India’s Engagement Imperative

Human Behaviour is Largely Driven by Emotions

Today, if we were to ask these exceptional individuals why they made these special efforts their reply in nearly every case would be some form of expression of emotion. It could be their devotion to the people around them, a passion to serve their clients, a loyalty to their teams or a compulsion to fulfil the organisation’s mission. When it comes to discretionary effort, the driving force is frequently the result of a psychological commitment to our relationships.

Human beings are not strictly rational; rather, emotions play an important part in human decision-making and needs fulfilment. Employee commitment and motivation comprise a significant emotional dimension which organisations must measure and manage. Thus, when we define the key drivers of organisational performance, we must remember that simply satisfying employees by fulfilling their rational needs is not enough. Today’s constantly changing workplace requires organisations to heed their employees’ emotions by measuring and managing engagement.

Engagement is Predictive of Performance

Gallup’s Q12 Meta-Analysis: 11th Edition report highlights the relationship between workplace engagement and performance outcomes like customer loyalty/engagement, profitability, productivity, employee retention, safety incidents, absenteeism, shrinkage, patient safety, quality, well-being and organisational citizenship. Employee engagement is a leading indicator of business performance, making it the top imperative of leaders today to unleash the potential of their employees. Gallup’s meta-analysis reveals that the correlations between engagement and performance outcomes are consistent across countries, industries, organisations and teams.

A meta-analysis is a statistical technique used to combine the results of many studies together to reach stronger conclusions than with an individual study.

Notwithstanding the importance of employee engagement to organisational performance, currently, less than a quarter (23%) of the global workforce is engaged according to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace: 2024 report. This annual report provides insights and data on employee engagement, well-being and workplace trends across the world. Gallup estimates that low employee engagement costs the global economy US$8.9 trillion, or 9% of global GDP.

In India, 32% of employees are engaged, a figure that outpaces the global average and has been increasing in recent years. Driven by strong per-capita GDP and the demographic dividend boosting the country’s productivity, India is on a trajectory of robust economic growth. But is this enough to achieve a sustainable global leader status?

About two in three Indian employees are not engaged (48%) or actively disengaged (19%). Meanwhile, just 14% of Indian employees are ‘thriving’, according to Gallup’s Life Evaluation Index—far lower than the 34% global average. This index is based on two questions about how employees rate their current and expected future lives, using the 0–10 Best Possible Life Scale items based on the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale.

While relatively few Indian employees are ‘thriving’, more than a third have experienced daily anger (35%) and stress (32%). An even greater 42% report having experienced sadness a lot of the previous day. This paradox of relatively high engagement but low rates of thriving employees presents an opportunity to reframe and redefine how we measure employee engagement in our workplaces.

Use Precise Metrics to Measure What Matters

Conflating ‘agree’ and ‘strongly agree’ responses can artificially boost positive engagement survey results, when in fact each may reflect a vastly different employee perception of the workplace. Using ‘low-bar’ per cent favourable measures that combine ‘4’ and ‘5’ responses on a five-point Likert scale results in exaggeratedly high scores and can conceal blind spots, giving the appearance of high engagement. When organisations use inadequate measures of employee engagement, they risk creating an echo chamber that amplifies confirmation bias and actively prevents them from making their workplaces exceptional.

Organisations need to adopt higher-order metrics—particularly considering the changed expectations of today’s workforce—that have a connection to productivity and other performance outcomes, or to employee well-being metrics that are important for sustainability. Employees need more than a fleeting warm and fuzzy feeling and a good paycheck (even if these may encourage them to respond positively to employee engagement survey questions) to invest in their work and achieve more for their employer. Employees want clarity of expectations, purpose and meaning in their work. They want to be recognised for what makes them unique. And they want strong relationships, particularly with a manager who can coach and inspire them to reach the next level.

People want purpose and meaning from their work. They want to be known for what they’re good at.

It is important to acknowledge the amount of investment and energy HR and organisational leaders may be putting into employee engagement, with the results of these efforts not meeting their expectations. An engagement survey can be compared to a set of medical tests aimed at diagnosing a patient’s disease, enabling doctors to prescribe a specific treatment or medication based on the results. However, using the wrong tests could lead to a misdiagnosis of the patient’s condition.

There are many examples of organisations implementing tactical interventions based on data that are either erroneous or of inadequate quality, and which offer weak insights and do not help change how employees think and feel about their workplaces. Organisations need engagement metrics that accurately portray the true state of the organisation and provide actionable insights for leaders and managers to address workplace issues.

Managers are Key to Engagement

Despite using robust metrics and making significant investments in engagement initiatives, organisations often do not realise the results they expect to achieve. Workplace engagement programmes often fail because employee engagement is considered ‘an HR thing’ that is not owned by leaders, does not involve managers and is not clearly understood by front-line employees. This can cause some organisations to think engagement has been exhausted as a performance lever before exploiting its full potential to change their culture and business.

Gallup’s research shows that 70% of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager. Managers play a key role in driving team engagement, with HR acting as an enabler and facilitator championed by organisational leadership. Managers ensure that employees are supported, have clarity about what work needs to be done and can see how their work connects to organisational success. To engage their teams consistently, managers need to have ongoing coaching conversations with employees. Unfortunately, most managers do not know how to make one-to-one conversations meaningful for employees, so their actions are more likely to be interpreted as micromanaging without providing the right tools and direction.

It is not enough for leaders simply to tell managers to own team engagement and coach their people. Leaders must also redefine managers’ roles and expectations, and provide training, resources and development needed for them to coach effectively and meet new expectations. Managers also need support to create evaluation practices that will help them accurately measure performance, hold employees accountable and coach them for the future.

Another barrier to improving employee engagement is an over-reliance on pulse surveys, with little or no follow-up. To gain positive momentum and improve engagement, organisations must ask employees for meaningful feedback, then take meaningful action and continually share the results of these actions. Employee engagement survey and reporting software can be a valuable tool, but it is important to remember that it represents one segment of a continuous journey of action planning and accountability required to drive engagement. Many engagement platforms offer helpful action items and advice for leaders and managers to increase team engagement. Using these resources and taking tangible actions will support creating real change on the ground.

Low Engagement is not a Foregone Conclusion

When studying best practice organisations, Gallup found their average proportion of engaged employees to be around 65% and increasing annually. And by being in the 90th percentile of Gallup’s database, a work unit has a 71% chance of above-average performance relative to other business units. But there are no quick fixes when it comes to human relationships.

It takes a sustained effort to build a truly thriving culture of engagement. And that effort is required right now, given the growing concerns about a global mental health crisis that disproportionately impacts young people.

A study conducted by ICICI Lombard, one of India’s largest general insurers, suggested that Gen Z and millennial Indians are far more prone to stress and anxiety than older generations. Further, Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace: 2024 report indicates fewer younger workers globally (those below 35 years of age) are thriving compared with older employees 35 or older. These younger workers are more likely to experience loneliness, anger and other negative emotions. Toxic or suboptimal workplace cultures play a role in causing stress and anxiety. With the ILO reporting that Indians worked an average of over 2,000 hours annually—much higher than the United States, Brazil and Germany—the Indian workforce is at a potentially greater risk of psychosocial hazards which, aside from their impact on employees, can hamper the nation’s long-term productivity and growth.

Infosys founder N. R. Narayana Murthy’s recent urging of young Indians to work 70 hours a week in service of their country has sparked an intense national debate. Commenting that India’s productivity is one of the lowest in the world, Murthy stated, ‘Therefore, my request is that our youngsters must say, “This is my country; I’d like to work 70 hours a week.”’

Gallup research on employee burnout shows that the number of hours people work each week does matter, but the way in which employees experience their workload has a greater influence on burnout—and engagement—than total hours worked. Therefore, employee engagement is related less to how many hours an employee works than why they work and whether their workplace environment makes them feel valued and offers an opportunity to contribute to the mission or purpose of the organisation. Engagement also depends on good manager coaching and how well employees feel their manager supports their development journey.

By focusing on how to strengthen employees’ emotional connections to their organisation and workplace, we can create a workforce that is not only productive but also motivated to make a meaningful difference.