The holiday season is upon us – and so is the collective sprint towards the end of the year. You and your team may be knee deep in 2022 planning, or perhaps you’re dedicating January to setting your goals and priorities.

No matter your approach, it’s likely you need to make a business case to stakeholders for more budget, headcount, or oversight. Ideally, you have data to back up your requests – whether it’s communications channel analytics, employee survey feedback, or people data. (And if not, it’s not too late to gather it! Scroll to the bottom of this post for some guidance.)  

You know what else can be useful in building a business case? Industry stats. I’ve rounded up a handful of employee engagement stats I’ve come across that may help you tell your story. If anything, they’re hopefully a good reminder of how important the work you’re doing is for your fellow colleagues, leaders, and organization.  

#1-9 Company Culture & Communications

• 72% of senior management report that their culture helps successful change initiatives to happen.
• 69% of organizations that adapted amid the pandemic say culture offers a competitive advantage.
• 66% of C-suite executives and board members believe culture is more important to performance than the organization’s strategy or operating model.
• Employees who are satisfied with their organization’s flexibility are 2.6x more likely to be happy working for their employer and are 2.1x more likely to recommend working for their employer. ‍
• 3 out of 5 employees report they’re equally productive at home as in the office. ‍
• 1 in 4 employees aren’t satisfied with their current ability to dictate their flexibility.  ‍
• 62% of Chief Communications Officers report an increased focus on internal employee communications.  ‍
• 54% of Chief Communications Officers ranked employee communications in their top five areas of talent investment for the coming year.

#10-16 The Great Resignation & Career Growth

The top three factors employees cited as reasons for quitting their jobs:

• 54% didn’t feel valued by their organizations.
• 52% didn’t feel valued by their managers.
• 51% didn’t feel a sense of belonging at work.  

‍The survey showed that employees who self-identified as non-White or multiracial were more likely than White employees to say they had left because they didn’t feel they belonged at their companies

• Among survey respondents who had left their jobs, 45% cited the need to take care of family as an influential factor in their decision. A similar proportion of people who are thinking of quitting cited the demands of family care.
• 40% of employees stated that they are at least somewhat likely to leave their current job in the next 3-6 months.  
• When considering an organization as a potential place of employment, 81% of employees say it is important to them that an organization offers training programs to help keep their skills up to date.  
• Only 1 out of 5 employees believes they can meet their career goals where they work today; and have both their manager and organization’s support to pursue those goals – even in another part of the business.  

#17-22 Embodying Values + Effecting Change

• 1 in 3 employees have left their job at an organization because it remained silent on a societal or political issue they believed it had an obligation to publicly address.  
• 76% of employees say they will take action to produce or motivate urgently necessary changes within their organization.  
• 76% of employees say “my values are reflected in the organization” is a strong expectation or deal breaker when considering a job, while 60% agree their employer is performing well against it.  
• 67% of employees say “the organization acts on its values” is a strong expectation or deal breaker when considering a job, while 48% agree their employer is performing well against it.
• 64% of companies say they have added information about DEI programs to their organizations’ website homepages, less than 1/3 of employees noticed their company doing this.  
• 51% of employers report sharing DEI updates through company-wide channels, but just 24% of employees report that this happened at their organization.

What Else?

Need additional data-y inspiration or insights to support your 2022 planning? We’ve got you covered.  

• The Internal Communications Data Storytelling Guide: Chock-full of how-to tidbits and practical tips to get you started on your data journey.  
• ‍Numbers to Stories: Data Visualization for Internal Communications: A useful toolkit with a batch of best practices (and free templates!) for the most effective way to share your data story.   ‍
• The Internal Communications Salary Report 2021: Whether you’re looking to negotiate a salary increase or advocate for more people or resources for your team, you’re bound to find insights and benchmarks to illuminate your way in this report we developed with Bananatag.
• ‍10 Resources for Measuring Internal Comms Your Way: A handy guide to help you assess and measure your internal communications, make a business case for your intranet, comms plan, and more, how to track your day-to-day communications and their effectiveness, and ways to keep measurement top of mind.

Looking for 2023 stats? Read 23 Employee Experience Statistics You Should Know in 2023.

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