In fact, roughly 80% of workers worldwide are checked out at work, according to Gallup, with engagement falling over the past two years and now on par with 2020 levels. And the research firm’s CEO, Jon Clifton, warned there’s no quick fix in sight.
“We’re closer to colonizing Mars than we are to fixing the world’s broken workplace,” Clifton said Monday on a panel at the Jobs for the Future Horizons conference.
While Clifton said the line had become something of a running joke inside Gallup, there’s an uncomfortable truth behind it.
Elon Musk said earlier this year he hopes SpaceX will begin building a city on Mars within the next five or seven years. The world’s workplaces, meanwhile, remain stuck in a cycle of poor engagement, poor management, and declining morale with no clear timeline for recovery.
That dysfunction comes at a steep price. Gallup estimates low employee engagement cost the global economy roughly $10 trillion in lost productivity last year alone—the equivalent of about 9% of GDP.
