The Latest Employee Engagement Statistics (Updated for 2024)

The Latest Employee Engagement Statistics HR Leaders Need to Know

Employee engagement is a major focus in modern PeopleOps for good reason — it affects productivity, employee retention, and profits. The data is undeniable:

The Latest Employee Engagement Statistics

• 4.8 million fewer U.S. employees are engaged in early 2024—the lowest reported level of engagement since 2013.
• According to Quantum Workplace, 92% of executives believe that employee engagement directly impacts individual, team, and business performance.
• Nine out of 10 engaged employees intend on working at their organization for the next year, compared to only five out of 10 of their disengaged counterparts. Additionally, highly engaged employees are 3.4 times less likely to say they are searching for new jobs compared with those who aren’t highly engaged. 
• Engagement has 3.8x as much influence on employee stress as work location.
• Disengaged workers have also been found to be 18% less productive.
• Not engaged or actively disengaged workers account for approximately $1.9 trillion in lost productivity in the U.S. annually.
• Low employee engagement costs the global economy US$7.8 trillion every year.
• According to a 2024 Gallup study, a mere 30% of U.S. employees are engaged at work. On the other hand, 17% of U.S. workers are “actively disengaged”—Gallup’s term for employees who are “unhappy and unproductive at work and liable to spread negativity to coworkers.”
• Globally, just 21% of employees surveyed reported feeling engaged at work, while 19% reported being actively disengaged, the study indicates.
• A study by Harvard Business Review showed that employees working for leaders providing better-than-average recognition reported significantly higher engagement levels.

We’ve studied multiple sources to better understand the enigma that is employee engagement. What we found was that:

1. Employee engagement is difficult to measure due to the various definitions that exist.
2. Companies can drive increased engagement by simply conveying purpose.
3. Employee engagement has a dark side that can lead to counterproductivity.

Demystifying Employee Engagement

Statistics on What Employees Want

• According to a Harvard Business Review analysis, employees tend to feel emotionally and psychologically committed when they are in their ideal job, doing meaningful work, for a great boss.
• Four leadership skills that have the greatest impact on employee engagement and morale, per a recent Harvard Business Publishing survey, are: leading authentically, developing others, championing inclusion, and leading through uncertainty.
• Data from the 2023 Workhuman report shows that employees working at organizations that have a recognition program are 1.5x more likely to feel connected to their workplace, 1.3x more likely to feel connected to their colleagues, 1.2x more likely to feel like their workload is manageable, and 1.4x more likely to recommend their company to a friend.
• Additionally, of surveyed employees checking in at least weekly with their managers, 43% report being highly engaged, compared to 29% for those who don’t.
• Also from the same data set, employees who work in organizations that celebrate life events report higher psychological safety, are more likely to recommend the organization to a friend (86% vs. 66%), and more likely to be highly engaged (43% vs. 28%).

What comes to mind when you think about an engaged employee? Is it job satisfaction? Do you think of the person who shows up first and leaves the office last? Is it the one with the most innovative suggestions? Maybe you think of engagement as a head-down type of productivity — someone who is great at getting things done.

2022’s rise of quiet quitting has brought much of what we understand regarding employee engagement under scrutiny. And as resignations have declined substantially since 2023, quiet quitting could become a bigger challenge for both organizations and individuals.

Quiet Quitting Statistics

• Given the less tight labor market, workers are more cautious when considering switching jobs, with the 2024 U.S. quit rate already below its level at the end of 2019. 
• However, this could increase the proportion who remain but have mentally resigned. McKinsey reports that the costs of quiet quitting can be nearly as high as those of people actually leaving. 
• The McKinsey study found that between 20% and 40% of organizations’ workforce is typically made up of quiet quitters. Furthermore, this group is three times as likely to be dissatisfied as other employees.

But Does Quiet Quitting Equate to Disengagement?

According to Blaise Radley of Workday, an engaged employee will “bring their full self to work and feel supported by their employer at each stage of their employee journey.” ‍

Quiet quitting has similar connotations to other workplace phenomena like “coasting”, “work-to-rule” and the Chinese trends of “involution”, “tang ping” (lying flat), and more recently “Bai Lan” (let it rot). It is a reaction to the expected overperformance of “hustle culture” and ongoing burnout. Some experts believe quiet quitting is synonymous with employee disengagement, but a lot of voices disagree.

Some believe it’s deemed a response to hustle culture and burnout where employees set work-life boundaries and don’t sacrifice their free time to do extra tasks they’re not getting paid for. 

‍Research on productivity shows that workers' ability to pause work and take breaks is beneficial for both their well-being and performance.

What is Employee Engagement?

The truth is, many definitions of employee engagement exist. What you count as engagement and how you measure engagement has a lot to do with your organization’s priorities.

Broadly speaking, employee engagement is a maintained personal investment and loyalty towards a company that goes beyond what is verbally required from the job. According to Quantum Workplace, a highly engaged employee will “put in extra effort to help the organization succeed” and encourage colleagues to do the same.

In a LinkedIn poll we ran, the majority of voters said an engaged employee “thinks beyond their job title”. Interestingly, hardly any responders thought that an engaged employee “puts in extra effort and hours”. The responses to the poll were as follows:

• The vast majority of responders (72%) said an engaged employee thinks beyond their job title, in terms of how their work affects the greater organizational goals.
• 16% of responders believe an engaged employee is content in their job and work, so not intending to move.
• A mere 8% of responders said an engaged employee does reliably great work.
• Only 4% believe an engaged worker necessarily puts in extra effort and hours beyond their job description.

Consequently, one could argue that employee engagement is more correlated with one’s mentality towards their work than with how much work they do or how much time they devote to it.The key consideration here is that an engaged employee is dedicated to their duties and their employer because they have a genuine emotional investment in the organization’s wellbeing. Not because of fear that they will get fired or overlooked for promotion if they don’t pull extra hours. Feeling this level of pressure would likely lead to employee burnout.Statistics About Employee Engagement and WellbeingCultivating a culture of employee engagement correlates heavily with employee wellbeing. Presenteeism, where employees come to work sick due to job insecurity or fear of appearing inefficient, is a major obstacle to engagement. So is a culture of overloading employees with work and unattainable standards of productivity.Although encouraging employees to go home to get decent rest may not be the immediate thing that comes to mind when work is hectic, it may be the best thing for retained engagement.Gallup measures engagement and overall wellbeing in their recent studies. Some notable findings include:

• 52% of U.S. workers reported stress a lot of the day yesterday. 26% very often feel burned out at work. Nearly six in 10 employees are quietly quitting, but they are likely to become engaged with a few changes to their workplace.
• Globally, employees have been more engaged, and their stress has also increased. More than half (56%) of employees are struggling at work. Actively disengaged employees are 42% more likely to be actively looking or watching for new jobs versus engaged employees.
• Younger workers feel a greater drop in engagement than other generations. Millennial and Gen Z employees experience a five-point decline in engagement, from 40% to 35%, while the percentage of actively disengaged employees has increased from 13% to 14%.

How Workplace Stress Diminishes Employee EngagementAccording to Mercer’s 2024 Global Talent Trend Report, 82% of workers are stressed out by work. However, a continuously overloaded employee cannot remain engaged. “The resilience of every organization depends on the health of its people,” says the report, “healthy employees are more likely to be present and productive, be able to cope with stress, and avoid costly accidents. They also feel energized to invest in success for tomorrow — whether that’s learning new skills, taking on new responsibilities, or rethinking ways of working that open up opportunity and mitigate risk.”The data further suggests that long hours, key person dependencies, and sick leave are the top warning signs that the workforce is distracted, disengaged, and depleted. When asked what will make a difference, workers noted work designed with their well-being in mind, employee wellness programs and training, and better benefits offerings. Per a recent PwC survey, 6 in 10 full-time employees are stressed about their finances. Even among employees earning $100,000 or more per year, nearly half are stressed about their finances. Furthermore, the survey indicates that financial stress negatively affects a wide range of employee health and well-being areas, from mental health to sleep to self-esteem.A study conducted by Quantum Workplace in 2019 clearly shows the correlation between the physical, emotional, and financial wellness of employees, and their level of engagement. In all results, engagement is noticeably lower among employees with poor wellness.

The study shows that employees who reported very low physical, financial, and emotional wellness, also scored a median 46.3% for engagement favorability. This is compared to an average 94.3% engagement favorability scored by employees who reported very high levels of wellness.

Wendy Cartwright, former HR Director of the Olympic Delivery Authority, and Chair of The Engage for Success (E4S) says, “When organizations really pay attention to the factors that facilitate staff wellbeing, this can help to generate a feeling of connection with the organization and stronger employee engagement.”

Statistics on How Employee Engagement Drives Performance

Above we argue that an engaged employee is not necessarily defined as one who stays late to do extra work. However, employee productivity statistics demonstrate that employee engagement is a key component to ongoing productivity and organizational success. For example:

• A new study shows we work harder when we are happy. Specifically, it found happiness made people around 12% more productive.
• A highly engaged workforce experiences 23% greater profitability, a 14% increase in overall productivity, an 18% increase in productive sales, 81% lower absenteeism rates, and a 66% increase in employee well-being, Gallup found. 
• Companies with high employee engagement also have 41% fewer product defects.
• Additionally, engaged employees are more resilient. Even through tough times like the recent pandemic and resulting recession, companies in traditionally high-turnover industries with an engaged workforce reported 43% fewer separations than those without.
• For companies in low-turnover industries, this figure is 18% lower if they have high employee engagement.
• How engaged your current employees are influences the quality of your future hiring potential. This is because 71% of employees use or have used referrals from an organization's current employees to learn about job opportunities.

Jim Hartner, Chief Scientist at Gallup, believes engaged employees have a higher sense of ownership towards their organization, and a higher sense of autonomy. He notes that these employees put in more discretionary effort to improve the company.

Statistics on How Employee Engagement Affects Profits

All said and done, companies should care about employee engagement because it matters to their bottom line.

• In their comparison between organizations with high and low employee engagement, Gallup found that high-engagement companies reported 23% higher profits.
• The same companies reported 28% less shrinkage - a company's allowance for loss due to wastage or theft.
• Employee engagement also improves retention, which means the cost of replacement is reduced. Reportedly, a highly engaged workforce sees 43% less turnover than one where engagement is low.
• According to calculations published pre-pandemic, the cost of an actively disengaged employee is roughly 34% of their salary. Doing the math is scary.

To calculate the cost of disengagement in your organization, take the number of people on your payroll, and multiply by 17% (the percentage of actively disengaged workers in the US). Now multiply the result by the average annual salary, and that number by 34%.What you’ll see is salary outlay lost to disengagement.How Remote Work Affects Employee EngagementAfter the pandemic caused a mass migration of knowledge workers to remote work, companies have been pushing hard to return employees to the office. Contributing factors to this post-pandemic return include fear that productivity and engagement have suffered while workers were based at home.Statistics on employee engagement and productivity indicate this is not the case.Remote Work Engagement Statistics

• According to Quantum Workplace, on-site employees report the lowest engagement. Of surveyed workers, 72% claimed to be highly engaged.
• By comparison, 78% of fully remote workers reportedly have high engagement.
• The best employee engagement was reported by hybrid workers, with 81% of surveyed employees reporting that they were highly engaged.
• 77% of remote employees report increased productivity since they moved away from an in-office model.
• 79% of remote employees agreed that moving to remote work had a negligible effect on their day-to-day performance.

Remote Work Productivity Statistics

• In contrast to concerns that remote workers are less productive, their over-productivity reaches levels of concern. 17% of hybrid employees work over 50 hours a week.
• This statistic is followed by 11% of fully remote employees also working 50 hours per week or more, and only 8% of on-site employees putting in such long hours.
• A study by Stanford University found that remote workers regularly meet and exceed objectives. On average, remote workers score 13.5% higher productivity points compared to their office-based counterparts.
• The same study found these workers to be 9% more engaged, and 50% less likely to leave their employer for a new job.

Creating and Fostering an Engaged Workforce

Now that we’ve established the value of employee engagement, we need to look at ways of fostering engaged teams. There are two components to this:

• Tools that facilitate engagement tracking and provide actionable data, and
• Initiatives for creating a culture of engagement in the organization.

HR Tech to Promote Employee Engagement

Employee Engagement Software

Research shows that holistic wellness efforts that encompass physical, mental, and social well-being can play a big part in improving employee engagement and motivation. Monitoring employee engagement dynamically, especially through modern digital technologies, may enable companies to predict it in real-time, allowing them to foster it in increasingly turbulent settings, the data further reveals.

While something as elusive as job satisfaction is difficult to quantify in a universally accepted manner, it is possible to create your own system of measuring engagement rate amongst workers. This should be based on your company’s values and a metric that your employees agree with.

Once you have a baseline standard of what engaged employees look like, you can measure where your employee engagement statistics fall on this scale on an ongoing basis. Tracking people analytics with engagement surveys on a departmental and individual level means you can catch barriers in employee engagement much sooner than if you waited for obvious signs of disengagement.

‍Employee engagement software allows leaders to keep their hand on the pulse of their organization and see which managers need more training, which teams have higher flight risk, and how key objectives are being met within the organization.

Employee Recognition Programs

Although most organizations start out with a manual culture of regulation, this soon becomes impractical and does not scale.

‍Employee recognition has evolved into one of the most important components of any company's employee experience, so it must be done right. Employee recognition software creates sustainable, easily accessible means of integrating recognition into the organizational culture.

According to Reward Gateway’s 2023 Employee Engagement Trends Report, a full 60% of US employees want their employer to increase their investment in employee reward and recognition. The data also notes that 69% of employees feel their work wellbeing would improve if they were simply thanked more for their hard work.

People Analytics Tools

‍People analytics, also known as HR analytics, involves collecting and analyzing people data to improve organizational decision-making. Software for capturing and monitoring people analytics helps you keep track of important engagement indicators, like absenteeism, employee retention, and attrition.

Creating a Culture of Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is not something that can be forcibly instilled or attained overnight, and it is certainly not attainable through one solution. An effective performance review system is a good start - just 5% of HR leaders are satisfied with their current performance review system. Here are some statistical considerations for employers hoping to drive engagement in their organizations:

Monitoring and Managing Engagement

‍Employee engagement software allows companies to keep their hand on the pulse of their organization to see what managers need more training, which teams have higher flight risk, and how key objectives are being met within the organization.

Employee Experience is the Starting Point

• Research shows that 84% of employees who believe their employers care about them report high job satisfaction, compared to just a third (32%) of those who don’t think their employers care.
• Of those who said they believe their employers don’t care about their well-being, 60% tend to look for a new job in the next 12 months, the data says.

‍The metrics that you’d look at to monitor employee experience are very much in line with how you’d determine engagement. While a lot of factors play a part in creating a positive employee experience (organizational culture, employee perks and benefits, and recognition to name a few), it boils down to the value a worker perceives is gained and contributed from working at your organization. In other words, their employee satisfaction, professional development, and career advancement opportunities carry as much weight as their work experiences within your organization.

Statistics on How Purpose Drives Employee Engagement

• McKinsey reports that 70% of employees find their sense of purpose is defined by their work — making purpose an organizational concern.
• When the study asked if people are living their purpose in their day-to-day work, 85% of executives and upper management said yes — that they are living their purpose at work.
• Only 15% of frontline managers and frontline employees agreed to this. In fact, nearly half of these employees disagreed with the statement. Evidently, there is a considerable purpose gap between frontline workers and upper management.

Based on these findings, McKinsey writes: “People who live their purpose at work are more productive than people who don’t. They are also healthier, more resilient, and more likely to stay at the company. Moreover, when employees feel that their purpose is aligned with the organization’s purpose, the benefits expand to include stronger employee engagement, heightened loyalty, and a greater willingness to recommend the company to others.”‍

Addressing the reason for this proposed gap, the report puts the onus of relaying purpose on managers. It notes that, according to the feedback from frontline employees, shortsighted leadership conditions led them to feel disconnected from organizational purpose.

• Employees were ten times less likely than leaders to say that they’re granted opportunities to reflect on their purpose.
• They were also nine times less likely to say that they’d had the opportunity to work on purposeful projects granted by a manager.
• Communication between the ranks regarding purpose also falls short. Frontline workers in the study were three times less likely than leaders to say that they could see a connection between their daily work and the organization’s purpose.

More recent research points in a similar direction: Analysis published in 2023 by Nailted showed that 42% of employees felt that their company’s mission motivates them, 85% of employees agreed that their company trusts them to fulfill its mission, and 74% of employees were clear about the long-term corporate vision of their company.

Statistics on How a Culture of Employee Recognition Drives Engagement

Naturally, if employee engagement hinges on employees caring about the organization they work for, it is also determined by how much the organization cares about employees. Employee recognition statistics clearly show this:

• According to statistics published by WorldatWork, 85% of companies with recognition programs saw a positive impact on employee engagementApollo Technical.
• 84% of employees found to be highly engaged were also recognized the last time they went above and beyond at work.
• This is compared to actively disengaged employees of whom a mere 25% received recognition.
• Companies with strong recognition programs see 31% lower turnover rates than companies who have no formal employee recognition in place.
• In another study, 37% of surveyed respondents believe more personal recognition, such as personalized recognition wordings for employees would encourage them to produce better work more often.

Though some employee recognition ideas are easily applied in the workplace, the ideal is to bake recognition into the corporate culture by implementing a formal recognition program or software tool. The best employee recognition programs go far beyond congratulating employees on their birthdays and work anniversaries. These tools also encourage meaningful peer-to-peer recognition and ongoing shoutouts.

Over-Engaged Workers - The Dark Side of Employee Engagement

While employee engagement is a sought-after state, there is a level of engagement that can be harmful to the worker and the organization in the long run. According to Timely, an overly high level of engagement can lead employees to have an unhealthy view of work where they never feel as though they have done enough to relax.

Over Engagement Statistics

• The article cites that over 50% of U.S. employees feel like they have to check their email after 11 pm to keep up with work.
• 47% of workers prioritize work over their health and continue to work when they feel unwell.
• The National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO) found that a significant number of highly engaged workers experience challenges and stress associated with burnout, workload management, and overall work-life balance.

These behaviors are not sustainable and, in the long run, lead to poorer performance, lack of work-life balance, and depleting health.

A study by Great Place to Work and Johns Hopkins University’s Carey Business School found that only 16% of U.S. employees are in a high state of well-being.

The researchers found that mistaking meaning and passion for obsession may take a toll on mental wellness and lead to employee burnout.

“As an employer, you might value the passion of an employee, but the moment you demand it or incentivize it, you open the door to stress and employee burnout,” the study says.

Unpacking the Organization's Take on Employee Engagement

Based on these employee engagement statistics, organizations must certainly strive to foster and uphold employee engagement for the sake of business success. But there are many questions to answer truthfully before we can do this. For example:

• How will we define employee engagement and embody this definition in our operations?
• As an organization, what do we understand to be a high enough level of employee engagement? What does this level of engagement look like?
• Are we expecting more commitment from our employees than they get from us?
• Are our efforts to foster employee engagement rewarding presenteeism behavior?
• What will we do when we see employee engagement leading to burnout?

How you answer these questions will already provide insight into the employee engagement strategies that would most benefit your workforce, organization, and profitability.