Thirty one percent of South African employees younger than 30 recently surveyed were disengaged from their jobs and undecided on their connection to their job and organisation, an employee engagement survey has found.

In addition, respondents who frequently thought of quitting their jobs were mainly young African employees under 30.

These findings form part of a pilot employee engagement survey conducted by The Human Resource Practice which further revealed that managers were playing little, if any, role in positively influencing job engagement.

Interestingly, supervisors and managers ranked the lowest for factors influencing employee engagement. "Our research illustrated that employees seek a shift from an organisational-focused to a more individual-based people management approach. This means managers need to change the way they engage their people towards a coaching management style, which presents an empowering relationship that facilitates the creation of meaningful, challenging work which tests peoples' resourcefulness."