Engaged vs. Disengaged Workers

Disengaged workers cost an estimated $31 billion per year

How many in your office are either unhappy, a bit slack, or being a bit disruptive?

It would be about one in five of your colleagues who are not pulling their weight or who are what the jargonists would call "actively disengaged" people at work.

Everyone of them around your office means that someone has to pick up the extra workload, or has to be extra nice to customers or even being extra positive to overcome the bad vibes those who don't really want to be there give off.

That is, of course, on the personal level. Nationwide official estimates have put the cost of active disengagement in the workplace at around $31.5 billion a year to Australia.

That massive figure is arrived at by working out the drop in production from disinterested people, the loss of customers who are sick of slack service, rudeness or boredom when they ask for assistance.

It does not include sickies and, how about this - our 123,500 public servants take 30 per cent more sickies than those of us in the private sector, with 5 per cent being away at any particular moment. That sort of total disengagement - up to 1.4 million days worth - costs us just under $1billion a year.

One of the major costs of actively disengaged workers is the fact that a third of them will leave the job they have been trained to do to find something better. This means the employer has to advertise the position, spend time looking for a replacement and then retrain. More time and money gone.

A more frightening statistic from the Gallup poll was that only 18 per cent of Australian workers are "actively engaged" while in their workplace. These "good-guy employees" are the ones who will do the hard yards and make that extra effort to do a job.

So what turns workers off?

Research has shown that engaged workers are highly productive and give good service to your customers. Many disengaged employees have become that way due to poor management practice, being treated badly, getting little feedback or cooperation, being overly criticised, not having their performance reviews often enough, or having too many, and not being rewarded for good work. The list goes on.

Career pathways are important for bosses to remember, making sure that workers feel appreciated and, when it's due, get praised for working hard.

Figures show those in charge of people have drastically cut disengagement by concentrating on an employees good points. A Gallup poll showed a 39 percentage point difference between the reaction to good managers (43% engaged to 4% disengaged).

On the other hand managers who focus on the negative traits have only a 9% difference (33% to 24%).

Mind you, no feedback at all is the worst situation and leads to a massive swing the other way. Poor communicators cost companies big time with workforces having a 2% engaged level and a whopping 43% actively disengaged.

Perhaps there are so many bad workers around as many people like to think, but maybe it's time managers had a good hard look at the way they deal with people!