The UK’s productivity crisis: Employee disengagement costing UK businesses nearly £340 billion a year

According to a recent study, the overall financial cost of employee disengagement may amount to as much as £340 billion per year based on recruitment and training costs, sick days, and a general loss of creativity and innovation, causing a direct impact on employee productivity. In a bid to address the growing chasm in employee engagement, Rethinkly– a visualisation platform helping businesses resolve communication challenges in the workplace – offers organisations company-wide coaching and wellbeing initiatives that are both cost effective and scalable.

According to data from Office for National Statistics, the end of 2022 saw UK businesses lose a record number of working days, with British workers taking a total of 185.6 million days off due to sickness or injury. In addition to this, new findings from O.C Tanner’s 2023 Global Culture Report have found that nearly half of UK workers are finding their work exhausting, with 40% feeling emotionally frustrated. Depicting how Britain is suffering from a productivity crisis, one can be addressed by corporations prioritising wellbeing in order to catalyse employee engagement.

Traditional coaching can cost hundreds of pounds per hour and is limited to executive-level employees. In light of this, Rethinkly enables businesses to implement company-wide coaching programmes as all employees need is an internet connection to log onto the platform. From here they are led by an expert who guides them through particular exercises, whether that be a team building activity or session to assess employee sentiment surrounding company culture.

David Tinker, co-founder of Rethinkly, comments on the importance of scalable coaching solutions:

“”There are two reasons why organisations need to think about providing support to their entire businesses – one ethical, one commercial. In many organisations, coaching is reserved for the very senior but actually those that need it the most are those starting out their careers who are just forming their approaches and skill sets.

Only providing a critical skill to a senior few isn’t a great strategy for the future of your business. Our vision is that this level of interaction and support should be available to everyone in an organisation. And organisations who do this find that it unlocks creativity and innovation on a wider scale. All of this is better for the bottom line. A bit like a virus, staff engagement and enthusiasm can be highly contagious!”