A 20% rise in engagement levels in a year - heyy, everyone's become like.. totally.. like enlightened maan.
Well maybe not, for engaged - read more grateful, less likely to be surfing amazon & ebay at lunchtime - and scared to death by the monthly unemployment figures.
I'd say that's not so much engagement as understandable pragmatism in the face of tough times.
For all those employers relying on the downturn to tackle the engagement challenge .. look out when the market turns properly and the talent squeeze starts to hurt...
Madam ZaZa predicts tears and heartbreak, as the 'engaged' jilt hitherto soul mates for new and more exciting relationships...
Here's the original source material from HR magazine:
Seven out of ten employees feel engaged in their job now, compared to 50% in November 2008, according to Best Companies.
The engagement firm set out to find how employees were feeling about the recession and discovered 33% did not feel worried about the downturn and did not think their performance had been affected - down from 38% in November.
Three in ten employers are grateful to have a job compared to two in ten back in November 2008, the survey relealed.
But in order to be more engaged, men and women both agree the things that need to change in their workplace, but order them differently.
For men it is more money (59%), more interesting work (36%) and recognition for a job well done (33%), while for women it is more money (57%), recognition (42%) and more interesting work (35%).
Jonathan Austin, CEO and founder of Best Companies, said: "With the fear of redundancy ever-present and the cost of living creeping up, money is more of a motivator for people than it might have been before. But for those organisations that do not have the luxury of digging deep into their pockets there are plenty of other ways to incentivise staff, such as flexible working which our data indicates has a significant impact on engagement levels and simply saying thank you and recognising employees' efforts can really boost morale."
