3 Reasons Why Employees Disengage and How to Fix It

Organizations worldwide make significant investments to understand why employees leave or become disengaged. From exit interviews to employee surveys and other feedback systems, they gather insights to identify the reasons for employee turnover and disengagement. Actionable insights help organizations devise strategies to mitigate lower productivity and improve employee retention and disengagement.

A Gallup report indicates that a larger percentage of employees worldwide are disengaged (62%) compared to those engaged (23%).

Employee engagement isn't binary. According to Gallup, it has three levels:

• Engaged employees are those who love what they do and find their work meaningful

• Non-engaged employees are those who perform their duties but are bored and lack enthusiasm

• Actively disengaged employees are those who are frustrated, dissatisfied, and mentally checked out

According to the State of the Global Workplace: 2024 Report, only 32% of Indian employees are engaged, 48% are not involved, and 19% are actively disengaged. This means that over two-thirds of the workforce is disengaged to some degree. 86% of Indians are reportedly struggling or suffering in the workplace.

Why does this matter? Disengagement can affect and spread in the organization on a broader scale and disrupt an entire workforce. Disengaged employees lack motivation, are less productive, and are not committed to a company's future. Such behavior in the workplace can demoralize engaged employees, drain productivity, and breed a culture of discontentment.

So, how do you deal with disengaged employees? It starts with understanding why employees become disengaged in the first place.

Top 3 Reasons Why Employees Disengage

Let's look at why employees disengage and how to combat it in the workplace:

1. Poor manager-employee relationships

Managers are uniquely positioned to recognize employees' needs, ambitions, and struggles. The quality of this interpersonal relationship reflects how engaged an employee is at work.

However, many managers today are disengaged amidst juggling leadership, training, and an overwhelming administrative load. This leaves them with little time and space to engage with their teams or offer support for career growth and mental well-being. As a result, employees quietly withdraw and disengage.

If organizations want an engaged workforce, they must start with engaged managers. Gallup’s meta-analysis of 200,000+ teams confirms this: highly engaged managers lead to highly engaged teams.

So, how do you deal with disengaged employees and managers? A decisive first step is redefining management roles—moving away from administrative overload and toward meaningful coaching, feedback, and relationship-building. Studies show that countries prioritizing higher manager engagement consistently report stronger overall workforce engagement. This is a win-win for organizations.

Read: Why Employee Engagement Levels Vary Across Different Industries in India

    2. Lack of intellectual stimulation

Employees thrive when exposed to meaningful challenges that stimulate their intellectual curiosity. Brilliant employees stay (and thrive) when they are intellectually engaged at a steady, manageable pace; too little challenge leads to boredom, while too much can cause burnout and disengagement. Gallup's survey shows that only 14% of Indian employees consider themselves “thriving” at work.

Fortunately, satisfying this intellectual need, in many cases, requires nothing more than sparking innovative thinking.

Another way to engage top-notch talent is to assign projects that leverage their unique domain-specific expertise, technical prowess, interpersonal skills, or creative problem-solving. According to a Gallup survey, employees are six times more likely to be engaged if given opportunities to work in areas they excel in.

 3. Limited career growth opportunities 

When employees see their professional growth at a company stagnate or diminish, they become disengaged, less productive, and ultimately quit. As per a Gartner study, 40% of employees cite a lack of career development opportunities as the primary reason for quitting their job roles.

The key to engaging and retaining high-performing employees is to lay out a clear path for career growth and provide them with educational resources to help them achieve their aspirations. Companies should also ensure employee recognition and mentorship programs are in place to reward and motivate employees throughout their careers.

Conclusion

Employee disengagement is costly to the global economy. According to a Gallup report, it affects mental health and well-being and accounts for $8.9 trillion in losses or 9% of global GDP.

Regardless of why employees become disengaged, HR leaders and managers must take deliberate steps to address the root cause. 

Paying close attention to early signs like withdrawal, disinterest, and poor performance can help managers address employee expectations before they snowball into reduced organizational productivity. Companies should also establish frameworks at both leadership and management levels to keep employees meaningfully engaged, motivated, and intellectually invested.

Read: How Do Festivals and Holidays Impact Employee Engagement in India?