Look around the office. Is there a team that seems to always be putting out fires, falling behind on projects, and having conflicts with other teams? What about a team that’s always hitting its goals, regularly jumping to take on new challenges, and showered in new opportunities? There might be a few differences between these two teams, but there’s one big one. Employee engagement.
Engaged employees are motivated, driven, and completely aligned with your organization’s mission. These employees are more dedicated to their day-to-day work, constantly look for ways to reach new heights, and unlock new ways to collaborate with other teams. Your top-performers are usually highly engaged, and your most successful teams are full of engaged employees.
High employee engagement has an impact on everything in your organization, from employee performance to project competition rates to recruitment costs. That’s why it should be such a priority.
Key takeaways:
Employee engagement describes how motivated and driven employees are, how that motivation ties into your company’s mission, and how that drive pushes them to find new opportunities for collaboration. Measured both on an individual basis and across your organization, employee engagement ties directly into everything you do; engaged employees are 20% more productive on average. That means organizations where employee engagement is a priority have more top performers, achieve their goals more effectively, and build a competitive advantage that gets them ahead.
Another area where employee engagement has a massive impact? Employee development. Your employees are your greatest resource, and you know that investing in them through growth plans and other forms of support creates outsized returns in performance, smoother collaboration, and new opportunities. But employee engagement determines how motivated an individual is when development opportunities are put in front of them. When an employee is highly engaged, they’re ready to do whatever it takes to hit their next goal. When they’re disengaged, they’re less likely to follow that plan.
Employee engagement can be tracked and improved with employee engagement software that:
Employee engagement is a multifaceted strategy involving multiple teams. Before you spin up any employee engagement initiatives, you need to know where to concentrate your efforts so you can get the best return on your investment. Here are some of the most essential factors in driving employee engagement.
For employees to be engaged at work, they need strong leadership. That doesn’t mean they want to follow an authoritarian; they need to know that leaders can make the right decision when things get difficult.
Because engagement includes being aligned with the organization’s mission, that mission needs to be clear and leadership decisions should be aligned with it. If leadership can show its dedication to the mission and take actions in line with that mission, employees are more likely to engage with it.
Like many things, employee engagement is built on trust. A highly engaged employee is one who’s dedicated to their day-to-day work, and that means they need to know they’re doing something that matters.
When a manager tells them they should prioritize Project A over Project B, they need to be able to trust that their manager is guiding them correctly. If they feel like they have to second-guess what their manager tells them, their productivity slows and their engagement decreases as they second-guess what they’re working on.
Engaged employees typically think their work is meaningful and find some sense of purpose in it. That means you need to find ways to make that happen. One of the best ways to do that is through work portraits. A work portrait is a self-assessment each employee performs that describes the kind of work they find meaningful, the way they work, and the improvements they want to make. With a work portrait in hand, you have the key to putting each employee in a role where they’re more likely to find their work meaningful, and you can work with them to find purpose in what they do. One quick way to implement this? Improve the way you recognize employees when they succeed.
Career growth is essential to employee engagement. Highly engaged employees don’t just care about performing at their best in their day-to-day work. They also need a larger goal to shoot for. For some, that might be a promotion. For others, it’s building a new skill. Others still might be more motivated by participating in interesting projects.
No matter what motivates them, everyone needs a goal to shoot for. By proactively creating a growth plan for each employee, you give them the motivation that’s so essential to employee engagement. The right employee engagement software can help you draft, store, and reference these work portraits.
Your employees need to be well to do their best work. Your organization has an important role to play in that wellness, including in helping build work-life balance. When your employees feel like they’re spending all their time at work, it’s hard to be engaged with that work.
As an organization, you have a role to play in helping them maintain that work-life balance, so that they can put their full attention and dedication into their work when they are there.
High employee engagement doesn’t just make your employees feel better about their work. It has an obvious, measurable effect on your organization’s priorities. Here’s how.
Highly engaged employees are more productive than their disengaged counterparts. Even a small drop in employee engagement (2%) can cost as much as $438 billion in lost productivity worldwide, according to Gallup’s 2024 State of the Workforce report.
Likewise, even a small increase in productivity in individual employees trickles up throughout your organization. Projects are completed more quickly. Cross-team collaboration goes more smoothly. New opportunities get uncovered more often.
Employee engagement ties directly to employee satisfaction. Highly engaged employees are more likely to go above and beyond in their day-to-day work.
That means they’ll go the extra mile to resolve a customer’s problem, they’ll be more likely to identify issues before they get serious, and they’ll contribute to creating high-quality products and services that surprise and delight your customers. Your employee engagement efforts impact your whole organization, and your customers will feel the impact.
Your organization’s turnover rate is linked with employee engagement. Not all types of turnover can be avoided with high engagement, but regrettable turnover—when an employee or high-performer’s departure hurts the organization—can often be prevented.
A highly engaged employee is driven to make your organization’s mission a reality. That employee isn’t going to leave to chase a bigger paycheque or a different role. They see your organization as the best place to level up their career and earn more. Avoiding these instances of turnover reduces your overall turnover rate.
Your organization needs a few elements to keep growing: strong leadership, skilled talent, scalable processes, and robust financial management. Employees involved in these activities are more effective when they’re highly engaged, and this is especially true in the “skilled talent” sphere.
Your people have an outsized impact on your organization’s goals, but talent and skills are just part of it. High engagement allows employees to deploy their talents more effectively.
It might not feel like employee engagement is directly linked to your organization’s profitability, but it absolutely is. Increased productivity leads to more effective day-to-day operations, which can grow your profit margin.
Higher customer satisfaction leads to more repeat purchases and larger orders, again improving your profit margin. Lower turnover rates mean you’re spending less on hiring and employee retention, lowering your overall costs. Finally, as high employee engagement contributes to organizational growth, your leaders can make bigger bets that lead to more profit.
With employee engagement’s massive impact on your organization’s goals, improving it should be one of your priorities. But to improve something, you need a way to measure it. Here’s how.
Employee engagement isn’t its own metric; it’s a combination of multiple metrics. Here’s what you should be tracking:
To measure the metrics tied to employee engagement, organizations typically use a few different surveys, such as:
With the right metrics and tools, you can measure employee engagement at an individual level and across the entire organization. These measurements allow you to track the impact of employee engagement initiatives over time. And that’s an important element of employee engagement: continuous improvement and monitoring. Like other aspects of talent management, employee engagement is an ongoing process, requiring consistent measurement. Performance management tools like 15Five allow you to measure this without a ton of manual, administrative work, and they’ll give you the data you need to plan stronger employee engagement initiatives.
Know that employee engagement is a priority, but not sure where to start? Here are the best strategies for improving engagement at your organization.
Your leaders can have a massive impact on employee engagement throughout the organization. First, by sharing that they care about the day-to-day work of individual employees—by asking questions or finding ways to support them—they can make that work more meaningful. Even their participation in employee engagement initiatives you plan, like employee recognition programs and feedback sessions, can be effective.
Communication isn’t a one-way street. Highly engaged employees have a lot to share about how you can improve the way your organization does things, but communication channels should be open to all employees. When people feel like they can actually help change things for the better in your company, they’re more likely to get involved—and become more engaged.
The best way to know where you stand on employee engagement—and how effective your initiatives are—is by getting feedback from your teams. Creating an environment that keeps that feedback flowing requires an investment, like slowly building trust in management and actually making changes when you get constructive criticism from employees.
Employee recognition programs can keep highly engaged employees dedicated to their work and give less engaged employees the boost they need to get more motivated. This recognition can take a number of forms, from public praise for an employee’s wins to regular parties and social events.
Employees need an objective to shoot if they’re going to be engaged in their day-to-day work. Offering development opportunities tells employees that you’re invested in their growth, and that makes them more likely to be invested in your mission.
Does your company culture actually encourage employees to fully dedicate themselves to their work? Psychological safety creates an environment where employees feel like they can take risks to do their best work without being punished for it. Make this a priority in your culture, and you’ll see more engagement from your top performers.
Technology is a key part of how you measure, understand, and improve employee engagement at scale. Modern HR platforms give you the infrastructure you need to get the insights you need across your workforce.
HR tech centralizes employee engagement efforts into a single cohesive system rather than fragmented initiatives. These platforms enable consistent communication, streamline recognition programs, and create visibility into employee sentiment across the organization.
By removing administrative friction, technology allows managers to focus on meaningful interactions while ensuring no employee falls through the cracks. The right tools transform engagement from periodic surveys into a continuous dialogue.
Artificial intelligence elevates engagement measurement beyond basic satisfaction scores. AI analyzes patterns in pulse survey responses, identifies emerging concerns before they escalate, and surfaces recommendations tailored to specific teams or individuals.
These intelligent systems detect nuances in employee feedback that human reviewers might miss, enabling proactive interventions. Regular pulse checks powered by AI create feedback loops that keep leadership attuned to workforce sentiment in real-time rather than relying on annual assessments.
Modern performance management systems recognize that engagement and performance are deeply interconnected. AI-assisted reviews help managers provide more meaningful feedback while reducing administrative burden, strengthening the manager-employee relationship that drives engagement. Meanwhile, comprehensive HR outcomes dashboards connect engagement metrics to business results, demonstrating ROI and highlighting which initiatives genuinely move the needle. These platforms transform subjective engagement concepts into measurable outcomes that inform strategic decision-making and resource allocation.
Your workplace has to change to meet evolving market conditions, and your employee engagement strategies need to as well. Here are some of the trends you should be looking to stay ahead of.
These new ways of working have some significant advantages, including giving you access to a greater talent pool and giving employees more flexibility in how they work. But that also means traditional employee engagement methods won’t always work. Remote employee engagement requires reimagining your strategy through virtual team-building activities, asynchronous communication, and intentional digital touchpoints to replace impromptu social contact.
Artificial intelligence is transforming business functions throughout your organization, and HR is no different. Predictive analytics can identify disengagement patterns before they result in turnover, while automation can handle administrative tasks that don’t benefit from an HR agent’s attention.
Employee well-being is no longer a peripheral benefit; it’s becoming a priority. Organizations that want to build and maintain high engagement as a competitive advantage need to recognize the importance of well-being across mental, financial, and social dimensions. Innovative wellness initiatives show a genuine commitment to health from your organization, which encourages high engagement.
Employee engagement has a massive impact on your organization’s productivity and profitability, and it requires a serious investment to build and maintain. But with the right approach, investment from your leadership, and trust in your managers, you can identify highly engaged employees, support less engaged employees, and drive results throughout your organization.
Not sure where to start? Find out how the right performance management platform can help you improve employee engagement in all your teams. Book a demo today.