The number that screams out to me is that 71% of employees are not fully engaged.  This roughly parallels the classic 80/20 rule, although in this case it's 70/30.  When functional level within the organization was factored in, the survey found that VP's and above have 47% engagement levels, which still implies that 53% of VP's and CEO's are less than fully engaged in their positions.  If more than half of the leadership isn't fully engaged, then it explains the overall level of 29%... it's difficult to align your personal satisfaction and goals with a leadership that isn't aligned either.

So, why should we care if employees are 'engaged' when Woody Allen said 80% of doing a job is 'just showing up'?  Well, BlessingWhite compared Earnings per Share history across companies with varying level of engagement.  Turns out those companies with higher engagement levels experienced an EPS growth rate of 28%, versus a DECLINE of EPS of 11% in low-engagement firms.  Improving engagement levels apparently works!

One other big benefit.  BlessingWhite found that fully engaged employees were 85% committed to staying with their current employer.  The almost engaged group was 70% committed to staying and the remaining groups dropped off significantly from there.  The implication is that retaining quality talent requires attention to the engagement level of those employees.  With the cost of replacing an employee ranging from 100% to 300% of their annual income, engaging and keeping an employee is by far the best RIO of any management tool you could employ.  Developing management training and communication tools that improves alignment between company goals and employee goals will go a long way towards improving engagement levels.  In far too many companies, it's not clear what the company goals are.  Maybe the first step for any company is to simply define what the company goals are and then ask each employee if they feel they can contribute to achieving those goals.