State of the Global Workplace: 2022 Report

Employee wellbeing is the new workplace imperative. 

Globally, employee engagement and wellbeing remain very low, and it’s holding back enormous growth potential. 

Engagement and wellbeing interact with each other in powerful ways. We often think of engagement as something that happens at work and wellbeing as something that happens outside of work, but Gallup’s analysis suggests that’s a false dichotomy. 

How people experience work influences their lives outside of work. Employees who consistently experience high levels of burnout at work say their job makes it difficult to fulfill their family responsibilities. They are also 23% more likely to visit the emergency room. 

Overall wellbeing influences life at work. Employees who are engaged at work but not thriving have a 61% higher likelihood of ongoing burnout than those who are engaged and thriving. 

When employees are engaged and thriving, they experience significantly less stress, anger and health problems. Nevertheless, globally, only 9% of employees are in that thriving and engaged category — while the majority (57%) of the world’s employees are not engaged and not thriving.

Organizations need to think about the whole person, not just the worker. Leaders need to add wellbeing measurements to their executive dashboards. This can alert them to critical warning signs that do not show up on traditional spreadsheets. They also need to prioritize employee wellbeing as part of their employer brand promise. When leaders take responsibility for the wellbeing of their workers, the result is not only productive organizations, but thriving individuals, families and communities.