Disengaged at work? Survey results reveal you're not alone

Workers who are disengaged are less productive and cost businesses money. Photo / Getty

New Zealand employers need to address engagement issues in the workplace according to a just-released international survey.

Today, Peakon, an employee success platform, released its 2020 Employee Expectations report which reveals 63 percent of New Zealand employees describe themselves as "disengaged at work."

Peakon's APAC Director Luke Amundson said having an engaged workforce was one of the most important long term goals for any employer.

"Business success relies on employee engagement, so organisations must ensure they're properly using their employee data to reveal insights, identify new trends and drive strategic decisions," he said.

"The level of discussion we have seen from New Zealand employees demonstrates a real need to know that their voices are being heard, and their views acted upon."

The analysis of more than 14 million employee surveys worldwide also found climate change, wellbeing and flexible working all rose sharply in importance.

This was especially true in New Zealand.

In New Zealand, more than 255,000 employee surveys were analysed.

Diversity and inclusion at work were hot topics across New Zealand with a 44 percent spike in employee comments in the past 12 months.

In 2019, New Zealand workers left the second-highest number of employee comments on this topic, only behind Denmark.

The biggest area for growth in the New Zealand workplace was conversations around climate change with a 216 percent increase.

This was second only to Australia, which experienced a 220 percent spike in the past 12 months.

The increase in talk around climate change is more than double that seen in the UK (85%), and almost five times that of Germany, where concern grew by 42% in the past 12 months.

Peakon found that in New Zealand 62 percent of comments about climate change were of negative sentiment, whereas 24 percent of comments had a positive sentiment overall.

New Zealand employees were also the most vocal worldwide on the subject of Wellbeing.

New Zealand workplaces saw a 37 percent jump in employee comments on this topic.

This is more than double the rise experienced in other countries.

Flexible working was also a hot topic across New Zealand workplaces with the number of comments from New Zealand employees featuring flexible working-related terms jumped by 44%.

In New Zealand, around 56 percent of women and 49 percent of men would like to work from home according to figures from FigureNZ.