Right now, employee engagement in the US has fallen to the lowest level in a decade.
Less than a third (31%) of respondents to Gallup’s survey of almost 80,000 US workers say they felt engaged—defined by involvement and enthusiasm in their work and workplace.
The So What
“Employees choose every day how much energy they bring to their work. There’s a real difference in the value created by someone who enjoys what they do versus those who just show up and bide the time until the workday is over,” says Deborah Lovich , a future of work fellow at the BCG Henderson Institute.
“The writing has been on the wall for some time when it comes to the decline of the employee-employer relationship. What’s less clear is why companies aren’t taking more action to address the issue when the cost of attrition and low motivation continues to rise.”
- Gallup estimates that companies with highly engaged staff are 21% more profitable.
- And BCG research shows that employees who enjoy their work are 55% less likely to consider a new job than employees who don’t.
In addition, engaged employees are much more likely to adopt new technologies which can lead to increased productivity.
- BCG’s own experience shows that employees who enjoy their work used GenAI tools four times more than workers who don’t enjoy their work.
“I now believe it’s time for companies to actively prioritize employee satisfaction alongside shareholder returns and customer delight—a concept I call ‘Radical Employee Centricity’, Lovich says.
This change can be seen in the context of how corporate priorities have evolved over time.
Meeting shareholder expectations had long been the primary focus of leaders of public companies. And it was previously presumed that a focus on delighting customers would come at the expense of shareholder margins. Then, at the turn of the millennium, a new customer-first approach emerged, with companies such as Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft emphasizing the need to focus on customers and as such led to outsized returns for their shareholders.
The thinking will need to change again, so that focusing on employee experience isn’t seen as an extra expense but rather as a driver of value for customers and shareholders, Lovich explains.
Now What
These are some of the ways business leaders can shift to a more employee-centric operating model:
Think of employees as customers. Companies will benefit from a deeper understanding of their staff’s needs, preferences, and behaviors. This can be mapped in the same way as a customer journey , including needs-based segmentation and personalization . It can also incorporate data-driven design thinking and product testing, especially around day-to-day work rhythms. In the same way coffee shops design a space to be as attractive as possible to multiple segments of customers, or product designers test ease-of-use, employers need to examine workplaces, processes, and systems so that employees feel energized and able to produce their best work.
Focus on the day-to-day work experience. How employees feel about work often boils down to the interactions and tasks they do each day. And that means managers need to start taking ownership of the employee experience. This is a shift away from the HR team who may own the employee value proposition but is rarely involved in delivering the day-to-day work. The change in emphasis in a manager’s role will require additional training, so managers feel confident addressing both the functional and emotional needs of employees through techniques such as active listening, coaching, inspiring, as well as understanding why uplifting their employee experience is so important for the organization.
Make delivering for employees a leadership priority. Culture is driven from the top of an organization and the mindset shift to employee centricity will need to become a focus of leaders. Driving progress will also likely need to be hardwired into targets so that the C-suite monitor employee enjoyment and satisfaction in the same way as they regularly check shareholder growth or customer net promoter scores. Companies should expand their KPIs to address employee metrics, such as manager satisfaction scores, the ratio of joy to toil in day-to-day work, and employee attrition.
