Tim Winkler reports on new ideas to keep HR ticking over

Gallup’s latest State of the Global Workplace 2022 report found that just 21 per cent of the world’s employees are engaged at work and 33 per cent are thriving. Which means conversely that almost four in every five employees are not engaged and around two in three are not thriving.

This is a pretty astonishing figure, in terms of the way we spend our daily lives. The silver lining is that Australia and New Zealand is the region with the highest proportion of thriving employees (63 per cent, 30 per cent higher than the rest of the world).

We also had the highest percentage of employees who say they are living comfortably on household income at 55 per cent compared to 22 per cent globally (this was 2022, before inflation really bit).

It is surprising that while our region had the lowest level of concern about corruption, the poll still found that 38 per cent of us thought corruption was widespread within businesses in our area. The global average was a depressing 74 per cent.

It would be fascinating to see how these statistics – and others the poll collects, such as levels of stress, worry and anger experienced by workers each day – play out in various institutions across the sector.

Is Higher Education a bastion of thriving community-minded individuals or does the spirit of critique and challenging analysis prevail in the lives of the 130,000 plus souls who choose to dwell daily in the linoed halls and occasional ivory tower of Australian academe?

Winkler on the HR works runs regularly at the new HEJobs  recruitment site