As HR leaders, L&D professionals, compliance experts, and enterprise decision-makers, we are tasked with driving engagement at scale—across departments, geographies, and cultures. Yet despite our best efforts, many organizations are still seeing flat or declining engagement scores. In fact, Gallop’s “State of The Workplace” report finds that employee engagement has dropped 21% since 2024, with lost productivity costing the global economy $438 billion.
Why are we seeing such a big decrease in engagement?
Because we’ve been treating employee engagement like a program instead of a practice. We’ve prioritized perks over purpose, surveys over conversations, and optics over outcomes. In today’s workplace, true engagement comes from something deeper: belonging, trust, and a sense of contribution to something meaningful.
Belonging Is a Strategic Advantage
Belonging isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a business imperative. Research from Deloitte and McKinsey continues to show that inclusive cultures—where employees feel they can bring their full selves to work—drive stronger business outcomes: greater innovation, retention, and performance.
But belonging doesn’t happen through policy alone. It happens in the daily experiences of your people. Are your teams being heard in meetings? Are ERGs resourced, not just recognized? Are people supported at every level?
Belonging may be a feeling, but achieving it calls for creating systems that value lived experience, and ensure psychological safety. Engagement strategies that don’t prioritize belonging are leaving value—and people—on the table.
Be Transparent About The Role Of AI
The rise of AI is driving innovation but also uncertainty among employees in terms of how new technology will impact their roles. These are disruptive times, so being intentional and transparent about how your organization is leveraging AI will help ease employee anxiety and drive buy in.
For example, the vaccine maker Moderna merged its tech and HR departments and promoted its human resources chief to chief people and digital technology officer. This has helped the department to automate HR tasks, such as routing employee questions to the best human HR representative based on whether the inquiry pertains to benefits, performance management, etc.
The more intentional organizations are about how you are leveraging AI to drive efficiency while also being transparent with employees about how this technology will impact their roles, the less resistance and more buy-in they will experience from your workforce.
Equally important is investing in your employees by training employees to leverage AI and upskill your workforce for the future. When employees see that they are part of the technological evolution happening inside of your organization rather than worrying about what it means for their role, they will be more engaged.
Make Leadership Accountability the Norm, Not the Exception
One of the most powerful (and underutilized) engagement levers is holding leaders accountable for culture. Not just HR teams—every leader.
LinkedIn data shows workforce confidence has dropped to a five-year low, and only 15% of employees say their manager has supported them with career planning in the past six months. Leaders today need to not only manage, but also coach their direct reports.
Is emotional intelligence part of your leadership evaluations? Do performance reviews include questions around empathy, team morale, and feedback inclusion?
At HireTalent and Consciously Unbiased, we work with organizations to embed these accountability metrics across the employee lifecycle. When leaders are measured on how they lead, not just what they deliver, cultures shift—and engagement follows.
Shift from Engagement Programs to Human-Centered Systems
Here’s the truth: no one feels truly engaged by pizza parties and point systems. Those are temporary boosts—not sustainable strategies.
Real engagement requires reimagining our systems around the lived experiences of our workforce. It calls for integrated approaches that connect talent development, compliance, and culture into a unified vision. One that isn’t reactive, but proactive.
The most engaged employees are those who feel safe, seen, and supported. Who understand how their work contributes to something greater. Who trust their leaders, and feel trusted in return.
As decision-makers, you have the power to architect that kind of culture—not through more perks, but through more purpose.
Because when we lead with purpose, engagement becomes more than a metric; it becomes a movement.
