Every six months, Modern Survey goes out to a random sample of full-time, adult US workers to learn how they feel about their relationship with their managers, pay and benefits, senior leadership, and their organizations. We want to learn how “engaged” people are and what motivates them. The latest survey was conducted in early March and the results have been compiled. The good news is…we have a lot of room for improvement.

The sample survey went to 1,000 people and nearly a third of them – 32% – can be categorized as disengaged. Another 36% are under engaged. Just one in ten employees is considered fully engaged and the remaining 22% are moderately engaged. When employees are less than fully engaged they aren’t able to perform at their highest level. Consider the performance potential that is lost when a third of employees, the disengaged, are consistently bringing minimal effort to work and another third, the under engaged, perform adequately at best. That is two-thirds of your organization mailing it in and leaving the heavy lifting to the final third.

Imagine if only your car’s engine performed this poorly. You probably wouldn’t get to where you want to go or if you did, it would be painfully slow. This is what is happening at our organizations. Those who aren’t engaged put the brakes on our ability to establish the traction for us to reach our collective organizational goals. Without question, organizations that can engage their employees will perform better than organizations that don’t.

The logical next step is to educate employees, all of them, what engagement is and who is responsible for it. Modern Survey’s recent study found out that just 49% of all employees understand the concept of employee engagement. Among leaders with direct reports, shockingly only 63% said they know what engagement is.

Leaders need to learn the concept of engagement and what the drivers are. The drivers have changed dramatically since the recession. Pre-recession, the top employee engagement driver was “recognition”. Now, the top driver is “belief in senior leadership”. After more than four years of economic uncertainty, employees desire safety and security more than ever.

If your leaders don’t have this understanding, it will remain a mystery how they can engage your employees. They will have the tendency to throw money at the morale, motivation, and engagement problems. To close the gap between current performance and performance potential, educate all your employees about what engagement is and how to drive it. It is the tune up too many organizations need.

To learn more about this study and to schedule a call to review the results for your industry, email ask@modernsurvey.com.