Survey Reveals Dip in Employee Engagement

New research commissioned by Accor Services shows that employee engagement levels in the UK are worryingly low and that the proportion of staff feeling most engaged has dropped by half since 2005.

One of the best ways to find out whether employees really are engaged with their employer is to measure how many would recommend their place of work to family or friends. The Ipsos Mori poll of 1327 employees reveals that just 12 per cent of staff would “definitely” recommend their organisation as a place to work – down from 24 per cent in the last survey three years ago. These figures seem to support recent research from the CIPD, which found a significant gap between existing levels of engagement among UK employees and the levels that would be needed to produce the optimum performance from the country’s workforce.

The CIPD’s research (carried out last year with Kingston University and Ipsos Mori) also found that men and the over-35s are less likely to feel engaged with their work. Being a manager seems to be a factor too with around half of them feeling engaged, compared to just three in ten non-managers. Flexibility also appears to be important, as staff on flexible contracts tended to feel more engrossed in their work, less likely to quit their job and more likely to speak positively about their organisation than others, according to the research.

So far Accor Services’ own research has highlighted some good news for employers: around a quarter of staff are at least willing to get on board with their organisation, with twenty-six per cent saying they would like to become more involved. The full results of the multi-country employee survey are due to be released in the next few weeks.

Accor Services is trying to build a complete picture of the state of employee engagement in the UK and is currently conducting a survey to gather information from employers. To take part in the survey and contribute your views, click here. The short survey will not take more than two minutes to complete and the full results, together with some of the latest thinking on employee engagement, will be published in a white paper in September this year.