Ten Insights from Gallup's 2024 Global Workplace Study

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The Gallup Organization released its annual State of the Global Workplace report. With research from over 160 countries and areas, the report provides interesting findings into the minds and experiences of today’s employees. There are takeaways for employee engagement, voice of the employee, employee experience, and organizational strategy. Here are ten insights that stood out to me.

1. Twenty percent of the world’s employees experience daily loneliness.

Loneliness is a regular reality for 20% of today’s workers. That means there are probably coworkers and members on your team who are lonely. What impact might their loneliness have on their work? Having vital friendships at work, even a best friend at work, is more important than ever.

2. Employee engagement is a significant factor in overall life experiences.

It is difficult to separate the effects of work on your personal life. The level of one’s employee engagement (what I define as the ability to be motivated, dedicated, and emotionally connected to your work and workplace so you give your best, discretionary effort) plays a significant role in your overall life experiences.

3. Employees who dislike their jobs tend to have high levels of daily stress and worry, as well as elevated levels of all other negative emotions.

Daily stress and worry are higher in those who don’t like their jobs. If you’re looking to lower your stress and anxiety, one solution may be to start liking your job. That may mean changing your mindset about your current job, changing the duties of your current job, or changing the job or workplace altogether.

4. On many wellbeing items, being actively disengaged at work is equivalent to or worse than being unemployed.

Take a look at the graphic below. Notice that the percentage of actively disengaged employees who experience negative emotions during the day is either greater or about equal to those who are unemployed. This means it may feel better to be without a job than stuck in one you dislike.

5. Managers are more likely than non-managers to be engaged and thriving in life.

My takeaway here is that managers may not be in touch with the experience of their non-manager team members. Managers may personally feel engaged and thriving, but that doesn’t mean their team members are. This is an invitation to empathize and understand more about what team members are experiencing because they may not be as engaged as their manager. (See top part of graphic below)

6. Managers have more negative experiences than non-managers.

While managers are more engaged and thriving than non-managers, they still experience more negative emotions and situations than non-managers. This probably comes from the complex job of managing people. But interestingly, the higher incidence of negative emotions doesn’t cause less engagement and thriving. (See middle part of graphic above)

7. When managers are engaged at work, non-managers are more likely to be engaged.

Strong engagement trickles down. When managers are excited about their jobs and workplaces, it’s contagious to their team members. There is great strategic importance in having engaged managers. If you want to turn the tide on engagement, starting with your managers is a great place to start. As engagement goes with them, it’ll go with the rest.

8. Gallup’s Best Practice Organizations put a high priority on manager hiring and development.

Not all of the BPO’s started out with exemplary engagement, but they did commit themselves to hiring the right managers and developing them over time. As I shared in my podcast on the secret sauce of Chick-fil-A’s culture, you ought to hire managers who will embody the culture of the organization so they pass it down.

9. BPO’s integrate engagement into every stage of their life cycles.

Best Practice Organizations infuse engagement principles into the entire employee experience including hiring, training, performance management, manager interactions, recognition, and more. In this way, engagement becomes a critical corporate strategy and a theme that weaves its way throughout the entire employee life cycle.

10. Developing highly engaged teams results in fewer negative outcomes, more positive outcomes, and greater success for your organization.

If you want to experience greater success for your organization, then adopt an engagement identity. It’s a win for everyone including less: absenteeism, turnover, theft, accidents, and quality defects. It’s a win for everyone including more: customer loyalty, sales, profitability, employee wellbeing, and employee participation.

Conclusion

Even though many of today’s workers experience negative emotions at work, they can improve their life experiences by becoming more engaged in their jobs. Managers carry a strategic importance for the engagement of their organization. Two important corporate priorities are to hire and develop managers and to infuse engagement principles into the life cycles of employees.