Employee engagement hits 11-year low in U.S. — Gallup survey

WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES — U.S. workforce engagement has declined to its lowest point in over a decade, with 4.8 million fewer employees feeling engaged in their roles as of early 2024, according to a recent Gallup study.

The analytics firm found that only 30% of U.S. workers were “highly engaged” in the first quarter of 2024. 

The decline has been most notable among remote, hybrid, and younger workers, especially those under 35 and from Generation Z. This group has reported a six-point decrease in feeling connected to their company’s culture and mission. 

Overall, the U.S. now has a ratio of 1.8 engaged employees for every one actively disengaged, a slip from the previous year’s ratio of 2.1-to-1.

“Employee engagement trends are significant because they link to many important performance outcomes crucial to organizational leaders such as productivity, employee retention, customer service, safety incidents, quality of work and profitability,” the report said.

Last year, the level of engaged employees stagnated at 33%, with $1.9 trillion in lost productivity.

The engagement crisis appears to be impacting companies across industries and geographies. However, Gallup notes that top-performing organizations have been able to “buck the downward trend” by fostering strong workplace cultures.

These successful organizations emphasize a strategic and intentional approach to building their workplace cultures, including flexible hybrid environments with clear expectations, robust onboarding, and holistic wellbeing programs.

“These top-performing organizations average 70% engaged employees and a ratio of 14 engaged to every actively disengaged employee, more than seven times the U.S. average,” the report added.

Meanwhile, U.S. companies are increasingly focused on measuring and improving the employee experience, according to new research from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).