What’s behind the “disengagement crisis” facing white-collar workers?

Dubbed the “Great Disconnection”, white-collar workers in the UK are increasingly disengaged from their workplace – and the resulting financial impact cannot be understated.

In the wake of the pandemic, the figures show that a shocking 60% of white-collar workers feel disengaged from their workplace. This comes despite the efforts made by many firms to instil a post-pandemic work culture fit for hybrid work.

The research, conducted by recruitment consultancy Robert Walters, found that reasons for the crisis centre around a feeling that the workplace has become unrecognisable over the past 12 months.

Key reasons for this feeling include high staff turnover (54%), less people coming into the office (49%), and a subsequent decline in team socials (43%). As well as this, a gloomy economic outlook (32%) and the appeal of moving abroad (28%) is causing employees to disconnect from the workplace – investing less of their personal selves and opting to simply “get their head down” and “get the work done”.

“I was somewhat surprised to see the findings from our research – especially given the investment made by employers into workplace culture over the past 3-5 years, as well as the more recent focus on luring workers back into the office,” said Toby Fowlston, CEO of Robert Walters. He added:

“What is apparent here is the traditional tactics used to build a lively, inclusive, and social workplace culture are simply not cutting it. The hybrid-working world and subsequent decline in office attendance is having a detrimental impact on employee engagement and companies must act fast to keep employees engaged and attract the best professionals.”

Disengaged employees cost the UK economy over £340 billion every year in lost training and recruitment costs, sick days, productivity, creativity, and innovation, according to an estimate from Perkbox.

The research also reveals that a disengaged employee costs an estimated fifth of their annual salary. For example, one disengaged worker on an average salary of £35,000 will cost a business £7,000.

Yet, in spite of the obvious cost, the tightest labour market seen in over a decade has led to employers feeling nervous about losing employees, therefore offering disengaged employees pay hikes in order to retain them.

In fact, it has been a record summer of mid-year salary increases for white-collar professionals, with almost a third reporting that they received either a 5-10% pay increase or a spot bonus up to £1,000, say Robert Walters. However, according to Fowlston, such pay rises to increase engagement are a “short-term remedy”. He concluded:

“Much greater focus needs to be given to the wider topic of employee engagement – which should no longer be considered as a ‘buzz word’ or an intangible, immeasurable HR concept that is a ‘nice to have’.

Employee engagement is a key driver of motivation, commitment and productivity in the workplace – in a business sense employers need to appreciate that it really does impact the bottom line.”