The Shift | June 22nd

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COMING UP IN THIS ISSUE...??

• The good and bad news from Gallup’s new employee engagement findings
• Tips for effective employee benefits packages
• AI on the frontline: why more training is required

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THE LATEST EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT STATS

Employees globally are more engaged in 2023...

The global employee engagement rate is now 23%, according to?Gallup’s latest research . This is the highest average rate since Gallup’s research began, but best-practice organizations are seeing rates as high as 72% and certain regions are out-performing others.

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Europe’s employee engagement rate is the lowest at 13%, for example, while the US and Canada score 31%, and Australia and New Zealand 23%.

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So what can organizations do to increase their scores this year??According to Gallup,??most employees are neither engaged nor actively disengaged:?“They are filling a seat but have yet to take ownership of their work”?suggesting that employee?enablement?is important to increase engagement. Secondly,?“The manager is the linchpin of engagement. Seventy percent of team engagement is attributable to the manager.?But many or most managers are quiet quitting too. They are waiting for the tools to build great teams.”

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Read Blink’s?complete guide to engaging frontline managers here .

... but employees are also more stressed

Staying with Gallup’s survey, stress is also high among global employees.?44% of employees say they felt “a lot” of stress the day before being surveyed — a number that’s unchanged since 2021 and up a point since 2020.

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The link between stress and engagement is clear from Gallup’s findings. “Engagement has 3.8 times as much influence on employee stress as work location. In other words,?what people experience in their every day work — their feelings of involvement and enthusiasm — matters more in reducing stress than where they are sitting.”

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We look at how to design a wellbeing plan that works for frontline employees (and leaders) in our guide:?How to get budget and buy-in for frontline employee wellbeing.

FRONTLINE BENEFITS AND RETENTION

What matters to employees during a recession?

America’s booming job market might be keeping the country?out of a recession , but organizations still have to be strategic with company spend. High inflation is adding pressure for both parties: it's driving up the cost of doing business for employers, while employees are seeing their paychecks not go as far.

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This challenge was discussed at SHRM’s Annual Conference & Expo on June 13th, where?95% of employers ?said they are reconsidering benefit strategies and 47% are trimming their benefits.

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Organizations need to find a sweet spot. Any benefits package should add more value than it takes away, so employers need to understand which benefits and offers are going to have the?greatest impact on frontline employees to help boost retention. The advice from SHRM’s speakers included:

• Ask employees what their pain points are.?Don’t ask them about the?specific?benefits they want — they are not benefits experts! "You need to ask them questions about the pain points that are distracting them outside of work. Ask them, 'If there's one thing that could alleviate the stress that you feel, what would that be?'"
• Leverage first-line managers.?"Your managers are the frontline experts knowing what's going on with your employees. They can help drive participation in the surveys; they can help encourage employees to answer those honestly."

FRONTLINE TRANSFORMATION

AI on the frontline

Frontline organizations are headed for an AI revolution (if they're not there already). The use of Artificial Intelligence in manufacturing, for example, has delivered a wealth of benefits known as Industry 4.0, and yet a significant number of frontline employees (42%) ?are concerned.

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For some, the introduction of AI leaves their role less clear (and less secure). If you’ve watched episode one of the Netflix program ‘Working: What We Do All Day’, you’ll have seen hotel staff speaking with a union leader about what AI means for them. Perhaps it's this uncertainty that makes the idea of AI more intimidating.

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Only 14% of frontline employees have had training on how AI will or could be used in their role.?Investing in more training could be an effective, meaningful way of alleviating concerns around the AI revolution.

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(If you've not seen Working: What We Do All Day' check out the trailer in?the last edition of The Shift .)

In case you missed it

Got 45 seconds to spare? Here, we tell the story of how Blink’s frontline super-app has transformed culture and communication at the multi-site healthcare logistics organization, Medequip.

And?don't forget to?register for The Shift LIVE, ?where Blink's Head of Implementation, MJ Moore, will be answering your questions about?how to implement a frontline employee app.

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