ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

For the fifth year in a row, Europe has the least engaged employees of any global region, with just 13 per cent saying they feel motivated at work. So how is Brussels responding to this threat to the bloc’s prosperity, asks Hartley Milner.

The world of work is wobbling precariously on its axis following a seismic shift in how people view their employment experience. This at a time of mounting concerns about the impact of rapidly advancing AI technologies on job markets.

Gallup’s 2025 State of the Global Workplace report shows the proportion of engaged employees fell last year from 23 to 21 per cent. Over the previous 12 years, the measure dropped only once, in 2020 when Covid-19 plunged national economies into a cycle of full or partial lockdowns.
The recent two-point decline was equal in scale to 2020 and cost the world economy $438 billion (€376 billion) in lost productivity, prompting the US pollster to ask – “Is the global workplace at breaking point?”

The United States-Canada region has comfortably scored the highest workplace engagement levels in the Gallup survey every year since 2011. However, for the first time last year it tied for top spot with the Latin America-Caribbean region, which had climbed in the rankings. Alongside Europe in the laggers’ league, were the Middle East and north Africa, east Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

A key driver of the global decline was a fall in manager engagement. While engagement among individual contributors remained flat at 18 per cent, among managers it fell from 30 to 27 per cent. No other employee category experienced such a significant disconnection with their workplace. Two manager types were especially impacted; young managers (down by five per cent) and female managers (seven per cent).

Pandemic transformation

So what were the prime ‘demotivators’ for team leaders? Over the past five years, managers have operated in workplaces radically transformed by the pandemic and its aftermath. The experience left them overstressed, demoralised, burnt out and more likely to quit their jobs than the people they manage.

“Manager engagement affects team engagement, which affects productivity,” said Jim Harter, Gallup’s chief workplace scientist. “Business performance – and ultimately GDP growth – is at risk if executive leaders do not address manager breakdown.”

Gallup recommends three actions to boost manager motivation:   

• Training to cut ‘active disengagement’. Most managers said they had not received any training, despite active disengagement – displays of dissatisfaction through negative behaviours – being shown to reduce by 50 per cent for those who do;

• Instruction in effective coaching techniques. Participants on training courses focused on management best practice experience up to 22 per cent higher engagement levels than those who do not take part. Teams led by participants see engagement rise by up to 18 per cent;

• Increasing ‘manager thriving’ through ongoing development. Employers who provide manager training see improvements in ‘manager thriving’ of 28 to 34 per cent. If participants have training, and someone at work who actively encourages their development, manager thriving increases to 50 per cent.

Along with Europe having the world’s lowest percentage of engaged employees, the report found wide variations in engagement levels within the region, with several nations disclosing rates below 10 per cent. Among the lowest scorers were Croatia (seven per cent), France and Switzerland (eight per cent), Spain (nine per cent) and the United Kingdom (10 per cent). Germany - the region’s biggest economy - recorded a new low (12 per cent). By contrast, Romania had a significantly higher rate of 35 per cent.

Life satisfaction

Paradoxically, European workers reported having relatively high life satisfaction levels, with 47 per cent saying they were thriving compared to the global average of 33 per cent. The majority (57 per cent) thought it a good time to find work and 30 per cent said they were “watching for, or actively seeking, a new job”. Against that, 48 per cent of employees admitted struggling in life and five per cent to ‘suffering’. Asked about emotions they experience “a lot of the previous day”, 38 per cent cited stress, 14 per cent anger, 17 per cent sadness and 12 per cent loneliness.

Research by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) has focused this year on providing data and analysis in engagement areas such as job quality, working conditions and innovation. Projects included looking into how digital skills training can boost engagement among SME employees and ways to improve human/robot interaction by maximising the positives of the technology while minimising the downsides.

First findings from Eurofound’s latest European Working Conditions Survey and other recent reports identify several specific causes of disengagement:

• Hybrid and remote work. While flexible working is welcomed by many employees, its implementation can cause friction. Teleworkers are more prone to working excessively long hours, which impacts their mental and physical wellbeing. The push by employers for a return to the office post-covid runs counter to employee expectations;

• Digitalisation and Al. Information and communication technologies in the workplace can improve flexibility but also intensify the demands of work. New technologies have implications for the organisation of work and employee wellbeing;

• Ageing workforce challenges. Disengagement affects older workers differently. While the number of older employees is growing, they face higher risks of long-term unemployment and often struggle to find new jobs when made unemployed. Adapting workplaces to retain experienced employees remains a challenge;

• Persistent mental health concerns. More Europeans are reporting ongoing mental health issues, with young women and older men causing particular concern. Anxiety and depression remain widespread and many survey respondents complain about having limited access to mental healthcare;

• Stagnant pay and rising housing costs. Although minimum wages have increased, rising housing costs are disproportionately affecting minimum wage earners. They spend a higher share of their income on housing and face greater difficulty achieving independent living, leading to financial stress;

• Lack of employee involvement. Research reveals that organisations with high employee involvement in decision-making report much higher engagement levels than those with low participation. A lack of opportunity for input reduces motivation and a sense of being valued.

The European Commission is taking a two-pronged approach to tackling workplace motivation, each action addressing a key contributor to the problem. The measures, outlined below, comprise part of a wider programme for “supporting people and strengthening the EU’s social model”.

Union of Skills

Launched in March this year, Union of Skills aims to boost EU competitiveness and employee engagement by focusing on workforce development and tackling skills shortages. Its main pillars are:

• Skills building to enhance basic abilities like reading, mathematics and digital literacy, as well as specific competencies such as science, technology and engineering required to equip workers for careers in emerging green industries;

• Up-skilling and re-skilling through lifelong learning programmes like Pact for Skills, set up to train and retrain workers in sectors undergoing the digital and green transition;

• Increasing skills mobility to promote the recognition of skills and qualifications across member states via the Skills Portability initiative and new EU diploma schemes;

• Attracting and retaining talent within the European Union through programmes like the new EU Talent Pool and ‘Choose Europe’ initiative.

Human resources

The commission’s 2022 HR strategy established a long-term framework for creating “more attractive, flexible and inclusive workplaces”. The programme supports engagement through:

• Improved recruitment. The faster introduction of cutting-edge and more flexible recruitment procedures to attract top talent and better reflect Europe’s diversity;

• Flexible and hybrid work. A strategy acknowledging modern workplace trends by adapting to flexible and hybrid working models for managers and staff;

• Enhanced career paths. Here, the commission helps employees get a clearer view of their career path with strengthened guidance, mentoring and coaching;

• Wellbeing promotion. A ‘fit-at-work’ programme supporting staff wellbeing and better work-life balance. The strategy also beefs up anti-harassment rules and actions on diversity;

• Streamlined HR processes. By reviewing and simplifying human resource processes, the commission says it is seeking to promote “greater transparency and more user-friendly, efficient services”.

Additional social and societal actions

The EU also promotes broader social policies to improve worker engagement across the region:

• European Pillar of Social Rights. This programme works to provide fairer and better functioning labour markets and welfare systems;

• Mental health focus. Through its research, Eurofound contributes to the understanding of work-related mental health challenges and publishes reports on risk groups, trends and policies. Its findings this year have highlighted alarming trends such as rising suicide rates among certain groups and increasing poor mental health due to socio-economic factors.

And on concerns about artificial intelligence, Roxana Mînzatu, social rights and skills commissioner, said: “AI is becoming an integral part of modern workplaces. We must use it in a way that both helps workers and protects them. We have a strong basis of rules with our general data protection regulation, the AI act and the directive on platform work (matching labour demand with supply). We will look at how these rules are applied to address the impact of AI throughout the wider labour market.”