Employee Engagement Is Not Dead. It Has a Messaging Problem

Noreen Pratscher:

In recent years, “employee engagement, ” defined as the degree to which employees are committed to an organization and willing to make discretionary effort, has taken reputational hits. Leaders question its ROI and some discount it altogether. Employees note the gap between stated values and leader behavior. Communications and HR teams are often left to ‘fix it’ with implementing frivolous campaigns and superficial actions.

Employee engagement is not irrelevant; it has real business impact. Gallup reports that U.S. employee engagement is hovering at roughly 30% of workers being engaged, meaning that more than two-thirds of the work force are not invested in their organization.  Globally, the figure is even more stark: only 20% of employees are engaged.  There’s a real cost to this: Disengaged employees are estimated to cost hundreds of billions of dollars annually in lost productivity.

What’s to be done? Employee engagement remains one of the most critical drivers of organizational success. But it requires a mindset shift, from promoting an engagement as an initiative – annual surveys that have varying degrees of actions stemming from results – to embedding it as an organizational discipline.

Too often, engagement is treated as a campaign: a new initiative, a themed month, or a pulse survey followed by a slide deck with a handful of action items. Communications teams are tasked with communicating survey results versus shaping behaviors.

Engagement is not a ‘moment in time’ deliverable. It is the result of clear, credible, and consistent communication over time. That means the starting point isn’t another survey or slogan, but a genuine shift in whose interests the message serves.  Shifting the focus to ‘employee-first’ messaging, Communications should work with leaders to communicate: 

• What is expected of employees (drilled down to individual functions or roles)?
• Why does it matter?
• How does their work connect to organizational results or a bigger purpose?

When those answers are unclear, no amount of branding or internal marketing will compensate.  

Declining engagement is a breakdown in credibility. If the employee experience doesn’t match the messaging, trust erodes. Employees are highly attuned to misalignment. They notice when leadership messages emphasize transparency, but stated reasons for decisions are opaque. They hear language about flexibility, but experience rigidity. They see values statements that are never operationalized.

These gaps erodes trust—and without trust, engagement cannot exist.

Communications teams sit at the center of this tension. Our role is not simply to amplify leadership messages, but to ensure those messages are grounded in reality, reinforced by action, and responsive to employee experience.  Engagement improves when communication becomes more honest and employees have real opportunity for two-way dialogue with leaders.

Engagement is not something employees opt into, it is something they experience through every interaction, message, and decision.  For communications leaders, this represents both a challenge and an opportunity. It requires moving beyond content production toward strategic influence: shaping how leaders communicate, how managers reinforce messages, and how systems support understanding.

Employee engagement is still relevant because people still want to understand their work, feel valued, and contribute to something meaningful.  And Communications has a critical role to play in articulating these value propositions to drive positive business outcomes and close the productivity gap.

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Noreen Pratscher is a senior communications strategist and founder of Pratscher Communications.  She serves as strategic counsel and guides clients on aligning communications strategy with business goals.  She helps organizations navigate change and transformation, and delivers programs that impact business performance.  Services include reputation management, brand building and change management.  She is a #weleadcomms honoree. To learn more, visit www.pratschercommunications.com.