Most employees not engaged at work

According to Gallup's 142-country study on the State of the Global Workplace 2011-2012, only 13 percent of employees worldwide are psychologically committed to their jobs. In China, the situation is even worse with less than half the global average making positive contributions to their workplace. There are two reasons for this, says an article in Guangming Daily. Excerpts:

According to a recent Gallup employee survey, only 13 percent of employees worldwide feel engaged at work. However, in China the percentage is even less, with the majority of employees, 68 percent, not engaged with their work, and 26 percent actively disengaged, only 6 percent said they are engaged. Although the results of the survey were unpopular among Chinese, attention should be paid to the reasons for such low engagement, which may help us to improve organizations.

From the perspective of China's industrial structure, China has become the world's factory during the past 30 years. Although transformation of the economic structure is taking place, manufacturing and construction are still the core of China's industrial structure, and employee engagement, particularly in construction, is naturally low.

Moreover, the vast majority of Chinese enterprises still favor the traditional management model, which places little importance on the human factor, so employees lack a sense of belonging. Thus it is difficult to increase employee engagement.

From the perspective of individuals, it is hard to be stimulated if the employee just treats his or her career as a tool to make a living. Without creativity, employees are just like the parts on an assembly line that are at certain fixed points, as a result, they are probably not engaged. In such a state, they are passively working-hard, but lack any passion for their work.

In order to resolve this problem, employers and employees need to change their outlooks. Meanwhile, it calls for the efforts to narrow the gap in welfare between the employees of State-owned enterprises and employees of private companies, and the gap in income between managers and workers. Before the transformation of industrial structure has been completed, internal and external equity should be ensured.