71% of the U.S workforce is engaged: Report

The Predictive Index conducted a survey of executives, managers, and individual contributors across 20 different industries and secured 3,000+ responses.

The report named Annual Employee Engagement Report 2019 uncovers which factors had the greatest impact on employee engagement and turnover. 

As per the report, about 70 percent of respondents enjoy their job, 69 percent like their co-workers, 64 percent feel favorably about their direct manager, and 60 percent are happy with their company.

“While the report finds 71 percent of the country’s workforce is engaged, a closer look reveals people are more satisfied with their jobs and co-workers and less satisfied with their companies and managers,” shared Daniel Muzquiz, President & Chairman of The Predictive Index.

The report also shows that trust in a company’s future and C-Suite matter most when it comes to engagement.

What drives engagement?

9 of the top 10 engagement drivers involve the organization and its senior leaders (versus job, manager, or coworkers). Faith in the company’s future, trust in senior leadership, and the organization's level of investment in its people have the strongest impact.

Further, almost all of the top 10 drivers of turnover also pertain to organizational matters. As was the case with engagement, whether people choose to stay or leave depends on their faith in the company’s future, its C-Suite, and its people investment.

Engagement dips slightly as companies mature

While the percentage difference is not that high, the findings show that companies five years or younger reported engagement levels of 77 percent compared to 68 percent at companies 30 years and older. 

Additionally, engagement with one’s job also decreased along with the company’s age (77 percent at companies five years old or younger to 67 percent at companies more than 30 years old.

These results imply that business leaders must pay extra attention to pulling the levers that increase engagement as their companies’ mature and career pathing of individuals also become crucial to help increase job satisfaction. 

The relationship between behavioral assessments and employee engagement

The report has further assessed the correlation between behavioral assessments used at the time of hiring and employee engagement. The data shows that average engagement across those who work at companies that use assessments in the hiring process is 84 percent. Of the respondents who said their organization does not use assessments to hire, engagement levels were only 62 percent.

Further, companies that did use cognitive assessments in hiring saw engagement levels of 86 percent Companies that didn’t use cognitive assessments in hiring saw engagement levels of 64 percent.

This could mean that organizations who are not using hiring assessments are struggling to hire people who fit into the role or the culture of the company. 

Employees often quit because of the gap in role expectation or either they don’t relate to the company’s vision. It is extremely crucial that organizations have a strong assessment tool to analyze if a person fits into the job, the team and the company. Both the hiring manager and the candidate must first become aware of each other’s expectations from the job, before a final offer is made. 

Besides working on hiring assessments, organizations have to put in place more engagement strategies as employee engagement becomes more and more important, going forward. There are a plethora of options for employees these days to change their jobs. There are even new forms of employment, for instance freelancing and remote working emerging. These trends create more options for the working employees and can impact the organization’s employee turnover. 

Companies can use people analytics and newer technologies to identify what drives their employees and in fact, with the help of tech solutions available in the market today, create more personalized engagement strategies for employees. This approach will allow them to cater to the demographically and generationally extreme workforce they work with today.