If you have been preparing yourself for the zombie apocalypse, congratulations, it’s here. Unfortunately, it’s not the kind of invasion you thought it would be.
According to a Gallup.com poll report one in five employees are actively disengaged at work and this could mean higher costs for employers. How high? How about an estimated $350 billion every year or an average cost of $2,246 per disengaged employee.
Some of the general costs of disengagement include:
- Disengaged employees take more sick days and are tardy more often.
- Disengaged employees undermine the excellent work their more engaged colleagues accomplish. Constant complaining is a common characteristic of disengaged employees.
- The decreased productivity of each disengaged employee costs each employer $3,400 to $10,000 in salary, according to Gallup research.
- Missed deadlines and poor sales results are common characteristics of disengaged employees.
- Customer complaints often rise with employee disengagement. Disengaged employees create disengaged customers because frustrated workers can’t help but pass on their cynicism and negativity.
Think it will be easy to just replace the disengaged employee? Think again. The costs associated with losing or replacing an employee and then having to hunt for their replacement is costly. Just a few of the costs include:
- Recruiting costs
- Interviewing costs
- Training costs
- Lost time costs
- Potential to overwork remaining staff costs
So what is an employer to do? Avoid or fix the disengagement going on around you. Listen to what your employees are asking for. More often than not it’s not monetary gain but a pat on the back that employees need to keep momentum up.
How do you engage your employees? Let us know and we will include it in our next article.
