While I love to report on new HR technology for the sake of tech and innovation, the true reason any new platform or feature is invented is to solve a business problem. So, what are the meta problems that truly need solving?
Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace spans 160+ countries and includes insights collected from around 141,000 employees. With HR Tech in Amsterdam coming up this month, findings from Europe can set the stage for the most pressing topics. Here are some of the key issues that I predict will surface at HR Tech Europe.
Europe’s employee wellbeing challenges
According to Gallup, Europe is facing an engagement challenge, with only 13% of European employees saying they are engaged. This is the lowest of any region globally, while 73% are not engaged and 15% are actively disengaged. Compare that to 31% engaged in North America or 26% in Southeast Asia, and it’s clear that Europe faces a gap in this area.
Meanwhile, employee wellness seems to be degrading. Nearly half of European employees are struggling, with only 47% thriving and 5% suffering. This puts Europe below global peers like Australia/New Zealand and Latin America, despite being among the world’s wealthiest economies.
But it’s not all bad news. Europe has some positive material to work with. It is tied for the lowest rates of daily loneliness and daily anger among all regions, according to Gallup. Stress is also relatively lower at 38%, compared to 50% in North America. Additionally, only 30% of European employees say they are watching for or actively seeking a new job, a data point that is the lowest of any regions Gallup examined.
The data sets up several high-stakes conversations for the conference:
Engagement tech ROI
Low job-seeking indicators combined with low engagement is a tricky combination for HR leaders because employees are staying but may not be contributing. With 88% of European employees either not engaged or actively disengaged, according to Gallup, there’s a massive business case for tools that help workers feel more connected to their jobs and workplace.
“If HR can’t clearly connect the dots between engagement, retention and contribution to EBITDA, it’s not a business case,” according to Rebecca Wettemann, CEO of Valoir, who will be speaking at HR Tech.
Manager effectiveness
Gallup’s broader research consistently ties engagement to manager quality. The data suggests European organizations may have a structural manager development gap that technology alone can’t fix. “Managers are human beings, as well,” Todd Davis, FranklinCovey senior consultant, told HR Executive. “They’re anxious about their futures and their roles, but when they took those on, they knew they had an additional responsibility to those team members.”
Wellbeing investments
The lower stress and anger numbers suggest European employees may respond differently to wellbeing interventions than North American employees. Programs designed for burnout may miss the mark if employees seem calm but remain disconnected. HR Executive found that local expressions of disengagement matter. As I wrote previously, HR leaders managing global workforce may not be able to rely on a single mental health strategy across the business markets.
The data on European workforce engagement suggests HR leaders have an opportunity. HR Tech Europe, April 22–23 in Amsterdam, is where HR leaders respond. Register now.
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