Article: The 2017 Employee Engagement Report

Employee Engagement

The 2017 Employee Engagement Report

The report will prove to be a rather treasured source for the HR community worldwide grappling with engaging their employees and ensuring their happiness. This years edition is even more so important for it rightly expresses the challenges that are present today in employee engagement.
The 2017 Employee Engagement Report

The 2017 edition of the Employee Engagement Report by TINYpulse talks about what employee engagement means today, and where we stand.

The Broken Bridges of the Workplace: 2017 Employee Engagement Report by TINYpulse makes for an interesting reading, for it delves deep into what employee engagement means in today’s world, and what are the challenges to the same. The study is based on the responses of over a million anonymous employees from a 1,000 organisations all over the world. Following are the major findings of the report:

The Importance of Culture and having fun: On the factors that were most essential to employee happiness, having fun at work and workplace culture were the toppers, whereas, unexpectedly, fairness and competitiveness of benefits and flexibility in schedule were placed at the bottom of the list. Furthermore, a happier employee is not only likelier to stick around for longer, but also refer talent more effectively. 

The Colleague Connection: There is an 11% drop from last year in the number of employees who strongly feel connected to their colleagues. Additionally, only 27% of the respondents were of the opinion that their organisation is doing a great job at team building efforts. It says, “There was a common theme among employees’ responses — people felt connected to their immediate team, but not to other departments or those they don’t work with on a daily basis... Management’s failure to foster cross-functional relationships is increasing the gap between departments.”

Employees feel less valued: Only 26% of the employees surveyed felt valued at their workplace – a drop of 16% from last year – in addition to only 68% feeling valued the last time they went an extra mile, and 69% receiving recognition from their supervisor in the last two weeks. The report says, “Employees aren’t receiving the recognition they deserve. And when they are, they’re not receiving it in a timely manner.”

Transparency is missing: Only about half the respondents (49%) believe that their career path is clear to them, as opposed to 62% of the managers who believe the same. Furthermore, despite being the third most important factor for employee happiness, career development opportunities for personal growth are adequate for only 26% of the employees – as opposed to 50% of the managers. All these figures are contextualised by this piece of data: Only 25% of the employees feel their management in transparent, as compared to 42% managers.

Performance Reviews not up to par: A measly 21% of the million respondents believe that the performance review process in their company is good. Of the remaining 79% who believe the processes aren’t good, the top three reasons for the same are: No mention of promotions or career developments, lack of valuable feedback, and un-timeliness. The report states, “... Their top complaint was that there was no mention of long-term opportunities with the company, such as promotions or development opportunities. This ranges from employees not understanding how to get a promotion to people unsure of their career paths.”

The relationship between Employee Engagement and Performance: Frequent and transparent from managers increases constant visibility, eliminates the anxious waiting game, thereby discussing challenges more openly and finding solutions timely. Timely recognition is enjoyed when goals are met or exceeded, and employees feel better about their workplace when their opinion is valued. All these factors improve work performance, and thereby, if done well, performance reviews can engage employees rather efficiently.

The report concludes with a few pointers that you can begin working on right away to improve employee engagement. These include:

  • Consistently measure how your employees feel about the work culture
  • Establish more team-building activities throughout the organization to build bridges between peers across all departments
  • Recognize employees for their efforts or go a step further and implement a peer-to-peer recognition program so no good deed goes unnoticed
  • Sit down with employees and work with them to map out career paths
  • Invest in both internal and external development opportunities to ensure professional growth
  • Hold regular 1:1 meetings with employees to provide valuable and timely feedback on their performance


The report will prove to be a rather treasured source for the HR community worldwide grappling with engaging their employees and ensuring their happiness. This year’s edition is even more so important for it rightly expresses the challenges that are present today in employee engagement, with declining co-worker interaction, lack of transparency and inefficient performance review processes. The report rightly concludes, “Every leader wants to bring out the best in their employees and have a high-performing team. In order to do so, you need to start making the necessary changes to build a stellar workplace where employees thrive.”

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Topics: Employee Engagement

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