Employees are checked out at work more than ever — and it doesn't matter it they're remote, hybrid, or onsite, Gallup study finds

• A new Gallup poll found Americans are growing increasingly checked out in the workplace.
• Employee engagement dropped to 32% from 34% in 2021, and active disengagement increased by 2% in 2022.

It's not just you.

Americans are reporting higher than ever levels of dissatisfaction and malaise at work, a new Gallup poll found.

Employee engagement in the US dropped to 32% in 2022, down from 34% in 2021, a year that marked the first decline in a decade. At the same time, 18% of American workers said they actively disengaged at work, an increase of 2% from 2021.

The findings — gathered from random samples of 15,000 full- and part-time employees around the country — spanned across worker demographics — those employed remotely, onsite, or in a hybrid model.

"Regardless of work location (including fully remote employees), organizational satisfaction, clarity of expectations, opportunities to do what you do best, and feeling connected to the organization's mission or purpose declined substantially," Jim Harter, chief scientist of workplace management and wellbeing at Gallup, wrote in a blog post about the findings.

The survey considered a variety of factors, including "clarity of expectations, opportunities for development, and their opinions counting at work."

And while declining engagement was prevalent among most workers, it was highest among younger millennial and Gen Z workers under age 35, women, and people in "remote-ready jobs who are currently working fully on-site."

According to Gallup's larger "State of the Global Workplace 2022 Report," there are several reasons for declining engagement, including of course COVID-19 pandemic, which "put a halt to a long period of gradual but general improvement among the world's workers."

Globally, low engagement costs the world economy an estimated $7.8 trillion, per Gallup's 2022 report.

"Improving life at work isn't rocket science, but the world is closer to colonizing Mars than it is to fixing the world's broken workplaces," Gallup CEO John Clifton wrote in the intro to the global study.

Clifton pointed to the findings on burnout, writing that overwhelmingly the sources of workplace fatigue are tied to bad bosses and poor management.

"The real fix is this simple: better leaders in the workplace," Clifton wrote. "Managers need to be better listeners, coaches and collaborators. Great managers help colleagues learn and grow, recognize their colleagues for doing great work, and make them truly feel cared about. In environments like this, workers thrive."

Hartner echoed Clifton, concluding: "The role of the manager has never been more important.