Employee Engagement isn’t the shiny north star it once was. So what now?

Cat Howland:

Gallup’s global research on employee engagement has been grim for years, and 2024 was no exception. In the U.S., engagement hit a 10-year low. Whatever companies are doing—if they’re doing anything at all—it’s not moving the needle. “Employee engagement” has become a vague, overused term, and it’s lost its punch as a meaningful metric. As communications professionals, it’s worth asking if the concept is still serving our stakeholders: the organization, it’s leaders, employees, or the larger community.

Is it time to walk away from the metric altogether? Maybe. Here are a few signs.

There’s a definition problem.
Mike Klein’s research, as part of LumApps Future of Work Index shows that while most agree engagement drives business results, comms pros and business leaders don’t agree on what the term actually means. That makes it hard to improve (or even study) engagement consistently across industries. Gallup defines it as “the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in their work and workplace,” which aligns with the top-ranked definition that professionals cited in Klein’s study, but not the second or third.

Engagement with company comms is often mistaken for true employee engagement.
But they’re not the same, and in some cases, all that clicking and reacting can actually undercut the real thing. As Shaun Randol points out, the sheer volume of platforms and channels eats away at employees’ focus and psychological bandwidth. It leaves less room for deep, meaningful work, the kind that feels rewarding, drives results, and keeps people truly engaged.

Monitoring engagement as a score misses the point
When leaders fixate on engagement scores, they risk treating survey data like a surface-level morale check, or an employee wish list for perks. That framing can create us-vs-them dynamics, instead of prompting meaningful conversations about what employees need (and maybe aren’t getting) that would allow them to thrive and do their best work.

Engagement (alone) isn’t always good for the business
Sometimes, high engagement masks real harm. In 2020, new data showed that employees could appear highly engaged while burning out, driven by stress, anxiety, and overwork. Today, they might be fueled by AI panic, economic fear, an overbearing manager, hustle culture, or imposter syndrome. On the surface, they look committed. But underneath, they’re struggling.

When we define engagement too narrowly, we miss these risks. It used to be common wisdom that high engagement meant employees were doing well. But research from Stanford found productivity gains drop sharply after 50 hours a week (and after 55, they flatline). Beyond that, extra hours often lead to fatigue, errors, and wasted effort. That’s not engagement. And it’s not sustainable.

Recent research also shows that burnout costs U.S. companies $4,000–$21,000 per employee per year, or about $5 million annually for a 1,000-person company. That includes lost productivity, absenteeism, and turnover: clear signs that extreme employee engagement hurts both people and performance.

Employee engagement isn’t hopeless, but we need a reset

Improving employee engagement to benefit the business is possible, but as communicators, we know that definition and approach make all the difference. The data and strategies are there, but we may need to help leaders better understand and apply them to get the results they actually want.

A quality engagement survey should help curious leaders dig into what’s really going on. The best-case scenario sparks conversations about the why behind the data, and what’s getting in the way of employees doing the jobs they were hired to do. One of the most respected (data-backed) models comes from David MacLeod and Nita Clarke’s Engaging for Success, which outlines four enablers: Strategic Narrative, Employee Voice, Engaging Managers, and Organizational Integrity. Internal communicators play a vital role in bringing all four to life.

This is where internal comms strategists can really shine. We’re positioned to influence and demonstrate our value far beyond tracking Slack clicks. With the right approach to employee engagement surveys and action plans, we can partner with leaders to shape culture, connection, and clarity across the org. And if they’re stuck in a transactional mindset, it may be time to shift the language, and tweak the focus from “engagement” to something new…

Employee Experience, Needs, and Wellbeing

Internal comms has a unique opportunity to co-lead the shift, alongside HR and other partners, toward a more human-centered workplace, especially when the CEO is an engaged sponsor. We’re in a strategic sense-making role, helping leaders interpret what’s happening inside and outside the organization and how it’s affecting employees.

There may be no more strategic comms work today than helping shift the focus from just tracking engagement scores to understanding the full employee experience, and identifying where there’s a gap between what employees need to thrive and what they’re getting.

Gartner defines employee experience (EX) as “the sum of all interactions an employee has with their employer, from recruitment to exit. It encompasses the work environment, culture, technology, and support systems.” These factors influence employee perceptions, engagement, and productivity. When employees have higher EX, they also have higher retention, satisfaction, and performance, ultimately benefiting the organization.As internal comms pros, we’re woven throughout the organization, and we have insight into how culture, workflows, systems, and technology impact the employee experience. That gives us a valuable lens for interpreting survey themes and advising leaders on what’s helping or hindering employees day-to-day. And what will make the organization stronger over time.

This work almost always begins with reviewing previous engagement surveys with this lens. Partner with HR to explore employee needs with a structured framework. Options include Alderfer’s ERG model (a workplace-adapted version of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs), the Gallup 10-part job quality index or McKinsey & Company’s 12 factors that affect employees’ satisfaction and commitment levels.

The insights that surface from an employee needs assessment will almost always point back to the same core areas: work environment, culture, technology, compensation, and support systems. And they should—because employees don’t engage or disengage in a vacuum. They’re deeply affected by the conditions of their workplace.

Tuning into employee experience and needs helps leaders see that their systems and structures are directly shaping how people feel at work, which impacts how they perform.

According to Gallup, “career wellbeing — liking what you do every day — has the strongest impact on overall wellbeing.” It provides financial stability, but also social interaction, physical activity, and connection to community. Work, done right, gives people meaning. Well-being at work is the foundation of a life where people report they are “thriving.”

If you’re looking for a practical way to support executives in shifting from score-based engagement to a deeper focus on employee experience, I’ve outlined a flexible framework, CTRL/Shift/Connect, designed specifically for internal comms professionals. Read it here. (There’s a companion piece for CEOs as well.)

The Business Case

Business leaders don’t have to choose between people and performance, but sometimes the shift to a new culture can seem like uncharted territory. But it’s not. Many companies have done it–proving that a more human-centered approach is a competitive advantage.

At Unilever, former CEO Paul Polman made sustainability and stakeholder well-being core to the business model, and shareholder returns rose nearly 300%. As he put it, “We were in a world not to make things worse, but to make things better.”

Satya Nadella, CEO at Microsoft, replaced a cutthroat “know-it-all” culture with one rooted in empathy, collaboration, and a “learn-it-all” mindset. The result was a stronger, more innovative company, now valued at $3 trillion. 

And back in the 1980s, Toyota partnered with GM to overhaul one of the most dysfunctional plants in the U.S. They didn’t replace the workforce. They just replaced the approach. With 85% of the same employees, absenteeism dropped from 20% to 4%, labor hours per vehicle were cut in half, and product quality soared. When leaders shifted the culture to meet people’s needs, performance followed.

Employee engagement, as we know it, has lost its edge. What we need now is a more honest, human approach, one that values insight over scores and positions internal comms as strategic translators and business advisors. It can be part of a broader shift from transactional workplaces to environments that meet human needs and help people do their best work. There’s no better time for this shift: AI is reshaping how work gets done, and leadership norms are in flux.

If we want our companies to be adaptable and sustainable in a changing world, we need to bake that into our workplace systems, too. Simplistic engagement metrics won’t do it. Real understanding of employee needs, and real responsiveness, will.

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Catherine “Cat” Howland, MA, SCMP, is an award-winning communications strategist, writer, and former ABC Radio producer with 15+ years of experience in leadership messaging, internal comms, and employee engagement. She now leads Human Doings / Human Beings, a platform and forthcoming book on human-centered workplace culture in the age of AI and evolving leadership norms.

Written by: Editor