Time Spent At Work
According to a 2014 Gallup poll, 4 out of 10 Americans worked 50 hours a week. And 2 out of 10 worked 60 hours – and asked for no overtime pay. And it doesn’t just make them tired – overworking affects employee engagement too. A Stanford University study in 2015 showed that after 55 hours of working a week, productivity drops dramatically.
Time Spent In Commute
We’ve all heard those scary number about how much of our lives are spent in commute. But how does it really happen? A study by the Brookings Institution found that between 2000 and 2012, the number of available jobs in U.S. metro areas dropped by 7%, making the task of getting to work tougher as more people had to search farther for jobs.
In 1980 the average commute time was 21 minutes. In 2015 the average commute time was 26 minutes. Before 1990, the census did not separately track commutes longer than 60 minutes, because they were so rare. By 2014 those lengthy commutes had risen by 64%.
Vacation Time
The average American gets 10 paid days of vacation each year. But 40% of them don’t take them. A study in 2015 revealed that employees cite several different major reasons for not taking vacation. A third say they can’t afford it, 40% say they’re scared for the amount of work that will be waiting for them when they return, and another 35% think no one else can do their work.
Here’s where it gets scary. Employees that don’t take half of their paid vacation days are losing out on $1,300 each year!
Stress At Work
It’s no surprise that stress affects employee engagement. A recent study by meQuilibrium surveyed employees about their stress levels at work, and found that 31% had taken a day off from work simply because of stress. And when asked how they deal with that stress, 56% of employees say they work overtime, and 16% say they take long breaks. The worst part? 40% of them had quit a job at some point because of stress.
Time Spent In Meetings
Flickr user ibm4381
Meetings are usually a bummer, right? Turns out that it’s worse than you think. A study by Atlassian in 2014 found that employees attended an average of 62 meetings every month – and they considered half of those meetings to be a waste of time. The more meetings, the lower the employee engagement.
What’s even crazier is how people behave in meetings. 39% of the employees in the study reported sleeping during meetings and 73% reported doing other work during meetings. Yikes.
The bottom line? 31 hours a month are “wasted” by employees in meetings – which, by the way, translates to $37 BILLION wasted by companies!
Lunch Breaks/Snacks
Everyone knows food is fuel for working hard, but when things get busy at work, that seems to go out the window. A survey by Right Management found that only 19% of U.S. employees polled took regular lunch breaks, and 28% said they rarely take breaks at all to eat lunch. When employees don’t take breaks from working they run out of steam much faster and productivity goes down.
And when it comes to snacks, things are pretty bleak. A study by Peapod revealed that only 16 percent of employees have access to free snacks at work, and a huge majority of them (83%) think healthy snacks at their office would be a perk. Seems like the solution would be pretty simple, right?
Job Satisfaction
Almost everyone has moments when they aren’t exactly thrilled to be at our jobs. But it turns out that those moments might be more than just moments – and it’s been getting worse over the years. In 1987 61% of people surveyed by the Conference Board said they were happy with their job. In 2010 that number was only 42%.
And the employees themselves aren’t the only ones losing out. An average of $450-550 billion is wasted by employee dissatisfaction, through productivity loss, missed work and even stolen goods, according to a 2013 Gallup poll.
But don’t despair, because it turns out there could be a really simple solution. According to the Peapod study, 67% of people surveyed were happier at their jobs when they got free snacks!
So… Now What?
Employee engagement doesn’t just depend on money. Employees want to feel appreciated and valued! And that’s easier than you think. Try motivating employees with some awesome reward methods, or even some sweet office supplies to make work fun. And the next time you want to get your employees to bond, don’t try just any team-building exercises – these ones will make history.
What other shocking stats about employee engagement have you heard? Tell us in the comments below! And if you’d like to make YOUR employees happier every day, try a Love With Food office box!
