Which car are you sitting in?

Which car are you sitting in?

I worked in Centurion for nine years. As consultants, we would travel to Johannesburg regularly to see clients. This was before Zoom and remote work became a thing, and we would spend large chunks of time sitting in traffic on the N1. There is not much to do while you’re sitting there, so I would watch the people in the cars around me, wondering what they do for a living. And more importantly, whether they actually enjoy what they do.

The experience of work has interested me for a long time. I know, it’s a very nerdy, niche topic to be interested in. But I recall one specific day, slowly driving past the South African Mint in Midrand, thinking that 8/10 people sitting in their cars around me on the national highway dread going to work. The stat was based on a Gallup report at the time stating that employee engagement in South Africa was somewhere around 20%. Employee engagement is the extent to which employees feel passionate about their jobs, are committed to the organisation and its goals, and put extra effort into their work. You know you are engaged in your work when you can be yourself at work, care about the people you work with, see the success of the organisation as your personal success, and you genuinely want to be there.

To be clear: Everybody has a bad day every now and again, and no one loves what they do every single minute of the day, every day, forever. BUT, work should be enjoyable, meaningful and fulfilling most of the time. I will believe that for as long as I live. We did have a colleague for a period who said plainly during a team meeting one day: “It’s work. It’s not supposed to be fun!” And she meant it. Needless to say, we did not get along.

Gallup conducts a worldwide survey into the experience of work every year, and according to their State of the Global Workplace report (which came out two weeks ago), global employee engagement dropped for only the second time since 2009.

The biggest drop internationally was among managers, particularly managers younger than 35 (down by 5%) and female managers (down by 7%).

South African results are similar, in a quite alarming way:

• 23% of employees are engaged at work (down 6%). Still, only 2 out of every 10 of us actively enjoy what we do and find it meaningful. That is too low, if you take into consideration that best practice companies around the globe reach 70%!

Apart from work, Gallup also reported the following more general South African life experience metrics:

• 28% describe their life evaluation as thriving (down 4%)
• 36% of us experience high levels of stress regularly (up 3%)
• 18% experience daily anger (up 3%), which is low compared to the rest of Africa
• 23% experience daily sadness (up 3%)
• 21% are lonely most of the time (measured for the first time in 2024)
• 61% are actively looking for a new job (up 5%)

How do these trends match your personal experience of work and life over the past 12 months?

None of these metrics is tracking in the right direction. Business leaders should be worried about what is being reported, as employee engagement has a direct, undeniable impact on financial performance and business sustainability. The general decline in work experience will not have positive repercussions for our struggling economy if it goes unchecked.

The drop in manager engagement in particular needs urgent attention, given that they have an oversized impact on the experience and engagement of those who work with them. You can probably think of examples of good and bad managers who had a dramatic impact on your work experience. Maybe you are working with a particularly good or bad one now (or maybe you are one).

Leader and manager development plays a crucial part here, since the ability to lead and manage in a way that fosters employee engagement can be taught. Over the last five years, we’ve designed and refined a Leadership Development coaching process with this end in mind.

Enabling people and businesses to thrive, through a specialised focus on employee experience, is what we do. So if you are worried that your people might be floundering, reach out to us to find out how we can help you.

If you would like some help getting your employees more engaged, get in touch. You can reach us at info@purposeworks.co.za.

At PurposeWorks we are all about Making You and Your Work Rock. Our focus is on Organisational Health and Design, Employee Centered Culture, Leadership Development and Performance Coaching. For more information on how we can help you create a work environment that rocks, develop a great team, become an inspiring leader or unlock your personal excellence talk to us at info@purposeworks.co.za.