Benchmarking Blue-Collar Employee Engagement in Egypt

As an HR leader, it is imperative that you know how your employees feel about their work across all job roles and job levels. Understanding the engagement levels of your entire workforce will help you increase the happiness and retention of your best employees, improve productivity and increase profits. Unfortunately, blue-collar employees are scoring lower engagement levels in Egypt when compared to white-collar employees according to the recent employee engagement survey by Engagesoft. 

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The survey demonstrates how businesses tend to largely focus on higher-paying white-collar jobs and their benefits, and end up overlooking a large percentage of workers, causing a loss of overall engagement. 

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Why businesses in Egypt tend to focus less on blue-collar employees 

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Part of the issue seems to originate with the less room that blue-collar employees perceive to be available to them to express their views.

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Blue collar employees don't tend to voice their concerns as loudly as white-collar employees—if at all. Engagesoft’s benchmark shows that blue-collar employees scored 7.54 in ‘Sharing of Opinions’ compared to 8.28 of white-collar employees. 

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They're often less comfortable voicing issues and talking about what's bothering them. So, if you've been focusing on engagement among white-collar workers and ignoring engagement rates among blue-collar workers because they aren't vocalizing their concerns...well...you're missing out!

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Main Drivers of Low Engagement among Blue-collar Employees

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1. Job engagement

Blue-collar employees find their work less enjoyable than white-collar employees. Blue-collar employees scored 7.68 in ‘Enjoyable challenge’ compared to white-collar employees who scored 8.15. While this result may seem expected and almost natural, the best managers will seek this as an opportunity to explore ways to create stronger engagement and meaning for blue-collar employees in the work and tasks assigned to them.

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2. Few career opportunities

There are no clear paths for blue-collar employees to move up into higher positions or even develop their skills and competencies further. It's difficult for any employee to feel valued by their employer or engaged with their work when they see no chance of advancement in sight.

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The benchmark shows that blue-collar employees scored a 7.48 on ‘Career Growth’ compared to 7.94 with white-collar employees.

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3. Caring management

Many managers tend to focus on production numbers while failing to make sure that each employee (especially blue-collar employees) has everything they need to perform well as part of a team (e.g., training). 

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Blue-collar employees scored a 7.88 compared to white-collar employees who scored a 8.28 when it comes to ‘Support and Guidance by Immediate Manager’.

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4. Attention to wellbeing

Employees in Egypt, across both white-collar and blue-collar, are reporting extremely low scores when it comes to their well-being. Blue-collar employees scored a 5.95 while white-collar employees scored a 6.59.

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How to increase engagement among blue-collar employee 

• It all starts with the critical recognition that your blue-collar workers are not just a cog in the machine.  

• Provide training and development opportunities to help employees improve their skills, so they can grow with the company and become more valuable assets to the business.

• Create a culture of respect and trust by offering clear goals, performance standards and processes for how employees will be evaluated or recognized.

• Focus on your employees' needs (blue- and white-collar alike) and not only those of the company's business outcomes.

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Engagement should be a top priority for any company, and it’s especially important that businesses prioritize the engagement of blue-collar workers. Effective managers and HR leaders realize that  blue-collar employees work hard and ensure that businesses operate at peak efficiency day in day out. By developing a culture of trust and communication between management and blue collar workers, businesses can increase engagement levels among their staff members.

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Engagesoft’s benchmark is a great way to learn more about blue collar workers. It can help you improve your engagement and recognition programs, identify areas for improvement, and learn more about the needs of blue collar employees. By understanding what motivates each group, you’ll be able to tailor your company culture accordingly. 

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Request the full benchmark here!

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