You've been in the job for six months.
You know the systems. You hit your numbers. You show up to the meetings and nod at the right times.
But when someone asks what you're working on, you give them the two-sentence version and change the subject. You're not disengaged exactly—you're just...there.
Here's the thing nobody talks about: that feeling costs everyone. It costs your company measurable performance. It costs your coworkers extra work to compensate. And it costs you something harder to quantify—the chance to spend 40+ hours a week doing something that actually matters to you.
This week: Engagement, and why "showing up" was never the point.
Most orgs treat engagement as a soft metric: nice if you have it, optional if you don’t. The data says the opposite.
But here's what the data actually shows: only 21% of employees globally are engaged in their work. In the U.S., that number is slightly better at 31%, but it's at a 10-year low. And it's been declining for two straight years.
The cost? Gallup estimates disengaged employees cost the global economy $8.8 trillion in lost productivity.
The thing is, companies don't really know what to do with that information. They recognize it's important but then see those jaw dropping numbers and choose to bury their head in the sand instead of explore further.
But this isn't just an employer problem.
Why engagement matters to you
Being disengaged for a month is a bad week at work. Being disengaged for years is how people wake up one day and realize they’ve built a career they don’t even like. Engagement is the difference between “I’m grinding out another sprint” and “I’m using my skills on problems I actually care about.”
And in low-engagement companies, the few people who are engaged get punished for it. They pick up dropped balls, smooth over conflicts, and quietly absorb the emotional labor their disengaged teammates won’t touch. Disengagement doesn’t just hurt the business; it burns out the very people leaders can least afford to lose.
If you're a job seeker, engagement levels tell you something critical about a company before you accept an offer: Are you walking into a place where a few people do all the work while everyone else checks out?
Research from Gallup shows that top-quartile engaged teams see:
- 23% higher profitability
- 51% lower turnover (in high-turnover industries)
- 68% better employee wellbeing
But here's the flip side: in companies with low engagement, the engaged minority ends up compensating for disengaged colleagues. They take on extra projects. They cover gaps. They burn out.
And if you're currently employed but disengaged? Living a fulfilling professional life is basically impossible when you're just going through the motions.
What actually drives engagement
Most companies get this backwards. They think engagement is about perks and ping pong tables and free lunch Fridays.
The research tells a different story. 70% of team engagement is determined by the manager. Not the CEO. Not company culture initiatives. Your direct manager.
The top engagement drivers are:
- Role clarity - Knowing exactly what's expected
- Connection to purpose - Understanding how your work matters
- Growth opportunities - Seeing a path forward
- Recognition - Feeling seen for contributions
- Autonomy - Having control over how you work
Notice what's not on that list? Office architecture. Mandatory fun. Another all-hands meeting about values.
What this really means:
Engagement isn't something companies "do to" employees with better benefits or more team-building exercises.
It's the result of basic management competence: clear expectations, regular feedback, development opportunities, and treating people like adults who care about their work.
The uncomfortable truth? Most companies measure engagement obsessively but refuse to address the one thing that actually moves the needle: investing in manager effectiveness.
They'd rather blame remote work, generational differences, or "quiet quitting" than admit they're asking undertrained managers to oversee too many people with too little support.