at 23% in 2023 after multiple years of steady gains. The majority of the world’s employees continue to struggle at work and in life, with direct consequences for organisational productivity.
“By increasing the UK’s engagement by even a few percentage points, employees and employers could experience major improvements to their bottom line, and in turn, help support our ailing public services,” said Jeremie Brecheisen, Gallup’s UK managing partner.
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“In a general election year, how to improve our workplace performance should be a key consideration for an incoming cabinet.”
The Gallup workplace report also revealed that UK workers have worse emotional wellbeing than their European counterparts.
Stress affected 40% of workers the day before, compared to 37% of European workers. Moreover, 20% of UK workers said they felt angry, and 27% felt sad the previous day, while those emotions were significantly lower for European workers, at 15% and 17%, respectively.
Despite notable labour shortages in the UK, only 48% of workers believe that now is a good time to find a job. This sentiment is slightly more optimistic than French workers (44%) but significantly more pessimistic than German workers (67%).
Less than one-third (31%) of employees in the UK are actively seeking a new job, similar to their European peers (32%).
Gallup found that actively disengaged employees – workers who actively oppose their employer’s goals – make up 15% of the global workforce. Poor job markets are highly correlated with active disengagement. In contrast, countries where it is a good time to find a job have lower active disengagement.
The researchers said the result is that the majority of the world’s employees continue to struggle at work and in life, with direct consequences for productivity.
The US and Canada have the highest regional percentage of engaged employees at 33%, compared to the global average of 23%, with women experiencing higher engagement (35%) than men (31%). The two countries also had the third-highest regional percentage of thriving employees at 53%, compared to the global average of 34%.
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