EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT ACROSS BORDERS: A GALLUP-BASED ANALYSIS OF GLOBAL WORKFORCE

Employee engagement, which concept has garnered substantial scholarly attention in recent decades and has been defined in various ways, with no single leading definition, can be basically described as an employees' emotional and cognitive connection to their work, workplace and its goals. Engaged employees fulfills their job responsibilities and actively participates in the development of the organization, feels a sense of belonging and sees meaning in their work, positively influencing organizational performance. Nowadays labor market, where uncertainty, remote work and generational diversity and competition between companies and organizations are increasing, employee engagement plays a vital role in the successful operation of organizations. Literature highlights employee engagement as one of the most important factors that positively impacts employees' work performance. The benefits from engaged employees are discovered in multiple levels - individual, organizational, customer. At the individual level, employee engagement is associated with improved work performance, as mentioned before, higher employee productivity, loyalty and retention, also employee innovative behavior, initiative and creativity. At the organizational level, engagement contributes to enhanced organizational performance, operational effectiveness and innovation. At the customer level, employee engagement drives better customer experience and satisfaction. Recent research indicates that employee engagement is not only an outcome influencing various factors and performance indicators, but also a construct shaped by multiple antecedent factors that serve to foster and sustain it human resource management practices, job satisfaction, work environment and also individual state of mind as mindfulness. The empirical part of the article about global employee engagement trends is developed by secondary data from Gallup's State of the Global Workplace report (2025). Analyzed data indicates a positive trend with periodic fluctuations during the period from 2009 to 2024, but last year has been decline in employee engagement metrics, highlighting challenges in organizational human resource management practices. Globally, only 21% of employees are engaged. The situation is particularly critical among managers, where engagement is declining, with young managers (under 35) and female managers experiencing the greatest decline. A strong trend towards a higher proportion of not engaged employees has persisted and prevailed in the analyzed period, while the engaged and actively disengaged has been in similar rates. Regional analysis reveals pronounced disparities in employee engagement levels. Within the European region, employee engagement remains at its lowest (13%), accompanied by elevated stress levels and diminished emotional well-being among employees. The data of Europe show a paradox: economically stronger countries demonstrate lower levels of employee engagement, while less developed countries or countries undergoing economic change show relatively higher levels of employee engagement. From the perspective of economic analysis in region of Europe, this distribution confirms that employee engagement does not directly depend on a country's gross domestic product or level of welfare. Conversely, the highest levels of employee engagement are observed in the US, Canada and Latin America and the Caribbean (31%), and this proportion remains relatively low in absolute terms.