Manager and Employee Involvement Key to Successful Organizations

Disengaged employees are expensive.  They cost your organization time and money either in workplace unproductivity, turnover costs, training, and lost opportunities.  They also suck the vital life force out of your organization and can ruin the dynamics of a once functioning and flourishing team.  Happy employees or those that are engaged and active do the exact opposite. They are responsible for moving an organization forward and can be the reason a product launch or organizational change succeeds.

The infographic you see below provides some interesting visual insights into how your disengaged workforce can impact your organization and cost you profit margin as well as your best employees.  Tower’s Watson also released their 2012 Global Workforce Study.  After surveying over 30,000 global workers, a certain number of trends emerged that organizations and human resource leaders must pay mind to in adapting and evolving to be a successful workplace over the next 10 years.

• Digital Skills.  Whether it’s social media or virtual work teams, companies need to be prepared to engage and provide opportunities both online and virtually for their employees.

• Agile Thinking.  The workforce and employee challenges are complex.  Organizational leaders need to be able to think appropriately and act quickly.

• Interpersonal Skills.  While key for employees, managers need to be trained to work and help their team thrive in the different kinds of workplace environments and teams both in person and online.

• Global Operating Ability.  Being able to manage and communicate with all types of individuals and workforces especially in a global setting.  This means future leaders must adjust their leadership and communication styles to fit the audience and not the other way around.  This is a new approach to management and one that your leaders are likely to fail to adjust.  It’s no longer about you as a manager, it’s solely about your team and how you can change and adapt to help them thrive especially when we consider cultural considerations and context.

How Disengaged Employees Cost the Organization

Your disengaged workforce cost the organization in many different ways.  They drive away your top talent, are unproductive, and can result in less than stellar work performance.  These stresses seeps into an employees life outside of work in other ways than unproductively including increased healthcare costs and higher divorce rates.

• Disengaged Employees cost American employers $350 billion per year.

• In 2010, only 45% of employees are engaged versus 61% of your workforce in 1987.

• Working for a bad boss doubles an employee’s risk of heart attack.  (Good bosses mean less employee and employer  healthcare expense.)
• Stressed employees have less sex.  This makes for a cranky and unhappy workforce and could happen for a number of reasons including bad management, financial worries, or just general unhappiness.