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Are you feeling increasingly disconnected from work, or even bordering on “quiet quitting”? If so, you wouldn’t be the only one. Employee engagement has fallen to its lowest point in 11 years, according to a new Gallup analysis, with Gen Z employees showing the biggest drop.
Engagement, defined by Gallup as the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in both their work and workplace, dropped 3 percentage points to 30% in the first quarter of 2024. In real numbers, that means about 4.8 million fewer workers are engaged with their work. While the United States still has some of the highest employee engagement rates, things like poor managers, a lack of growth opportunities and news of layoffs continue to weigh on employees.
Another kicker: The analysis also found that employees felt disengaged at both ends of the return-to-office spectrum, so it didn’t matter if workers were either fully remote or in-office full time, but the in-person folks with jobs that could be performed remotely saw the biggest engagement drop.
All told, the findings “suggest that physical distance is becoming mental distance, and then on the other end, people see others with remote-ready jobs who have flexibility and they don’t,” Jim Harter, chief scientist of workplace and well-being at Gallup, told Forbes’ Jena McGregor. “I think that's causing some disengagement.”
Workplace flexibility has been a key ask of disconnected or disengaged workers across a number of studies. A March report by McKinsey found that a majority of respondents using AI in their workplace found themselves to be more productive, but were looking to change jobs due to the lack of flexibility in their schedules, or not finding their work meaningful.
And it’s in the best interest of companies to invest in workers, whether that be in more flexible hours, higher compensation or promotion opportunities. Gallup found that engaged employees have a higher well-being, better retention, lower absenteeism and higher productivity. Especially in the age of AI, where productivity is at the center of everything, companies should be focusing as much on productivity as their employees’ humanness, according to McKinsey.
But what about you, what would make you feel more engaged at work?
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REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK: Dual Language, Dual Job
This weekend, my colleague and senior writer Kelly Erbs and I wrote about the latest initiatives by tax software companies, including TurboTax, and the IRS to help Spanish-speaking customers. For this tax season, both entities allowed taxpayers to completely file their tax returns in Spanish, providing everything from W2 and 1040 forms to Q&A explanations in Spanish. Thanks to AI, this process was much smoother, and faster, than previous years.
Before the start of this tax season, for example, Spanish-speaking taxpayers turning to TurboTax had to use Live-Assist or Full-Service (or something ad-hoc, like Google Translate).
“They couldn’t really understand the tax forms. They couldn’t really understand what they were being asked in the software,” Miguel Burgos, a bilingual TurboTax CPA originally from Puerto Rico, says. That meant when he worked with customers in Live-Assist, he felt like he was functioning as much as a translator as a tax expert. Plus, he says, “The taxpayer would have to trust me 100%,” since they couldn’t understand the English forms themselves.
He wasn’t the only one. Independent tax preparers with their own offices also find themselves doing the double job of translator plus their actual job description. And while it sounds like an easy enough job, it can often take double the work, especially when dealing with a language like Spanish where regional variations come into play. Just look at the videos from Marianna Girgenti, a TurboTax partner and influencer who is known for comically mimicking different accents.
File your taxes in spanish
ILLUSTRATION BY FORBES; LVCANDY/GETTY IMAGESWhile it can be tedious, it certainly pays off to know at least one other language: A study by tutoring site Preply found that fully multilingual employees earn on average 19% more than single language speakers and were more likely to receive a raise in the last year.
Still, it can be a difficult conversation with your employer when negotiating your salary. This viral TikTok sketch points to one example on how to ask for more (though I wouldn’t take it as fool-proof advice).
It might be worth taking a page out of Miguel and other tax preparers’ book: use AI to make the translation process faster and smoother.
TOUCH BASE
News from the world of work
Forbes’ Richard Nieva sat down with Docusign CEO Allan Thygesen to discuss how the e-signature giant is expanding its business beyond providing signatures by adding a new suite of tools that can notarize documents and analyze existing contracts to see which ones are (or aren’t) working.
Despite being, by definition, less efficient, overworkers tend to be promoted and offered career development opportunities more than those who work fewer hours, a study in Social Psychology Quarterly found. This particularly hurts women, according to the researchers: “Although both men and women are rewarded for overwork, men reap a significantly larger premium.”
Indeed launched a new AI tool that allows candidates and employers to more efficiently look for opportunities. The program, called Smart Sourcing, allows candidates to find personalized job recommendations based on their profiles, and also can generate blurbs about applicants for employers to review.
In its latest rule, the EEOC said abortion-related accommodations are included as part of its Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. Employers must provide “reasonable accommodations,” including allowing time for the procedure and recovery.
New York workers now want at least $81,800 to change jobs, according to a new report. This is a new high, increasing from $73,400 in November. Workers were also less satisfied with their current compensation (both salary and benefits), falling over 3 percentage points in the last four months.
Forbes released its inaugural list of top CPAs in the country on Monday. Highlights include Paul Knopp, who started at KPMG as an audit associate before working his way up to become the firm’s CEO and Caterina Mozingo, a personal finance and high-net-worth-individual specialist who spearheaded her firm’s diversity efforts.
NUMBER TO NOTE
14,000
Tesla is reportedly laying off 10% of its workforce, or about 14,000 employees based on the latest headcount in regulatory filings. Tesla previously conducted mass layoffs of 9% and 4% of its total workforce in 2018 and 2022, respectively.
VIDEO
Notion’s CEO dishes out the top ways customers use AI.
QUIZ
What are some things you should keep in mind when negotiating your salary?
A. Salary on the job listing
B. The company’s budget
C. Compensation beyond base salary (benefits, stock options, etc)
D. All of the above
Check if you got it right here.
