Disengaged Employees can Cost the Company Millions

Everyone who has been in a typical workplace is familiar with the three basic types of employees – engaged, disengaged, and actively disengaged. You’ve probably seen, worked with, and/or worked for one or all of these people. However, you may be unfamiliar with these terms and their true meaning to you and your company.

Engaged employees love their jobs and believe in their employer, the company’s goals, and the manner in which they conduct business. Often exhibiting high levels of passion and creativity, engaged employees believe they create value and management holds the same belief. They express confidence in their abilities, pride in their performance, and a connection to the company’s products and services. They typically exert a positive influence on the performance of their co-workers and subordinates.

Disengaged employees (also called "not-engaged") look at their jobs as trading time for dollars. They show up for work at the proper time, leave the workplace at the agreed upon time, and do little in between beyond the minimum effort required to complete their job. They exhibit little passion or creativity, typically going through the motions of completing their daily duties. Most disengaged employees neither improve nor detract from staff performance, as they tend to do their jobs quietly. They do not often see their job or their employer as a long-term situation, possibly even believing they are in the wrong career or industry.

Actively disengaged employees are the true problem area of staff chemistry and company performance. Not only unhappy at work, they typically demonstrate, in word and deed, their dislike of their jobs and/or employer. They often undermine the performance of the engaged employees by voicing their displeasure and the many reasons behind it. This negative attitude can often cause operational and performance issues with the rest of their co-workers. The cliché, "one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch," was never more true than when actively disengaged employees are allowed to voice their unhappiness to all those willing to listen.

Fortunately, actively disengaged employees typically constitute only 15% or less of total staff. Yet these workers can have a disproportionate effect on the positive contributions of the engaged employees (usually around 25% to 30% of staff). Even if a company’s engaged employees are strong-minded and committed, actively disengaged personnel can have a dangerous negative effect on the typically 55% to 60% of not-engaged staff.

How Actively Disengaged Employees Cost Money and More

Actively disengaged employees often cost employers more than team chemistry. They can cost a company thousands, if not millions of dollars. For example, The Gallup Organization, conducted a wide-ranging study over a five-year period regarding employee beliefs and actions. During the survey period, the cost to companies of keeping actively disengaged employees was tracked and monitored. Gallup estimates that the decreased productivity and performance fostered by actively disengaged employees’ costs U.S. businesses around $300 BILLION annually!

Unlike the often-termed "sleep walking" behaviour of the not-engaged staff, actively disengaged employees act out their lack of job satisfaction, thereby generating decreased productivity in many co-workers surrounding them. Even after management learns of the existence of one or more actively disengaged employees, executives must often tread carefully with their plans to diminish or eliminate the effects of these people.

Depending on the company’s industry, size, current market position, competition, location, staff composition, or other factors, management may have a relatively easy or impossibly difficult time in fixing or eliminating the problem. Union contracts, local labour laws, diversity, and/or tenure designations can often make the elimination of actively disengaged employees a challenge.

Ignoring actively disengaged employees is usually the wrong action plan. The cost of their lack of personal productivity and the effect they have on the performance of other staff members is too great. Management should make every attempt to identify those actively disengaged employees and take all appropriate actions to correct the problem as quickly and painlessly as possible.