Employee dissatisfaction in Germany at a new high

The ongoing crises of the past four years are also leaving their mark on many companies. This is the result of a new survey by the Gallup polling institute. According to this, 67 percent of employees in Germany still feel at best a low emotional connection to the company in which they work – 19 percent no longer feel connected to their employer at all and have already mentally resigned. This is the highest value since 2012.

The results of the new survey, which Gallup has conducted every year for more than 20 years, confirm a larger trend: people are no longer experiencing the security and support in their jobs that they used to get from their jobs. On the contrary, upheavals and crises are also occurring there and creating additional uncertainty.

The proportion of employees who believe that their jobs cannot be replaced by robotics, automation or artificial intelligence in the coming years has fallen by 17 percentage points within five years – from 72 percent to 55 percent. Conversely, the proportion of those who firmly expect their job to be done by a machine in the future has doubled (from four to seven percent). At the same time, a third of those surveyed say that their company is “well” or “very well” prepared for the technical innovations, while two thirds are rather skeptical or are even convinced that their employer is anything but well prepared.

Employees want flexible working hours

Another frustration factor is friction over working and attendance times in the office. 56 percent of the employees surveyed say they want flexible working hours – and 49 percent also say that they can actually work flexibly. However, just over half of employees report fixed working hours between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. – although only 44 percent actually prefer this model.

In total, Gallup researchers are convinced that both factors ultimately lead to a creeping alienation between management and the workforce. This can first be seen in the number of absences and sick days, which actually reached a record level last year. The Gallup surveyees linked the results and found: Employees who identify more strongly with their company are only absent about half as often as employees who have already internally resigned (an average of 4.8 days of absence per year versus 9.1). days).

The Gallup experts estimate the damage caused to companies by poorly motivated, inefficient or even completely absent employees to be between 133 and 167 billion euros for Germany alone. That would be up to four percent of Germany’s annual economic output (GDP).

In order to reverse the trend and get more employees excited about their jobs again, the Gallup experts are calling for a more “emotional” management approach: Managers would have to involve their employees more and let them decide how they design their work and implement their tasks. How this works exactly, what problems arise and how to overcome them –