While market volatility is ratcheting up and more and more people seem to be losing faith in the ability of our politicians to handle the economy, for many workers, it’s still business as usual when they’re on the clock. Employee engagement levels can fluctuate due to economic conditions but after what we’ve experienced in the past three years it’s going to take a lot to jar us into new outlooks or behaviors. The fact is we’ve become acclimated to economic uncertainty.
For the past four years, Modern Survey has been tracking engagement levels in the U.S. workforce. As a recession, soaring unemployment numbers and a roller-coaster marketplace has rocked the economy, we’ve been able to see its impact on the psychology of the American worker. From periods of fear, when engagement temporarily rose out of the threat of losing one’s job, to periods of frustration where months of digging deep left overworked employees feeling exasperated, Modern Survey has carefully studied the effects of economic conditions on the way employees perform at their job.
After the recent debt-ceiling crisis resulted in a credit rating downgrade for the U.S. government and further turmoil in the European and Asian markets emerged as economic threats, Wall Street has experienced extreme levels of volatility over the past couple of weeks. With the Dow climbing or plunging four to five hundred points in an afternoon, there’s uncertainty in the air and some experts are warning that we could be headed into a double-dip recession. But how then are American workers feeling about their jobs? What level of effort can you expect from employees?
One thing we’ve learned from the recession is that fear is a motivator, but it won’t last. Since fall of 2008, Americans have endured a tough economic landscape. We’ve feared for our jobs. We’ve feared for our investments. Many have been asked to do more with less, work more for less, or just flat out work less. Given that context, if news about the general economy is going to strike enough fear in workers to change their behavior, it may need to be of a nearly catastrophic nature. But that doesn’t mean leaders can rest easy, if other circumstances have made your workforce vulnerable, bad news in the economy could just be the straw that breaks their back.
The most recent iteration of our study of the U.S. workforce uncovered that “faith in senior leadership” and “belief in the future of the organization” are now primary drivers of engagement. So those organizations with new leaders, or leaders embroiled in scandal (NewsCorp comes to mind here) are likely far more vulnerable to fluctuations in worker effort and performance. With an election season coming, and governor’s seats up in West Virginia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Kentucky, employers from each of those states could be similarly vulnerable to changes in the economy affecting their workers engagement and performance.
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