Engagement is a top priority for organizations that want sustainable growth and success, as disengagement harms employee productivity and overall business performance. Leaders must adopt effective strategies to motivate and re-engage disengaged employees — but how? Learn about a few tried and tested methods for turning disengaged employees into motivated, high-performing contributors.
What are disengaged employees?
Employee disengagement is a state where employees feel mentally disconnected from their work and lack motivation or commitment to perform their best. According to Gallup’s global study on employee engagement, disengaged employees account for a staggering 67% of the global workforce. This alarming statistic underscores the need for businesses to monitor employee disengagement, as it’s more common than you may believe.
Signs of disengaged employees
Employers who are paying attention will notice disengaged employees move through five stages of disengagement: discontent, decreased productivity, lack of participation, absenteeism and complete disengagement.
While disengagement can show up in subtle ways, there are a few telltale signs an employee is disengaged:
- Low productivity levels from formerly high-performers
- Poor quality work
- Not raising their hand for other assignments
- Missed deadlines or performance goals
- Absenteeism or missing work
- Not participating in team activities
- Negative attitude and complaining
- Arguing or putting down colleagues
- Lack of passion or interest in their work
Why are disengaged employees bad for business?
Disengagement is more than a personal issue for employees and has a real cost for businesses. Studies show disengaged employees are 18% less productive than their engaged peers. They also call out of work 37% more often, which pushes missed work to other employees. Disengagement is also contagious, since unmotivated employees negatively influence morale. This leads to higher employee turnover, which Gallup estimates is as much as 43% higher in disengaged workplaces compared to companies with high levels of engagement.
All of these factors have a major impact on the organization’s bottom line. According to ADP, disengaged employees can cost up to $2,246 each year in lost productivity or sick time. Different reports show disengagement costs a company a good chunk of an employee’s salary — anywhere from 18% to 34% — in hiring and training costs. Globally, Gallup reports disengagement costs companies $8.8 trillion in lost productivity every year.
Not addressing disengagement among employees can lead to even worse outcomes as people progress through the stages toward active disengagement. These employees feel resentful toward their employers and are very demonstrative of their unhappiness. They bring down morale, hurt customer relationships and harm your company’s brand reputation.
How to motivate disengaged employees
Identifying disengaged employees is the first step in fixing the problem. Every organization is different and employees each need different things to feel engaged at work. But there are general strategies any organization can implement to increase engagement and motivate employees.
1. Actively listen to employees
A major reason employees become disengaged is because they don’t feel their workplace needs are being met. When employees communicate needs to leadership but those issues go unaddressed, they start to feel disconnected from the organization. Worse, many employers don’t give their workers the opportunity to voice their concerns or needs in the first place.
Many organizations use employee surveys to gather information on employee sentiment or ideas on how to improve the workplace. These provide a regular place to voice issues and recommendations. Employees should also feel they have other channels for communicating with managers and providing feedback, including informal ways. They also need to see their feedback is being integrated into company policy or direction. If employees speak their minds but see nothing is done about it, they will quickly lose interest in participating.
2. Communicate expectations clearly
According to Gallup, as few as 40% of employees know what their organizations expect from them. When an employee doesn’t know what their job goals are, they feel disconnected from the work they do. They also need to know how their work contributes to the overall success of your organization. One study found 90% of workers would trade more money for more meaningful work.
Have clear discussions about roles and responsibilities for every employee, including what success looks like and how each role contributes to the organization as a whole. In addition, provide regular feedback to your employees and teams — and work together to realign goals and discuss strategies to improve performance.
3. Align roles and projects to employee strengths
Another way to increase employees’ sense of meaning at work is to ensure they focus on what they do best. But according to research from McKinsey & Company, only 18% of employees feel their work is purposeful. When employees feel their work is too hard or not difficult enough, they’re less interested in doing it.
Empower employees to understand their strengths and assign them work that speaks to these strengths. Find underutilized employees and give them more engaging assignments. Balance workloads to ensure employees aren’t overworked and ensure employees who are flagging have the right training. This will increase their satisfaction and sense of purpose, leading to higher engagement.
4. Offer opportunities for career development
Employees also want to develop new strengths and understand how to advance their careers. For people to reach their full potential, they need training and skills development. Mentoring programs, training programs, coaching and workshops are all great ways to empower employees to develop their skills.
Advancement and development opportunities increase engagement by boosting employee confidence in their jobs. Skills development also increases a sense of purpose and job satisfaction. Plus, your organization benefits from specialized expertise that improves creativity and quality of work as well.
5. Offer recognition for good performance
Acknowledging employees’ good work goes a long way in fostering engagement. According to Nectar, 77.9% of employees said they would be more productive if their employers recognized them more frequently.
Recognition and reward programs are a great way to show employees their work matters to the organization. These are most effective when they’re transparent and measurable so employees know what to expect. Less formal recognition is also effective, especially when employees can recognize each other’s accomplishments and express gratitude to each other for their contributions to team goals and company culture.
6. Foster connection by understanding employees on a deeper level
Relationship building is an important aspect of engagement at work. Employees who feel their workplaces care about them are more likely to be engaged. Foster a sense of belonging by improving connections between team members and managers to empower teams to understand each other better.
While company get-togethers or team-building activities are traditional ways to build a sense of community at work, there are other ways to ensure employees feel understood and cared for. Give employees the opportunity to get to know themselves and their colleagues better through professional coaching and official personality type training. Have frequent discussions on how different personalities contribute to the organization’s success, and find ways to show employees their individuality matters and contributes to company goals.
7. Promote a positive work environment
Employee experience is a big contributor to employee engagement. Whether people work remotely or in an office, the workplace environment dictates how they feel when they’re at work. Employees need to feel they can do their work effectively while maintaining their mental and physical health.
Fostering an environment of psychological safety for employees is the foundation of a positive work environment. This includes open and transparent communication between employees, leaders and managers as well as accountability and support. The physical workplace environment is also important. Employers should work to reduce distractions in the workplace, cut down on unnecessary meetings and ensure employees have the tools they need to do their jobs, no matter where they work.
8. Empower employee well-being
Well-being is essential for employee engagement. Beyond feeling safe in their work environment, employees need to have ways to balance their work and personal lives. Spending too much time on work quickly leads to burnout, which damages both employees and their organizations.
To help improve work-life balance, offer flexible working arrangements that give employees more control over their time. Wellness benefits such as mental health support or physical fitness activities are another way to promote well-being. Even something as simple as encouraging frequent breaks improves employee health in an organization.
9. Intentionally monitor engagement
The best way to prevent disengagement is to actively employ strategies that discourage it. Organizations need to be intentional about spotting disengaged employees and helping them before they become actively disengaged. This means managers need to understand the signs of disengagement and have policies and plans in place to stop it. However, some employees may not show outward signs of disengagement until it’s too late.
Using employee engagement monitoring software like ActivTrak empowers organizations to spot disengagement with data. Dips in productivity, high levels of overwork, increases in unproductive time and other indicators show employers which employees are at risk of disengagement or burnout. Data on high-performing employees also ensures managers know who to recognize for good work and what traits or activities other employees should learn to be more successful.
Find and motivate disengaged employees with ActivTrak
Ready to turn things around at your organization? Re-engage your employees with ActivTrak’s employee engagement and experience solution. This award-winning platform makes it easy to measure engagement with data, spot signs of disengagement and monitor how your engagement programs are doing. More than 9,500 customers use it to:
- Find trends in employee engagement to change tactics or provide more coaching or training.
- Empower employees to improve productivity and gain job satisfaction through better work habits.
- Improve employee well-being with data-driven conversations about distractions or workload.
Contact our sales team today to get started and explore the possibilities for your organization.
