3 Reasons why people become disengaged

1. Trust in Management
   Research has found that a lack of trust in company leaders is a major factor in employee disengagement. Under this heading, we can place a couple of specific reasons why employees lack trust in their leaders.
   • Management handles change poorly.
     A Right Management/Manpower study found that 94% of employees who report that organisational change was not handled well are disengaged. In comparison, Right Management found a 40% disengagement rate among employees who reported that change was handled well. Good communication was found to be a major component in whether employees felt that change was handled well.
   • No personal/emotional connection to management.
     Blessing White’s 2011 Employee Engagement report found that knowing one’s manager personally tends to increase an employee’s engagement levels by 11 points, on average. Moreover, “a better relationship with my manager” was one of the top three things employees said would improve their job satisfaction.
2.  Purpose, meaning, or connection to organisational vision
   When your employees are alienated from the final impact their work has on the world, there is little motivation for them to expend any discretionary effort. When employees can see how their hours at the office are changing the world, improving customers’ lives, or otherwise making a difference, they are more likely to get fired up about their work. On a company-wide level, employee engagement is nearly impossible to foster without leadership first recognising the underlying mission of the organisation.
3. Opportunities to grow or advance.
   In the Blessing White report mentioned above, the number one reason employees stated for leaving their company was “I don’t have opportunities to grow or advance.” Your employees don’t want to be robots. They are looking for jobs that will allow them to continue to grow as individuals. The other two things that respondents said would increase their employee satisfaction were career development and training, and “more opportunities to do what I do best.” encourage and empower your employees to continue learning and growing, and they’ll reward you with higher productivity levels. Remember that people are complicated beings and work around employee engagement can be as difficult and messy as it is fascinating and rewarding. A company that commits to creating a customer-centric culture that fosters engagement will continue to be rewarded with growth.

The biggest one

The answer most often lies in managerial relationships. A study by Dale Carnegie Training placed the number of “fully engaged” employees at 29%, and “disengaged” employees at 26% – meaning nearly three-quarters of employees are not fully engaged (aka productive). The number one factor the study cited influencing engagement and disengagement was “relationship with immediate supervisor.”