“We don’t enough time.”
“We don’t have enough budget.”
“We don’t have enough resource.”
We get it.
Employee engagement strategies and surveys can seem overwhelming – like it’s going to take a whole team to manage, thousands of pounds to get started, and hours of your time to analyse results.
But it doesn’t have to be difficult (we make it easy), and trust us, the cost of not investing in employee engagement and having disengaged employee costs so much more.
In this article we’ll show you that you cannot put on a price on a happy team – that is infinitely more valuable than anything your business will ever invest in.
Low engagement costs the global economy $8.8 trillion dollars, or 9% of global GDP. 
It’s pretty straightforward – when you have happy and engaged employees, turnover reduces and retention increases.
Retention not only keeps your best and brightest from leaving, but it also saves companies from losing time and money recruiting, training, and onboarding new workers.
There’s plenty of research to indicate just how expensive having poor retention costs organisations, most research agrees that the turnover costs involved for replacing an employee is between 100% – 150% of their base salary – sometimes reaching as high as 200% for more senior positions.
When you compare those numbers to the cost of an employee engagement tool like Stribe – which costs an average of *£3 per employee, per month – you start to see the value of having such a product.
*Prices vary and can be lower or higher than the average stated cost. Please enquire for an accurate pricing for your organisation.
One of the reasons disengagement costs so much is because such a vast number of workers are quietly quitting.
A study by McKinsey found that quiet quitters can make up between a fifth and two fifths of an organisation’s workforce:
“…more than half of employees in large organisations were disengaged. Around 10% could be categorised as “quitters” – those who had already decided to leave. However, another 43% exhibited low satisfaction and commitment: 11% actively disengaged and likely to demoralise others – and a further 32% were “mildly disengaged” – fulfilling minimum job requirements but no more.”
Faced with these number, you must ask yourself, is it more cost-effective to invest in employee engagement or go without?
We know that low morale affects teams negatively in general – less productivity, less innovation, less customer-focused, less motivation and a higher chance of stress and burnout.
But recent studies are starting to quantify just how much it’s costing businesses in dollars and pounds.
Gallup estimates that disengaged employees cost organisations 18% of their annual salary.
So let’s say your company’s monthly payroll cost is £200,000, if just 10% of your workforce is disengaged, that would result in £3600 lost every month, or £43,200 annually.
Work-related stress is the leading causes of stress among adults in the UK.
Latest data from AXA UK and Centre of Economic and Business Research shows work-related stress and burnout is currently costing the UK economy £28 billion each year and resulting in more than 23 million sick days annually.
When it becomes clear just how much disengagement and stress is affecting our workplaces, it becomes almost impossible to justify a lack of effort towards employee engagement.
Organisations and their leaders must stop turning a blind eye start working towards solutions.
Work-related stress and burnout is currently costing the UK economy £28 billion each year.
We speak to organisations each and every day who struggle with pulling together budget and resource for engagement initiatives – or convincing their leaders that the ROI of employee engagement is truly worth it.
We guarantee showing them the research here will make them think otherwise.
But it’s important to recognise that it’s not all about simply avoiding disengagement, it’s about taking a long-term view towards creating happier and healthier teams.
Staff surveys are one of the simplest yet most effective tools for boosting employee engagement.
Not only will you actively work against the issues associated with disengagement, but by regularly gathering feedback through surveys, you will improve communication, trust, productivity, satisfaction and so much more for your employees.
Because it all boils down to the simple notion that when employees feel heard and acknowledged, their happiness at work improves. And any company that consistently seeks and acts upon employee feedback builds a strong employer brand.
If you’d like to learn more about how Stribe can help you get started on your employee engagement journey, book in a chat with our team, or check out our customer stories.
*Prices vary and can be lower or higher than the average stated cost. Please enquire for an accurate pricing for your organisation.
