| PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACT Disengaged workers are huge financial drain on British workplaces Employee who are not engaged with their work are costing UK businesses ten of millions of pounds each year through high absence levels, low productivity and poor employee relations, writes Marcus Buckingham of the Gallup Organisation in a recent issue of People Management magazine. Four in five employees not engaged at work Gallup's survey, one of the largest investigations ever carried out into the hearts and minds of British workers, found that the vast majority — more than 80% — lack any real commitment to their jobs. As many as one in five workers are actively disengaged — as Buckingham puts it, physically present at work but psychologically absent . A final word Despite the millions of pounds spent on remuneration and benefits, the energy devoted to leadership and management development programmes, the plethora of employee opinion surveys and all the well-meant pronouncements from executives that 'our core competency is our people', this research reveals that we are systematically mismanaging our employees. We don't engage them when they join our companies and, bizarrely, the longer they stay with us, the less engaged they become. As a nation we are not making use of our human capital. — Marcus Buckingham, People Management, 11 October 2001. Want to know more? Title: What a waste , by Marcus Buckingham, People Management, 11 October 2001. Availability: Contact the People Management subscriptions department, tel: 01795 414864 or jump to PM online . . . www.peoplemanagement.co.uk About Gallup's Q12 index Methodology: Gallup designed a 12-question survey following intensive research, using its employee attitude database. These 12 questions correlate significantly with outcome measures such as employee turnover, productivity and customer loyalty. Survey sample: The survey was undertaken during the first few months of 2001, based on a random sample of people in employment in Britain. To find out more about Gallup jump to . . . Posted 1 November 2001 |