“Gallup in 1997 completed its first meta-analysis — or study of many studies — on employee engagement using data from 1,135 business units. The central question we wanted to answer was whether workplace conditions correlate with business outcomes such as profit, productivity, customer perceptions of service, and employee retention. We just completed our eighth iteration of this same analysis, which now includes 49,928 business units across 34 countries, and analyzes even more outcomes, such as quality (defects), safety (accidents), absenteeism, and shrinkage (theft). Various iterations of this meta-analysis have been published in peer-reviewed, top tier academic journals and books, including a longitudinal causal analysis…what our study does tell us is that when business units have more engaged employees their probability of success improves substantially. In fact, those with high engagement nearly double the odds of success compared with those with low engagement. So, working on management elements, things like clarifying expectations, giving people an opportunity to do what they do best, giving employees developmental opportunities, and holding people accountable for quality work increase the odds that business units within your organization will be successful.”