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2013 Trends in Global Employee Engagement
Total Rewards
— Career Opportunities—Consistently showing up as the #1 engagement driver, a majority of employees are
consistently disappointed. Only 47% of employees think they have good advancement opportunities at their
organization. Providing these opportunities equally across employees is very dicult, if not impossible, from a
business and talent management perspective. The focus should be on the high potentials and the highly
engaged (often one and the same). Ensuring that these individuals are well placed in stretch assignments that
continually challenge them will keep these employees motivated and ensure that the organization has the best
talent giving their best in the most impactful positions. More frequent manager-employee career coaching
conversations are a prerequisite to excelling in this area.
— Pay—Approximately four out of ten (44%) employees think they are paid fairly for their contributions. This driver
has been on the rise in importance ranking over the last two years. Employees’ perceptions of pay fairness have
improved slightly, but the raw score is still very low. The findings around pay indicate that economic pressures,
threats of inflation and historical pay constraints may have caused pay to hit the hygiene threshold often talked
about. With the stressful experiences of the last few years, changing workforce demographics, hot talent wars in
some emerging markets and traditional retirement security either gone or at risk, the concept of loyalty to a
company may have disappeared. Employees could become very mercenary as job opportunities open up for
higher pay.
— Recognition—Recognition is certainly less costly than direct pay, and can also have a significant impact on
engagement as part of total rewards. Recognition is both a leadership responsibility and a manager
responsibility. Employees want recognition for their performance, but also recognition for how dicult things
have been—even though only 48% think they get this recognition. Despite all the economic and business
pressures, engagement is on the rise—more employees have said good things about their company, committed
to staying and given extra eort. These employees deserve the recognition. It will pay o in turn with sustained
or even higher engagement.
Communication—What is the story you tell employees about your organization, the path you have been on, where
they fit in and the path forward? Employees want to know. Less than half (49%) of employees think their company is
eective at communication—even sometimes at just the basics. Positioning the employee as the protagonist of your
organization’s story (which addresses their need to work for a company with great leaders, a strong reputation and a
compelling set of total rewards) will help ensure that they engage, help shape that story and stay to see how the
story ends.
Enabling Performance—We increasingly hear from employees that “it’s dicult to get things done around here.”
Only 55% of employees say they have the tools and resources they need to be productive. Best Employers are better at
enabling performance than the average company. Further, enablement is a top engagement driver of high-potential
employees. Perhaps the last ingredient to truly drive engagement once the priorities above have been addressed is to
simply remove barriers. This will reduce anxiety, stress and frustration to fully unlock an individual’s discretionary eort,
potential and performance.
There are some signs of hope in the global economy—engagement and perceptions of the general work experience are
on the rise. But the specter of economic recession still looms. Employees, particularly highly engaged employees, are the
growth engine. Some companies are winning the engagement race and actually increasing the distance between
themselves and the rest. The economic, business and talent challenges are significant. Employee engagement is a leading
indicator of business performance that helps mitigate these challenges and drive future growth. This is leadership’s
responsibility. Now is the time.