Remote workers feel less connected to their company’s purpose now than they have since before the pandemic. But they still didn’t want to come to the office.
for each new Gallup poll Of the nearly 9,000 American workers with telecommuting jobs, only 28% of those who work remotely feel connected to their company’s mission — a 4% drop from last year. However, nearly a third (33%) of employees who go to the office every day say they feel connected; Not much difference.
The lack of a shared mission and goal between on-site employees and remote employees can hurt overall performance, writes Jim Harter, Gallup’s chief workplace scientist and author of the report. “Many employees’ relationships with employers are becoming increasingly ‘temporary’ and less loyal, which has potential implications for customer and employee retention, productivity and work quality.” In other words, there is little motivation to go further if you are not aligned with or supportive of the company’s mission.
Full-site employees reported the greatest gains in engagement, specifically in categories such as knowing what is expected of them, having the materials and equipment needed to carry out their work, and having the opportunity to do what they do best every day.
The best opportunity to pass this success on to remote workers, Harter wrote, would be “extraordinary managers.” And it’s the managers who communicate. in previous study Starting in May, Gallup determined that managers should have at least one meaningful conversation — 15 to 30 minutes long — per week with each worker. This chat should address appreciation, collaboration, goals, priorities, and current strengths of the worker.
But the secret sauce appears, as ever, to be a hybrid plan. Workers who commute on some days of the week reported the highest connection to company purpose; 35% of them tell Gallup that they feel their jobs are important.
Even if they don’t feel connected, remote workers aren’t too concerned about it. Gallup found that thirty percent of American workers with remote jobs work entirely from home, a number that has remained consistent year after year. (Nobody guesses if this year Mandates back to the offices on Labor Day It would have any effect on attendance at the office, which it certainly hasn’t the past three years.)
Although participation remains low overall, participation in general is beginning to rise; 34% of all US employees say they are engaged at work, up from 32% last year. In addition, the percentage of employees who are not actively engaged has fallen from 18% last year to 16% this year, Gallup found.
While Gallup has found that remote workers are more interested than their office counterparts, other data suggests that it’s not so clear cut. a December 2022 study From University of Texas professor Andrew Brodsky and product manager at software company Vyopta Mike Tolliver, they found that remote workers are, in fact, more linked, they meet more often and for a longer period of time than office workers. Their data indicated that “the increase in meetings was at least in part due to increased participation rather than the increased need to pretend to be working,” they wrote.
But again, meetings aren’t everything, let alone a strong predictor of engagement or empowerment. And according to Gallup Reports preparation Since earlier this year, stress has become associated with engagement, and stress levels in the American workforce have reached record levels. Gallup State of the global workplace report, released in June, found that 44% of employees feel “a lot” of stress. And in 2019, only 38% said the same. Gallup found that non-engaged workers reported experiencing 26% more stress than engaged employees.
Across the world, remote and hybrid workers were more likely to experience high stress than workers who worked entirely in person—despite of Report higher engagement rates. like luck Chloe Berger In other words, “It’s hard to feel involved in a job when you’re deeply unhappy.”
This story originally appeared on Fortune.com
