US businesses lose $37 billion annually as a result of employee misunderstanding and ineffective on-boarding practices.

Only 43% of customer-facing workers strongly agree with the statement, "I know what my company stands for and what makes us different from our competitors."

Disengaged employees cost the US economy more than $350 billion per year in poor customer interactions, increased sick days, and lower performance contributions.

When people in the organization understand how their work contributes to the success of their company, business performance metrics increase by as much as 20%.

52% of employees surveyed feel there are not enough qualified managers in their organizations.

Only 17% of employees and 28% of employers believe that management has offered meaningful training and development opportunities.

86.5% of respondents predicted that over the next three years, organizations will be more likely to use Web 2.0 technologies in their learning function.

Public organizations that rank in the top quartile of employee engagement experience an earnings per share increase of 28% compared to a 12% decline of earnings per share for low-engagement organizations.

Surveys of companies with call centers report that when employee satisfaction is high, customer satisfaction is also high. Alternatively, call centers with low employee engagement report low customer satisfaction levels.

Only about half (53%) of employees actually trust their senior leadership, those responsible for establishing the tone of the organizational culture and the need for high performance.

According to a recent survey, the two most common factors influencing job satisfaction are opportunities for employees to use their individual talents and career development and training opportunities.

54% of companies surveyed said they do not have enough qualified internal candidates to fill their pipeline of future executives and managers.
 

*Please note that the following references chronologically correspond to the facts as listed above.

International Institute of Management Development, July 2009

Fleming, John H., and Jim Asplund. Human Sigma: Managing the Employee-Customer Encounter. New York, NY: Gallup P, 2007. Print.

Ketter, Paula Engage, Empower, Build Loyalty. ASTD, 10 Feb. 2010. Web. 16 Feb. 2010 <http://www.astd.org/TD/Archives/2009/Nov/Free/>.

Aberdeen Group, 2008

Ranstad World of Work Survey 2009. Holding, NV: Ranstad, 2009. Web. http://www.us.randstad.com/ documents/2009WorldofWork.pdf.

Ranstad World of Work Survey 2009. Holding, NV: Ranstad, 2009. Web. http://www.us.randstad.com/documents/2009WorldofWork.pdf.

ASTD and Institute for Corporate Productivity, 2009

Towers Perrin, 2009

Manpower, 2009

Blessing White State of Talent Management, 2008

State of Employment Engagement, 2009

Pace, Ann. "Developing the Leaders of Tomorrow Today." Training + Development Feb. 2010: 18. Print.

Nancherla, Aparna. "Getting to the Foundation of Talent Management." Training + Development Feb. 2010: 20. Print.