As the ball went down in Times Square on New Year's Eve, a number of economic indicators were looking up. Hiring and unemployment were at six-year highs, the stock market topped the 18,000 level numerous times and gas prices were lower than they've been in a long time.

In its annual job forecast, job site CareerBuilder's outlook for 2015 was definitely bullish. "The U.S. job market is turning a corner as caution gives way to confidence," CEO Matt Ferguson said. More than a third (36%) of the roughly 2,200 hiring and HR managers surveyed expect to hire full-time employees this year, up from 24% a year ago; while 9% plan to reduce staff, down from 13% last year, according to a post on WeAreCentralPA.com.

The survey predicts that job growth in areas such as financial services, information technology, healthcare and manufacturing will outperform the national average. Employment is expected to grow in the closely watched STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) sectors as well.

Employees Back in the Driver's Seat

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, companies are once again seeing job turnover for the first time in recent memory. Employees are actually quitting their jobs at the highest rate in years – it may even reach 25% this year.

Now, all of a sudden, hiring managers and HR departments are focused on retaining talent and keeping them happy; quite a shift from the downsizing trend to which many of us have become accustomed. A recent article published by outplacement and leadership development firm ClearRock indicates that improving employee morale will be an important objective in 2015. 

"Developing policies and procedures that relieve employees' sense of being overwhelmed at work... will be one of the top organizational change management initiatives of 2015," according to a recent post from MediaBistro.

So how did we make the leap from employees being stressed over losing their jobs to being stressed over keeping their jobs? ClearRock points to data released by Gallup in 2013 that concluded some 70% of the workforce is "disengaged" to some degree. Further, it's excessive stress in the office as opposed to too much work that may be primarily responsible for this disengagement and higher levels of turnover we're seeing.

A Broken Engagement?

The term "employee engagement" has become an over-used buzz word. Still, the 2013 Gallup survey, "State of the American Workplace," was compiled over three years and includes data taken from more than 350,000 respondents. In other words, the results are not to be taken lightly.

The survey's startling finding that "70% of American workers are 'not engaged' or 'actively disengaged' and are emotionally disconnected from their workplaces and less likely to be productive" (to the tune of $450 billion to $550 billion in estimated lost productivity annually) serves as a call to arms for HR professionals to encourage their workforces to somehow "reengage" with their jobs, according to a recent article from Forbes.

Some other interesting findings of the Gallup study include:

• Women tend to be more engaged than men.
• A higher level of education doesn't necessarily mean a higher level of engagement.
• Employees working remotely tend to be more engaged than those working on-site (which may give embattled Yahoo CEO Marisa Mayer, who put a stop to telecommuting firmwide in 2013, some pause).
• Engagement levels vary by employee generation, with Millennials and Generation X ahead of retiring Baby Boomers.
• Perhaps most relevant for HR pros: A staffer's relationship with his or her direct manager was found to be a leading factor in employee engagement with their jobs.

It would appear that HR professionals have their work cut out for them in 2015 – and for the foreseeable future. It looks as though downsizing is about to be replaced by rightsizing; or perhaps, more correctly, righting the ship.