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The Global Workforce Study conducted by professional services firm, Towers Perrin, found that of the 5,000 UK employees surveyed, less than one-third believe that senior management communicates openly and honestly with employees and two-thirds feel that senior leaders "treat us as just another part of the organisation to be managed" or "as if we don't matter."

Furthermore the report revealed that only 29 per cent of UK employees thought that senior management had a sincere interest in employee satisfaction and well-being. This suggests that staff would be willing to give more at work if their senior leaders demonstrated a stronger interest in their well-being, made themselves more accessible, and adopted a more open and honest style of communication. These and other findings contradict the long held assumption that direct line managers are the decisive factor in unlocking the full potential of the workforce.

Reap the benefits 

Jim Crawley, reward practice leader at Towers Perrin said: "It is vital that senior leadership at UK plc focuses on building and winning the respect and goodwill of its employees. If companies act quickly to address the issues this report identifies, they can reap the benefits that a high performing and fully engaged workforce can bring – which includes financial results such as increases in operating income by an average of 19 per cent year on year."

One further key finding to emerge from the study was that employees are increasingly concerned about the reputation of the organisation they are working for, which has a stronger than ever impact on their levels of engagement, and their desire to provide discretionary effort.

The study provides strong evidence that UK employees are motivated by working for an organisation that has a good reputation for social responsibility. In fact, an organisation’s reputation for social responsibility was a top five UK engagement driver.

Effective HR strategy

The Towers Perrin Global Workforce Study showed that the more engaged employees are, the more likely they will be to stay with their current employer. For example, only 3 in 10 UK workers say that they have no plans to leave their current employer, but this rises to 6 in 10 among fully engaged employees.  

"It's impossible to overstate the importance of deploying an effective HR strategy and the influence this can have on a company's business performance," Crawley continued. "At a time when companies are looking for every source of competitive advantage, the workforce itself represents the largest reservoir of untapped potential, and senior managers need to rise to the challenge."

Julie Gebauer, Towers Perrin managing director, points out that organisations face something she has labelled an “engagement gap.” They are not getting the discretionary effort they need from their people to drive their performance and growth agendas, and this is hurting both their top and bottom lines.

Globally, only 21 per cent of the workers surveyed are engaged, meaning they are freely giving their time, energy, creativity and knowledge to their work. Gebauer says that that is a disturbingly small number when the impact people have on a business and its customers is taken into account.

Implications for performance 

“Worse yet, 38 per cent are either wholly or partly disengaged, meaning they might not know the right things to do to add value to the company or they might be doing just the minimum to get by. Play those percentages out across a large workforce, and it’s easy to see the implications for performance, especially if large numbers of those disengaged people are in customer-facing or strategically important roles,” Gebauer concludes.

The Towers Perrin Global Workforce Study surveyed nearly 90,000 people in 18 countries, with over 5,000 respondents from the UK. It uses an analytic model to calculate both engagement levels and the impact that those levels have on performance, retention and many other factors.

Related links

• Towers Perrin
• Towers Perrin Global Workforce Study