Global employee engagement declined in 2024 — only the second decrease reported in the past 12 years — primarily driven by a drop in manager engagement, according to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace Report published April 23.
The report is based on survey responses from 227,347 employed adults across more than 160 countries, collected between April and December 2024 via the Gallup World Poll. It also includes supplemental data from online surveys of workers in the U.S. and China.
Four key findings:
1. Global employee engagement fell from 23% in 2023 to 21% in 2024, translating to an estimated $438 billion in lost productivity. The only other year employee engagement declined in the past decade was 2020.
2. Managers saw the sharpest decline in engagement, falling from 30% in 2023 to 27% in 2024. Engagement among individual contributors remained stable at 18%.
3. Engagement among managers under age 35 and female managers fell by 5 percentage points and 7 percentage points, respectively.
4. The decline in engagement may be tied to growing pressure on managers to juggle shifting executive priorities, evolving employee expectations and lingering workforce disruptions post-pandemic.
“Gallup research suggests leaders should rethink managerial roles entirely,” the firm said in an April 23 news release. “By redesigning role responsibilities around performance coaching, organizations can improve team performance for the new workplace, not the old one.”
Access the full report here.
