Earlier this month, Gallup announced the results of it’s latest annual employee engagement survey. This year  it was able to report the highest level of US workforce engagement it has recorded since the survey was launched some two decades ago. This is important because Gallup’s latest meta-analysis of studies covering nearly 2 million employees reveals conclusively that organizations with high engagement outperform those without —by a ton. 

Some of the engaged vs disengaged results:

• 41% lower absenteeism
• 70% fewer safety incidents
• 40% fewer defects (quality)
• 17% higher productivity
• 20% higher sales
• 21% higher profitability

Clearly, engagement matters—a lot. So record-high workforce engagement is a good thing.

But the not-so-good thing is that this ‘record-high’ engagement level is only 35%—up from 34% in 2018. In other words, 65%—nearly two-thirds—of the US workforce is not engaged at work. Does anyone find this remotely acceptable?

Let’s face a few salient realities :

1. Subpar performance is the consequence of low workforce engagement.
2. Low workforce engagement is the product of poor culture.
3. Poor culture is the result of lousy leadership.

Yes, the workforce is undergoing generational change—but that tired complaint dates back at least to Socrates—and yes, we’re in the midst of a technological renaissance and work in the future may not at all resemble that of the past or even the present. But so what? It’s no secret that change is the universal constant. It’s the job of leadership to see these trends, adapt, and take advantage of them to the benefit of the organizations they lead—full stop. 

Gallup characterizes the transitioning priorities of today’s workforce this way: