How to Increase Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is the holy grail of modern business—and the numbers prove why. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2025 report shows engagement fell to just 21% in 2024, with managers experiencing the sharpest decline.

This disengagement cost the global economy $438 billion the same year, while full engagement could have added an incredible $9.6 trillion in productivity.

For HR professionals, boosting engagement is no longer optional—it’s essential. Done right, it can cut absenteeism by 81%, reduce turnover by 43% and improve organization profitability by 23%.

In this guide, we look at how you can increase employee engagement across every stage of the employee lifecycle—from tips for hiring to finding insights in exit interviews.

What is employee engagement?

Employee engagement is the degree to which employees are invested, motivated, and connected to their work or organization. It goes beyond simple job satisfaction—it’s about being enthusiastic, having purpose, and aligning with the organization’s mission and objectives. Factors that usually influence employee engagement include:

• Expectations: How clearly the employee understands what’s required of them
• Resources: Whether what’s provided is sufficient to get the job done
• Recognition: How the organization recognizes and rewards success
• Wellbeing: How the employee feels their manager and the organization care about them as a person
• Development: Whether the workplace provides opportunities for an employee to enhance their skills and advance their career
• Importance: How valuable the employee feels their contribution is to the organization
• Purpose: How the employee feels they are contributing to the company mission and the greater society
• Camaraderie: How connected an employee feels to their coworkers
• Feedback: How clearly and consistently the employee’s work is evaluated
• Autonomy: Whether and how well employees are empowered to make their own decisions.

While other factors may contribute to how plugged-in an employee is at work, these factors are the ones that many experts believe move the needle on employee engagement.

What about employee satisfaction?

Think of employee satisfaction as the heartbeat of employee engagement. When employees feel happy, supported, and recognized, they naturally invest more energy and purpose into their work. Satisfaction fuels engagement—it’s what transforms employees into passionate advocates for your company’s mission.

HR professionals can nurture a positive company culture by incorporating employee engagement activities such as training, feedback, and development opportunities. When employees believe their contributions matter and their wellbeing is prioritized, satisfaction grows—and so does engagement. Together, they create a powerful cycle of motivation, loyalty, and productivity that benefits employee wellbeing and the organization as a whole.

What is the role of HR in employee engagement?

HR leaders play a crucial role in employee engagement, satisfaction, and retention. Here are four ways you as an HR advocate can influence employee engagement strategies:

1. Measuring employee engagement: HR professionals should be experts in employee engagement, understanding the benefits it offers, effective methods, and how to measure metrics.
2. Training: HR is responsible for training and guiding department managers on how to better engage their staff, focusing on talent development and open communication
3. Organizing activities: HR can foster a stimulating workplace by organizing fun team-building activities that value individual contributions
4. Measuring success: HR must measure employee engagement effectively. This might be through employee engagement surveys and check-ins, focusing on dialogue and methods that positively influence engagement, rather than solely on data and metrics.

Benefits of employee engagement for employees

The greatest benefit of employee engagement starts with the employees themselves. When people feel a strong sense of purpose and belonging at work, they experience improved mental health, psychological safety and a genuine desire to grow.

According to a Headspace survey on mental health in the workplace, work has the potential to be a supportive, positive place:

• 53% Helped them find a community
• 48% Feel more confident
• 44% Built connections and feel less lonely
• 43% Helped lower financial stress and increase stability

It’s essential to move away from a culture of constant pressure and overwork. By focusing on employee wellbeing, fostering psychological safety, and encouraging balance, HR can help create a healthier and more productive workplace. When employees feel supported in a welcoming environment, employee engagement rises—and so does performance and retention.

The alternative is high stress, and it’s not a pretty picture. Here are some of the top ways work-related stress bleeds into employees’ personal lives:

• Negatively impact on physical health (77%)
• Reason for a breakup (71%)
• Made it harder to care for family (39%)
• Caused serious mental health issues (37%)

Fewer accidents

Highly engaged employees experience 63% fewer safety incidents, which is especially important in manufacturing, healthcare, and labor-intensive workplaces.
However, lower stress and higher engagement can result in safer, healthier workplaces for employees in all industries.

Employee satisfaction and engagement have many proven business benefits and advantages, including reduced:

• Absenteeism
• Safety incidents for all stakeholders
• Turnover
• Theft

As well as increased:

• Product quality
• Innovation and creativity
• Customer satisfaction
• Employee productivity and performance
• Business profitability.

When prioritized properly, employee engagement and job satisfaction have the power to impact key metrics and improve organizational performance.

Employee engagement strategies to try

Try these strategies on for size and see how your employee engagement improves.

Align hiring with company culture and values

Hiring isn’t just about filling a role—it’s about reinforcing your company culture. Every new employee influences how teams collaborate and uphold the company's shared values. The best hires align with organizational goals and bring both skill and cultural fit to the table.

Once hired, onboarding becomes the first test of employee engagement. Effective onboarding can boost a sense of belonging, build relationships, and create a culture where every employee feels connected and ready to contribute.

Create a great first day

With everything new employees need to learn on their first day, there are much better ways to spend time than signing paperwork. An HRIS with e-signature capabilities lets new hires complete forms in advance so they can focus on what really matters: people.

Be sure to create a robust orientation presentation and provide some time for new hires to get to know their new teams.

Assign a mentor

After the intro ends and work begins, it can be difficult for a new hire to know when or how to ask questions—or who they should ask. Providing each new hire with a mentor or orientation buddy gives them a known resource for technical or cultural questions.

Regularly survey employees

Employee engagement surveys can help you understand how employees are feeling by tracking dissatisfaction, overall sentiment, and more. With this crucial insight into employee sentiment, you can figure out how to improve employee engagement before smaller issues lead to widespread problems.

Encourage employee resource groups

Employee resource groups (ERGs) represent certain interests, backgrounds, and demographics within your workforce. Funding and encouraging ERGs not only helps people connect in your business but also demonstrates your organization’s commitment to inclusivity.

Measure employee engagement through exit interviews

When terminating an employee, the exit interview process is a chance for managers and leadership to receive honest feedback and learn from each other. If the employee left voluntarily, it’s important to recognize their reason for leaving and see how it can help the organization improve the employee experience. Finally, don’t forget to stay connected, as some employees may later come back to the company with new skills and experiences.

Invest in engagement

Employee engagement doesn’t come for free. But that doesn’t mean your company needs to spend an arm and a leg to get your employees in the game. Thoughtfully allocating your budget toward employee engagement initiatives can improve engagement across your workplace.

Software tools for employee engagement

Human resources professionals often struggle to measure employee engagement. Instead of fighting with Google Forms and spreadsheets, we recommend investing in an all-in-one HR software that combines the following HR activities:

• Applicant tracking system
• Performance management software
• Employee satisfaction survey tools
• Recognition programs
• Compensation research software

BambooHR brings these features—and more—into a complete, intuitive platform that puts employee engagement metrics at your fingertips. Plus, our vast array of integrations seamlessly sync with our platform, so you can continue using many of the tools you know and love.

Equipment, tools, and resources

No one wants to go to work without the tools they need for success. Whether they work in an office or a factory, your staff should have up-to-date equipment. Investing in tools, computers and software shows you’re committed to your team.

Provide consistent employee development

Employees can become disengaged from their organizations due to a lack of professional development.

Creating employee development plans keeps employees motivated beyond just compensation. They also help the business stay on the cutting edge. This is especially critical when learning how to increase employee engagement in healthcare since patient outcomes are at stake.

Build teamwork

Teamwork is not only important for employee engagement in the workplace, but also for several other reasons, including:

• It brings together different perspectives, which can lead to innovative ideas.
• It helps managers learn how to increase remote employee engagement, which is crucial for today’s hybrid teams.
• It allows people to learn from each other, boosting overall performance.
• It helps build positive relationships, translating to a culture of collaboration
• It helps teams avoid conflict, squashing negativity before it can take root
• It leads to increased engagement, which can positively affect business outcomes.

If you’re wondering how to improve employee engagement, teamwork is a great start.

Employee engagement FAQs

Want to know more about employee engagement? Check out these final FAQs.

What does employee engagement look like?

When employees are engaged, they’re often enthusiastically involved in their work. They go beyond the bare minimum required for their role and value successful outcomes.

Engaged employees also communicate proactively with managers and colleagues, contribute and comment on ideas in meetings, show up and have fun during team-building activities, and respond to surveys with thoughtful answers.

What is the difference between employee engagement and employee satisfaction?

Employee engagement reflects how emotionally committed and motivated employees are to their organization’s goals, while employee satisfaction measures how content they feel in their roles. Engagement drives performance and loyalty, whereas satisfaction focuses more on comfort and happiness at work. Both are essential in the overall well-being of the employee.

How to measure employee engagement

To improve employee engagement and satisfaction, you need to measure progress accurately. Tools like Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS*) and engagement surveys reveal how connected and motivated employees feel.

Understand how engagement looks for your business

Before you start any strategies, pause to check in with your team and understand how they’re feeling. An anonymous survey is a good route, allowing your employees to answer honestly about how engaged they’re feeling and what could improve.

*Net Promoter, NPS, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered U.S. trademarks, and NetPromoter Score and Net Promoter System are service marks, of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc. and Fred Reichheld.