2022 Kincentric Report on Global Trends in Employee Engagement reveals challenging environment for employee engagement, leading to an Era of Opportunity for HR Professionals to Transform Organizations

DEERFIELD, Ill., July 19, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Kincentric, a Spencer Stuart company that uses data-driven insights to help organizations unlock the power of people and teams, today released a large-scale report on employee engagement trends over the past three years based on input from 12 million employees in more than 125 countries. The 2022 Kincentric Report on Global Trends in Engagement shows that while employee engagement levels year-over-year appear relatively stable, engagement has varied greatly from quarter to quarter, reflecting the turbulence of the world events that have had a significant impact on workers around the globe.  

The report finds that employees' engagement rates peaked at 73% in Q2 2020, before falling to 67% by Q4. After maintaining rates ranging from 65%-69% in 2021, employee engagement fell to 62% in Q1 of 2022. Notably, workers' desire to stay within their current organization continues to decrease, indicating that turnover may remain a persistent challenge – and middle managers are feeling more pressure than ever, with a 10-point decline in work-life balance compared to 2019. 

"The last few years have seen an unprecedented amount of disruption, from the ongoing pandemic to global social unrest; to that end, we've also seen a huge shift in how, when and where people work," said Jeff Jolton, Managing Director, Research and Insights at Kincentric. "This report outlines the specific changes unfolding in real-time, on a global scale."  

"While there are indicators of decreasing levels of employee engagement in the data, we have also identified areas of tremendous potential for organizations to build employee-centric systems, structures and processes that will meet the needs of the transformed workplace. These challenges present an era of opportunity for organizational leadership and the Human Resources function as drastic changes in ways of working can impact company performance." 

Other key results from the global study include:  

• Concern about lack of support: Only 50% of employees feel their organization has sufficient staffing to get work done. 
• A compelling vision of the future is a game changer: Employees reported 8x higher engagement when senior leaders made them feel excited about the future. 
• Employees want to know how they fit in. As employees deal with a changing environment, they want to better understand where they fit into the future of the organization. However only 59% feel recognized for their efforts and just 54% believe they have future career opportunities at their company.  

"The findings indicate that no one thing alone makes for a great work experience. Rather, it is the culmination of multiple and simultaneous active Employee Experience initiatives such as recognition, career development, performance management, effective infrastructure and staffing, communicating vision, caring leadership and a positive mindset around change that correlate positively with the degree of Employee Engagement and enable organizations to successfully engage and retain their employees. Now is the time for business and HR leaders to assess, determine the right steps to take for their culture, and ultimately empower and inspire their people," said Jolton. 

For more information or to view the full report, please visit here. 

About Kincentric

Kincentric, a Spencer Stuart Company, helps organizations unlock the power of people and teams to ignite change and drive better business results. With decades of experience and specialist expertise in areas such as culture, employee engagement, leadership assessment and development, HR and talent advisory, and diversity, equity and inclusion, Kincentric uses data-driven insights to architect solutions that add value, enhance agility and increase organizational effectiveness. For more information, visit kincentric.com. 

For more information: kincentric@edelman.com