Employee Engagement: What Modern CHROs Need to Know

We will spend approximately a third of our life at work. That’s over 90,000 hours. But the job market is not the same as it was just ten years ago.

People have more options than ever before. Many choose to get into freelancing, start their own business, or join the creator economy. The tolerance for poor work environments went down, and pay is not enough to retain talented people.

With the increasing trust gap between workers and employers, it’s really time to start prioritizing employee engagement. HR leaders and managers are accountable for this important task, but the employees have their share of responsibility – they need to be vocal about how they feel.

We consulted with subject-matter experts to bring you original insights and ideas on employee engagement, and discovered some interesting takes on the topic.

Why is Employee Engagement Important

Employee engagement is not just about keeping your employees happy. It’s about intentionally building a culture where everyone feels like they have a purpose, plenty of room to grow, and the freedom to be who they are.

From a business perspective, poor employee engagement is costing your organization a lot of money. According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report, $8.9 trillion is lost in global GDP due to low employee engagement.

The numbers show the vast majority doesn’t feel engaged at work. This is not only sad, but deeply concerning.

When people feel detached from their work, they start passively looking for other job opportunities, resort to quiet quitting, or start displaying a repeated pattern of not turning up for work.

As much as you’re tempted to look at this issue exclusively through the financial lens, it’s not just about the measurable impact on productivity.

When employee engagement is low, it has a slow, eroding effect on your company culture. In the manner of Hemingway’s Law of motion, the crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought.

Before you know it, your company’s not perceived as a nice place to work at anymore. Employee turnover negatively impacts morale, revenue, and motivation. On the flip side, high employee retention rates and great engagement are drivers of innovation. And innovation is the key to increasing competitiveness in the market.

What Employees Want vs. What They Get

Our Honestly team attended EMBRACE 2024 – one of the leading events in the DACH region that focuses on topics like the future of recruiting, retention, and HR tech.

Mrs. Lea Lonsted, the Pay Equity & DEi Leader, Europe at Mercer, held an eye-opening presentation about the gap between what employees want and what companies provide. Here are just a few facts:

• Employees communicate how important their well-being at work is, yet it’s only #6 on the list of benefits companies have in place today
• Around 36% of employees want to have programs to talk about difficult topics at work, yet it’s #4 on the list of benefits

This only proves that employees are still not being listened to. True “Culture of Care” looks beyond career progression and financials. It takes social, emotional, and physical factors into consideration.

Another recent research by StandTogether revealed what are the most important priorities employees care about:

You can expect to see an increase in employee engagement once you realize it’s not a lighthearted topic and invest an effort. And if your company has remote workers, it adds another dimension to the challenge.

Jen Seran, Director of Business Operations at Stallion Express shared how the company takes employee engagement seriously, with high awareness of the ripple effect it has on the business:

“For us, employee involvement isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a promise to make the workplace great. When everyone on our team works together, our customers get the best service.”

Jen Seran, Director of Business Operations at Stallion Express

But, how do you get there? How do you make sure your employees are engaged and that your company works like a well-oiled machine?

How to Increase Employee Engagement

Increasing employee engagement starts with understanding your employees and their needs. Don’t make assumptions on what makes them tick – include them in designing the workspace they will love.

Employee engagement is not a one-off project with an end date. You need to work on it continuously, especially because needs and expectations change. You have to adapt, there’s no way around it.

One of the key ways to do that is by asking the right questions through ongoing employee engagement surveys, as Alina Samchenko, COO of HireDevelopersBiz told us:

“We work on increasing employee engagement through regular pulse surveys and annual engagement surveys, both including quantitative and qualitative questions.”

Alina Samchenko, COO of HireDevelopersBiz

Regular surveys that feel like a low-lift for your employees give you valuable data points you can use to design impactful initiatives. Do this over a longer period of time and you’ll start to notice patterns that can help you prevent employee churn. For modern HRs, data can be incredibly empowering.

Now let’s take a look at how some companies drive employee engagement.

Get Inspired by These Employee Engagement Ideas

We asked HR leaders from various industries to share how they keep employee engagement levels high. Use them as an inspiration or to validate the importance of investing in employee engagement. We all know that CFOs want a lot of proof in numbers and examples before they give a green light and approve the budget.

Celebrate Small Wins and Create Opportunities to Connect

Top management often forgets just how important it is to celebrate small wins. This is especially true for cultures that are fast-paced and rigorously growth-oriented.

In such a climate, employees might feel like only outstanding work gets the applause. This leaves little to no motivation to handle the “business-as-usual” with enthusiasm.

Alok Jain, CEO of Reveal, found that there are three important efforts for keeping employees engaged – overcommunication, recognition, and virtual gatherings:

Additional tips to engage your employees:

✅ Create a dedicated channel for giving kudos and shout-outs and encourage team leads to post at least once a week

✅ If you’re using Slack or some other messaging app, consider installing a virtual gathering bot to randomly connect team members for quick 15-min chats

✅ Normalize feedback and make it clear to leadership that they need to carve out time to help their team members grow

Give the Stage to Employees to Spark Innovation

When you trust your employees and encourage them to experiment, wonderful things happen. This helps them break the molds of their job description, grow horizontally, and have fun. Not a lot of companies are willing to offer a playground for their employees, and they are missing out. This is how big ideas are born.

Lucas Botzen, HR Expert & CEO at Rivermate, shared how they launched “Innovation Spirit” to stir up innovation and collaboration between different departments. It goes on for a full week, once a quarter, giving employees an opportunity to work on projects beyond their usual scope:

Additional tips to engage your employees:

✅ Give your employees a chance to take a breath and tap into their creativity (check out the concept of Focus Fridays and Maker Weeks at Slack for inspiration)

✅ If your current stage of growth allows it, implement a policy that empowers employees to grow vertically and horizontally

✅ Organize time-constrained brainstorming sessions that will strengthen cross-functional collaboration and help your employees voice their ideas

Gamify the Experience for Multiple Benefits

Taking care of your employees’ well-being is not completely under your control. Sure, you can create a stress-free environment, provide healthy snacks in the office, or offer a gym membership. But will it be enough for the employees to actually take advantage of the health benefits?

A creative idea to gamify the experience comes from Eliot Vancil, CEO of Fuel Logic LLC:

“I’m incredibly proud of our “Fuel for Fitness” program. We offered gym memberships and set up monthly fitness tasks because we knew that being physically fit and having fun were linked. Many people took part, and average employee satisfaction increased by 20%”

Eliot Vancil, CEO of Fuel Logic LLC

After the company implemented the program, employees reported they felt more energized and connected to their coworkers.

People feel engaged when they feel encouraged to do something that’s good for them. That’s what a good company culture can do – humanize practices by enabling employees to have fun.

Additional tips to engage your employees:

✅ People love to compete, especially when investing an effort feels good; think about other types of competitions where you can make it fun for everyone

✅ Create a challenge for posting on LinkedIn with a scoring board and promise prizes for three top-performing employees

✅ Openly ask employees if they need additional support from the company to manage their well-being (e.g. gym memberships are pretty much the standard, but you could also increase engagement by offering access to mental health apps)

Implement an Internal Mentorship Program

Professional growth is one of the top priorities for employees and what keeps them engaged. But what if, instead of expecting them to grow through hands-on work or dedicated training programs, you tap into internal expertise?

That’s exactly what Richard Morgan, CEO and Head of Research at Catalyst Fund did:

Additional tips to engage your employees:

✅ Encourage all employees – juniors and seniors alike – to participate in knowledge-sharing (e.g. Lunch & Learn meetings are a great way to increase engagement)

✅ Create a stellar onboarding experience by assigning onboarding buddies to newcomers

✅ Encourage employees to collect learnings from mentor sessions and create an annual insights report to share within the company

How to Measure Employee Engagement

Now that we’ve covered some ideas to boost employee engagement, it’s time to roll up our sleeves and discuss metrics. How do you measure something that feels very abstract or intangible?

You do it in two ways: by continuously soliciting feedback and paying attention.

The company Rivermate uses a multidimensional approach to ensure that they get the holistic view of both the sentiment and level of involvement from their team, shared their HR Expert & CEO:

And what about the success metrics and benchmarks? It’s all about adopting best practices and figuring out what works for your organization:

“We rely on eNPS, a measure of the likelihood of employees to recommend Rivermate as a place of work, and pulse surveys that track engagement levels over time. As such, benchmarks are set up not solely on the basis of standards and best practices but also on internal targets and historical data, which makes them relevant and actionable in this organizational context.”

Lucas Botzen, HR Expert & CEO at Rivermate:

Similarly to Rivermate, Stallion Express relies on the regular surveys and direct feedback from their employees, as shared by their Director of Operations:

“Our success metrics include the number of employees who stay with the company, their productivity, and the happiness of their customers. Benchmarks are based on business standards and past data. For example, we want to keep our turnover rate below 10%, which shows that our employees are very involved with their jobs.”

Jen Seran, Director of Operations at Stallion Express

The Future of Employee Engagement

As we face a shift in the power between the workforce and companies, what lies ahead for employee engagement?

The tech industry has already been ridiculed for the extent it goes to engage their talent – from regular pizza parties and insane dietary options at the office, to luxurious company retreats and a continuously extended list of perks. It’s definitely raising expectations in the workforce. However, it means little if it’s an attempt to fabricate engagement without a shared sense of purpose.

Seems like HR experts are pretty aligned with their projections that employee engagement will become much more personalized. This will be a challenge for corporations with thousands of employees, and it will require new technologies and methods of keeping a pulse on how everyone’s doing.

Alina Samchenko, the COO of HireDevelopersBiz mentioned that personalization and work-life integration will dominate the future of employee engagement:

“With technological advancements in AI and data analysis, we will see further customization in how companies engage with employees – one that considers their needs and preference-based tailoring of the work environment, benefits, and activities.”

The future will bring personalized, flexible, and inclusive environments that recognize and cater to differing needs of all staff. The key challenge will be to use the right technology to collect feedback in real-time, and then use data-driven insights to implement the right initiatives, shared Lucas Botzen, HR Expert & CEO at Rivermate:

“I feel there will be further concentration on mental health and well-being programs since the demarcation between work and personal life is getting blurred. […] The future of engagement will depend on how well organizations adapt to the ever-changing employee expectations and the ability to provide support and purpose at the workplace.”

If you want to stay at the frontier of latest technology and employee engagement trends, stay tuned for the Honestly newsletter that’s coming soon.