The Cost of Employee Disengagement

by Kylee Stone Mar 24,2015
Engagedly
PODCAST

The People Strategy Leaders Podcast

with Srikant Chellappa, CEO

Employee disengagement is the silent killer that falls in any organization. It might sound dramatic, but it’s true. Disengaged employees leave the organization, eventually. As per recent research by SHRM, organizations lose about $5000 every time an employee leaves.

What is employee disengagement? It is a phenomenon where employees don’t feel any sense of allegiance or commitment to an organization. They are often disinterested in their work and don’t really care about organizational goals, values, vision, or mission.

Engaged employees are employees who are active within the organization. Disengaged employees are not. So what is the cost of employee disengagement and how does it kill an organization? Read on to find out.

1. Decreases The Morale of Others

To put it bluntly, a disengaged employee is a bad apple in a basket of shiny, red apples. Some disengaged employees keep to themselves. Others tend to drag the people around them down with them by disrupting them, feeding them manipulative ideas, and in general, being unhelpful and difficult. One disengaged employee might create another 3 to 4 disengaged employees.

Also Read: Performance Reviews: A Manager’s Guide

2. Disrupts Workplace Harmony

Engaged employees can make an organization hum. Disengaged employees can throw a spanner in the works. When the harmony in a workplace disrupts, an employee’s output and productivity can drastically decrease. Employees cannot focus on the work at hand, which in turn influences an organization’s overall productivity.

3. The Organization Stagnates with Employee Disengagement

Engaged employees are constantly innovating and coming up with alternative ways for the company to move ahead. Disengaged employees do the exact opposite. They are completely cut off from their organization’s values and objectives and have nothing of value to offer. When there are no new ideas or innovations on the horizon, an organization stagnates and falls behind.

4. Unhappy Customers

Disengaged employees will not help customers or get you new ones. When customers do not feel appreciated or do not get the help they are seeking, they tend to become unhappy. And unhappy customers do not stay with organizations that make them unhappy. They will move on to other organizations that treat them better.

Also Read: 3 Simple Tips To Manage Your Remote Team

5. A Drop In Profits

Disengaged employees are costly. And tend to be a drain on a company’s time and resources. Unlike engaged employees who are invested in not only their careers but even the well-being of the company, disengaged employees do not care. They have no interest in the company and they are content to put in the least possible effort, therefore seriously affecting an organization’s performance.

For the longest time now, employee engagement has been a corporate buzzword. Organizations tend to throw it around without realizing that there is another aspect to it too – that of disengagement. Disengaged employees are extremely harmful to an organization’s health, and it’s time that organizations take stock of the problem and figure out ways to fix it.

How do you think employee disengagement can be reduced? Please share your thoughts with us!


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Kylee Stone

Kylee Stone supports the professional services team as a CX intern and psychology SME. She leverages her innate creativity with extensive background in psychology to support client experience and organizational functions. Kylee is completing her master’s degree in Industrial-Organizational psychology at the University of Missouri Science and Technology emphasizing in Applied workplace psychology and Statistical Methods.

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