More Than Half of Aussie Workers Not Engaged in Job - Study
14 October 2013 at 9:04 am
Sixty per cent of Australian workers are not engaged in their jobs, according to a recent study.
The study called the State of the Global Workplace, by global analytics site Gallup, looked at employee engagement in 142 countries.
According to the study, in Australia 24 per cent of employees are engaged in their jobs “that is, they are emotionally invested in and focused on creating value for their organizations every day”.
It showed 60 per cent were not engaged and 16 per cent were actively disengaged, or those who are negative and potentially hostile to their organisations.
“The resulting ratio of engaged to actively disengaged employees — 1.5-to-1 — is one of the highest among all global regions and similar to results from the U.S. and Canada (1.6-to-1),” the study said.
“The two countries [Australia and New Zealand] show similar engagement results. In both, slightly less than one-fourth of the employed population is engaged, while the majority of workers fall into the not engaged category.
“Thus, workplaces in both countries have an opportunity to move large numbers of these workers who currently lack motivation or emotional investment in their jobs into the engaged category, helping organizations realize related improvements in performance outcomes.
“The engagement rate in Australia and New Zealand is somewhat higher among those few employees (4% of those interviewed) with an elementary education or less than among those with higher levels of education.
“Similarly, the job types in which employees are most likely to be engaged tend to be those that do not typically require high levels of education, including farmers, installation/repair workers, and service workers.”
The study also showed that in Australia and New Zealand, only 19 per cent of employees in leadership positions, such as roles as managers, executive and officers, were engaged in their jobs.
“Low engagement among managers is a particularly troubling sign for businesses and organizations, as Gallup has consistently found that they play the most significant role in influencing engagement among workers who report to them,” the study said.
The study also revealed that in most developed countries, unemployment and underemployment have been at elevated levels since the onset of the global recession in 2007.
“One consequence of the recession could be that those with more education are struggling to find jobs that align with their education level, leading them to feel that they are not doing what they do best every day,” the study said.
The study named Northern America (the US and Canada) as having the highest proportion of engaged workers at 29 per cent, while East Asia (which includes China and South Korea) had the lowest at 6 per cent.
