10 Employee engagement statistics to know in 2022

Employee engagement is a critical way to create success for your business. However, there is still a long way to go to activate the best employee engagement strategies. Here are some of the most important statistics on engaged employees that you can use to guide your strategies and make sure your team is happy and thriving in the workplace.

First of all, what is employee engagement? Simply put, it ensures that workers are enthusiastic and feel connected with the company. This is based on several factors, such as communication, integrity, and trust, alongside informing your employees of the direction the company is taking, and their role and place in those strategies.

The importance of employee engagement in the workplace

The importance of employee engagement cannot be overstated. It is deeply linked to many factors of success for any business or organisation. Having engaged and keen employees has several benefits - high employee retention, high employee satisfaction, improved productivity - to name a few.  

Making sure that you have engaged employees helps to push productivity, profits, and employee satisfaction. All of this means that your company can attract great talent and get the most out of your employees.

Top-10 employee engagement statistics

Still unsure how it affects your business, or not sure where to focus on improving employee engagement? Here are some of the top employee engagement statistics in 2022 to prove the importance of focusing on this part of your company’s message and structure:

1. Only 21% of people are engaged at work

Only slightly over one-fifth of people feel actively engaged at work, which leaves a great deal of progress to be made. This suggests that each individual company could find new ways to improve their engagement and see huge returns in terms of productivity and revenue if they make sure that a higher percentage of their workforce is engaged.

2. 33% of employees have good overall well-being 

Wellbeing links directly to an employee’s productivity. Employees with low well-being are unlikely to be working at their best. It is also linked heavily to engagement. 95% of employees with high well-being said they felt respected and engaged at work, suggesting one very simple way to improve in this area. Plus, employee well-being can lead to a productivity increase of up to 23%, meaning that there is no downside to improving this area for all your employees.

3. Good engagement makes companies up to 22% more profitable

On top of the increased productivity from improving wellbeing, you can also boost profit directly through engagement. When everyone is working their hardest, increased profits are a natural consequence, and people will only want to work their hardest if they feel engaged. This can be best achieved by making sure that all your employees know the direction the company is taking, that everyone knows what their exact role is, and ensuring that people feel connected with their team and managers.

4. Low engagement costs the global economy $7.8 trillion

The estimated cost of engagement issues to the global economy is huge. This is an area where tapping into employee engagement can result in big positives, especially since most ways of increasing engagement don’t need to cost a lot of money. This means that you can look at improving engagement and easily recoup any costs that you incur while doing so, making this a win-win approach.

5. 43% of UK workers think about looking for a job at other companies 

One of the most important benefits of good engagement with employees is the ability to attract and retain great talent. However, community, culture, and engagement are often cited as reasons for people wanting to find a job elsewhere. With 43% of UK employees thinking about looking for jobs elsewhere, this creates risks including dropped profits, productivity, and team morale. Focusing on employee engagement can help ensure that people stay, and stay happy.

6. The UK is in the bottom 48% compared to other regions

While it might seem good to be near the middle point for employee engagement stats, this is not a safe place to be. With a wider opportunity of job roles available as remote opportunities, employees are no longer as limited to working for UK-based organisations. This means that UK companies need to focus on being better than average, or better, than competitors to keep employees and to compete on the global stage.

7. 19% of workers feel actively disengaged

While engagement is a good metric to consider, disengagement is also an issue. If you think of engagement as a good thing, disengagement is bad, while the space in the middle is people who respond that they are neither engaged nor disengaged. People who are actively disengaged are more likely to show absenteeism, avoid working additional hours or contributing during group projects and meetings, and are the most likely to quit jobs.

8. 10% say that poor engagement at work causes relationship difficulties with loved ones

Following the pandemic, there has been a focus for a lot of employees on redressing their home-life balance. If people see that active disengagement in their job is causing difficulties in their relationships — through poor behaviours, short tempers, and mental health issues — then they are more likely to seek out alternate employment. This can often cause companies to lose people who are otherwise very good at their role. It can also cause huge issues with internal promotions and advancement, as people are less likely to want to take on additional responsibilities within their company. This can be combated with good engagement and making sure that employees want to help the company succeed.

9. Being on good terms with one’s boss can increase engagement by up to 70%

One very simple method for improving employee engagement is to ensure that people are familiar with their bosses. Working for someone you never talk to or see risks dehumanising the leaders of a company and drops the desire employees have to work hard. Making sure that all employees know the boss and that everyone feels respected and appreciated by the leadership of the company, are surefire ways to boost engagement.

10. Employee engagement only rose 1% globally in 2021 

Since the 2020 pandemic, many have suffered engagement issues at work due to remote working, redressing work-life balances, and general wellbeing issues. There has still not been significant improvement yet, but employees are starting to look for other job opportunities that may offer higher engagement and satisfaction. This means that 2022 and 2023 are important times to focus on this in order to try to keep top talent around.

Find further statistics on employee engagement in the above-linked sources. We have highlighted the top figures that showcase how important engagement is and how to make easy improvements.

Improving employee engagement

These statistics have shown how important it is to work on improvement in employee engagement and productivity, now you might be wondering how exactly to implement these into your company team and strategy.

The first step is, of course, measuring employee engagement. This can be done in a few simple ways. Firstly, set goals that you can measure your success against. This usually includes criteria such as employee absenteeism, employee retention, or getting good feedback from employees. You can also use measures like an employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS). Checkout our guide on how to measure employee engagement.

Once you know how good your employee engagement is, consider how much you need to improve, alongside specific data that can be utilised to identify key areas of improvement. Some will be quicker fixes, while other methods might take longer to bear fruit.

Consider new and fun ways to help your progress - such as how to improve employee engagement with user-generated video content. Having employees involved in making fun video content such as quizzes, competitions, or social videos helps create a great sense of community and culture for your company. You can also use videos for Question & Answer sessions with management, helping promote transparency and a sense of engagement.

One of the most important aspects here is consistency. Even if you manage to improve engagement very quickly, bear in mind that culture and respect are important to your employees, and keep ensuring that no one feels disengaged.

Utilise these key statistics to develop your own, unique employee engagement strategy that works for your company and your team. Listen to your team and support them in making the workplace culture a great one. In turn, you’ll see improved engagement, retention, and attainment of top talent.