Employee disengagement is no joke. It impacts your bottom line, hurts morale, wipes out productivity and makes it difficult for your company to compete.
Even more alarming: Disengaged employees impact attrition — a vital indicator of how many people leave your company, either because they’re so burned out they quit or performance plummets and you’re faced with the difficult decision to let them go.
This is one lesson you don’t want to learn the hard way. By the time you realize your attrition rate is unusually high, it’s too late. It means you've lost a large portion of your workforce without finding new employees. And if disengagement is to blame, those open positions could remain unfilled indefinitely.
Thankfully, there are ways to avoid this fate. It starts with a solid understanding of both employee disengagement and its connection to attrition. Let’s examine both now.
What is employee disengagement?
Employee disengagement is a difficult-to-detect state where employees don’t feel invested in their work. It’s often caused by unbalanced workloads, poor management and toxic work environments. It’s characterized by general discontent in the early stages but progresses to full-on resentment and disdain if left unaddressed.
Here’s the important part: Employee disengagement impacts most organizations — whether leaders are aware of it or not. More than 60% of global employees are not engaged at work. Another 15% are actively disengaged and likely to damage your reputation with customers, coworkers and candidates.
This complex phenomenon has far-reaching consequences for productivity, performance and company culture. A lack of job satisfaction is one thing. But when an employee feels completely disconnected from their role, all kinds of problems float to the surface.
Signs of disengaged employees
Disengagement manifests in various ways, such as less collaboration with colleagues, declines in active problem-solving and a general sense of apathy. Common signs of employee disengagement include:
- Decreased productivity: One of the most obvious signs of disengagement is a sudden dip in productivity. Disengaged employees often miss deadlines and disregard timelines. They also pay less attention to details.
- Increased absenteeism: Disengaged employees frequently start late, leave early and call in sick — usually without warning and no regard for the burden those absences place on team members.
- A high turnover rate: While many factors impact overall turnover, a high rate is a sure sign of disengagement. This is especially true if multiple team members leave the company around the same time.
- Limited interaction: The more disengaged an employee is, the less likely they are to speak up, participate in team meetings or volunteer for new projects.
- Skills stagnation: A disengaged employee has no interest in building new skills or advancing their career with the company. They do the bare minimum to collect a paycheck until something better comes along.
Causes of employee disengagement
Sometimes disengagement is the result of issues beyond your control, like a lack of work-life balance stemming from personal problems. More often, it’s tied to common at-work causes including:
- Poor communication: When communication channels break down, it leads to confusion and frustration.
- Lack of recognition: Employees who don’t receive adequate recognition for their contributions feel undervalued.
- Job dissatisfaction: An unfulfilling or monotonous job causes engagement to rapidly decline as employees become increasingly unchallenged and bored.
- Poor role alignment: When people don’t understand how their work contributes to company success, engagement plummets.
- Limited growth opportunities: Without opportunities to advance within the company, employees become disengaged.
The sooner you identify and address these root causes, the better. While disengagement hurts innovation, high engagement does the opposite. Whether it’s recognition programs, career development initiatives or proper workload distribution, find ways to foster a positive, productive work environment.
And don’t put it off until tomorrow — you have to start now. Why? Because the sooner you turn things around, the less likely you are to face persistently low attrition.
How employee disengagement impacts attrition
So, how does disengagement impact attrition? First, let’s look at what we mean by attrition. Unlike your employee turnover rate, which includes employees who leave and are immediately replaced, your attrition rate incorporates permanent employee losses.
While it’s possible to have high turnover rates and still experience growth, a high attrition rate means the business is shrinking.
Disengagement impacts your attrition rate in two ways: directly and indirectly.
The direct impact of disengagement on attrition
This connection is straightforward: The more disengaged an employee becomes, the more likely they are to actively seek opportunities outside your company. Six in ten actively disengaged workers are diligently seeking new jobs, compared to just 43% of engaged workers. This turnover leads to increased recruitment and training costs.
The indirect impact of disengagement on attrition
The indirect impacts of disengagement are less obvious — and more severe. That’s because disengaged employees don’t just create a negative work environment for current colleagues. They also set the stage for future workforce issues.
It starts when disengaged employees spread their negativity and lack of motivation to colleagues, leading to a decrease in overall morale. This toxic work culture then prompts otherwise engaged employees to explore new job opportunities.
But the problems don’t end there. Disengaged employees often share their negative experiences on job review sites. This makes it harder to hire replacements each time a high-performer leaves your company. Meanwhile, existing employees take on extra work. Which leads to burnout, which leads to rushed onboarding to fill the gaps, which causes a whole new set of disengagement problems… and the cycle continues.
However, it doesn’t have to be this way. Whether you’re already facing high attrition rates or want to get ahead of the game, the answer lies in workforce analytics.
Spot employee disengagement and prevent attrition with ActivTrak
Understanding how employee disengagement impacts attrition is only half the battle. You also need a comprehensive strategy for identifying underlying issues before they spiral out of control.
After all, resignations and reorganizations are a natural part of work. But if you’re experiencing high attrition, there’s a good chance disengagement is to blame. The question is: How can you know for sure?
This is where workforce analytics comes in.
ActivTrak’s employee engagement software equips you with insights about your unique workforce — ones you can use to improve employee engagement, increase productivity and stabilize attrition — for good. It analyzes real-time employee behaviors and translates them into bite-size findings. For example, you’ll see:
- When teams are exhibiting early signs of burnout
- How organizational changes impact performance
- Where and when people are most productive
- If people get enough focus time for meaningful work
More than 9,500 organizations use ActivTrak daily for these and other insights. With data-driven recommendations based on the unique needs of your workforce, it’s much easier to achieve high engagement.
Sound like the solution you need? Set up your free account to get started today.
