US workers increasingly more detached from their employers: Gallup

U.S. workers are growing increasingly more detached from their employers, according to new data published Wednesday by Gallup.

Less than one-third — 30 percent — of full-time and part-time U.S. employees in the Gallup survey reported feeling engaged at work, dropping 3 points from the 33 percent of workers who said they felt engaged in a survey conducted at the end of 2023.

The share of employees who said they were actively disengaged at work remained unchanged in the first quarter of 2024 from the fourth quarter of 2023 — at 17 percent. The fourth quarter of 2023, however, was up slightly from the year’s overall average of actively disengaged workers, which was 16 percent.

In studying employee engagement, Gallup tracks the ratio between those engaged and those actively disengaged.

In the first quarter of 2024, that ratio fell to the lowest in 11 years. As of the most recent survey, there were 1.8 engaged employees for every actively disengaged employee. That’s down from the first quarter of 2023, when there were 2.1 engaged employees for every actively engaged employee.

In 2013, there were 1.6 engaged workers for every actively disengaged employee, with 30 percent of workers engaged and 19 percent actively disengaged.

Gallup, which studied the “best-run” and “top-performing” organizations, said the most successful strategies include creating a hybrid work environment that fits the company culture. Employees are also most engaged when they are “supported by coaching managers who combine flexibility with accountability,” Gallup said.

The Gallup survey for the first quarter was conducted in February 2024 and included a random sample of 18,708 adults using self-administered web surveys. The margin of error is plus or minus 1.1 percentage points.