What happens at work, stays at work. If only that still held true for many of today’s workers.

In a BlackBerry-fueled, do-more-with-less workplace, the reality is the line between work and life is increasingly blurry. What engages and motivates employees at work is no longer just a matter of whether or not they like their boss or co-workers. Engagement and motivation are part of a complex set of factors linked to employee health and emotional well-being not just on the job, but also at home.

Those new realities pose challenges for employee engagement efforts and require talent managers to more effectively measure the relationship between employees’ discretionary effort, individual productivity and organizational performance. It also means educating leaders on their role and knowing when to get out of the way.

There are often conflicting definitions and measures of employee engagement, from psychological evaluations of employees’ beliefs about work to behavioral assessments of what they actually do on the job. Adding to the confusion, many organizations often conflate employee satisfaction with engagement.

For purposes of this report, engagement is a measure of how much discretionary effort an employee is willing to give on the job. And according to the numbers, that engagement level is dangerously low.

The Numbers Don’t Lie
According to a November analysis of its database of 5,700 employers representing 5 million employees, human resources consulting firm Aon Hewitt reported that engagement levels indicate the workforce is by and large indifferent to organizational success or failure.

“Our analysis suggests that even at the height of the recession, employees felt a greater connection to their work and role in achieving success than they do now,” said Pete Sanborn, a consultant with Aon Hewitt.

A November report from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) told a similar story. That analysis showed that employees were only moderately engaged at work, with an average score of 3.6 on a five-point scale.

Limited career advancement and development opportunities, along with lack of satisfaction with communication between employees and senior management, pulled down engagement scores, said S. Evren Esen, manager of SHRM’s Survey Research Center. Those problems were exacerbated by a lack of external and internal job opportunities.