'Japan is facing a crisis of engagement'
Japan is losing more than half a trillion dollars annually due to lost productivity as it deals with a "crisis of engagement," according to a new report.
Gallup's latest research revealed that only seven per cent of employees in Japan are engaged at work, while 93% are either not engaged or are actively disengaged.
The cost of disengagement is staggering, with the report estimating $524 billion in productivity losses each year.
"Disengagement is not just a human issue, it is an economic one," said Rohit Kar, Regional Director of Gallup Japan, in a statement. "With stress levels at record highs and wellbeing at risk, the cost of inaction is enormous."
Least engaged globally
Engagement has been defined in the report as the "involvement and enthusiasm of employees in their work and workplace."
"Engagement is correlated with important organisational performance outcomes such as retention, safety, quality, customer loyalty, productivity, and profitability," the report stated.
With most employees feeling disengaged in Japan, its workforce has emerged as among the least engaged in the world, according to Gallup.
"Japan is facing a crisis of engagement," the report read.
Reversing the engagement crisis
One factor impacting Japan's engagement is how employees perceive their work as meaningful to society, according to the report.
Gallup, citing data from the International Social Survey Programme, said just 49.2% of employees believe their work is helpful.
It also noted that only around 60% of employees in Japan consider their work to be "useful to society," down by 10 percentage points from average.
Traditional efforts to boost engagement in Japan have been ineffective, according to the leaders participating in the report.
"We had structured everything around comfort — better chairs, better hours — but until we made work itself feel valuable, the energy just wasn't there," one leader said in the report.
But there is an opportunity for business leaders to reinforce meaning and purpose in their workplace culture to boost engagement, the report stated.
"A consistent message from leaders is that organisations must change their focus from purely rational and operational aspects of the workplace to behavioural and emotional elements," the report read.
"This shift will serve to improve engagement by reinforcing employees' sense of value and connection with their organisation's purpose."
Kar said their findings also indicate that when organisations build a culture of connection and purpose, productivity rises and people thrive.
"Japan cannot afford to wait. The time for leaders to act is now," the director said.
