Popular Employee Engagement Best Practices in 2025

Employee engagement is one of the most important aspects of the workplace today. Studies show that companies with high engagement levels are more profitable. Employee engagement impacts retention rates, employee happiness, and productivity and improves organizational culture. The importance of employee engagement cannot be over-emphasized.

Overview of the Importance of Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is the level of employee involvement and commitment in the workplace. Engaged employees are more likely to bring their best to work, go out of their way to get things done, go the extra mile to achieve work goals, and even help others at work. Conversely, disengaged employees are more likely to show characteristics such as lateness, absenteeism, low productivity, lack of creativity, and poor performance.

It is therefore critical for organisations to invest in employee engagement. This means creating opportunities for open communication, recognition, and work-life balance, and giving employees a sense of purpose. All these will help the organization attract and retain employees who will drive business success and long-term growth.

Trends in employee engagement strategies in 2024

Flexibility and work-life balance: According to Statista, hybrid work models are rising in the United States. Data shows in the second quarter of 2024, 53% of U.S. workers reported working in a hybrid manner. Many organizations are adopting several flexible work options such as hybrid work, remote work, flex hours, and compressed work weeks to give employees more work-life balance. This trend is likely to continue in the foreseeable future, as experts have predicted that more companies will adopt the 4-day workweek model in 2025, to enhance employee well-being and improve work-life balance.

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Recognition: Employee recognition allows an organization to cultivate a culture of appreciation and it boosts the morale of employees. It also fosters a sense of belonging and is a great strategy for improving employee engagement. Gallup refers to recognition as a low-cost, high-impact strategy that helps to improve engagement. 

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Inclusion and Diversity: Many organizations today have implemented inclusion strategies such as the use of inclusive language, organizing cultural events, having a more inclusive leadership, making accommodations for disabled employees, and creating employee resource groups (ERGs). These strategies are aimed at giving employees a sense of belonging and empowering them to boost their productivity. The positive experiences created with inclusion efforts help to increase engagement, especially when employees are made comfortable to perform at their best.

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Wellbeing: Employee well-being is significant in today’s workplace. Many employers prioritize it by providing several wellness programs that cater to both physical and mental health, including preventive care. Providing wellness programs for employees improves engagement because employees receive the care they need to reduce stress, prevent burnout, and address mental health issues.  Great performance at work can only happen when employees are in sound health.

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Using technology to increase engagement: Technology plays a crucial role in employee engagement. Technology can be used to enhance communication within the workplace, obtain feedback, facilitate learning and upskilling, coordinate teamwork, especially for remote teams, and automate recognition.  Examples include tools that automate surveys to measure engagement, check-ins, and reviews for continuous performance management and coordinate real-time employee recognition and appreciation.

The Impact of engagement on workplace productivity

A 2020 Gallup study showed that employee engagement plays a significant role in workplace productivity. High levels of engagement correlate to better performance because engaged employees are usually proactive and efficient. They take ownership of tasks and ensure they find the required solutions. This leads to better work quality and output.

The 5Cs of Employee Engagement

Clarity: Understanding roles and expectations

Employees are efficient and productive when they have a clear understanding of what is required of them at work. Employees must also be able to see the significance and relevance of what they do to the organization’s goals and objectives. Clarity provides a sense of purpose when they see how their work aligns with the company’s goals. Where there’s no clarity, there’s a lack of direction, role conflict, miscommunication, frustration, and disengagement.

Confidence: Fostering trust and dependability

According to an HBR study, employees of high-trust companies report 74% less stress, 106% more energy at work, 50% higher productivity, 13% fewer sick days, 76% more engagement, 29% more satisfaction with their lives, 40% less burnout when compared to low-trust companies. Employees who are confident in and trust their organizations are much more likely to be engaged and retained. To build trust, organizations must build a culture of transparency (and measure it with culture assessment tools), provide required feedback on issues, and show consistency in policies. A study showed that acting on employee feedback increases trust in the workplace by 75%.

Convey Effective communication strategies.

Communication at work is how employees give and receive the information they need to be effective at work. Communication is crucial because it helps to improve productivity and retention, especially when employees feel heard. Strategies that organizations can adopt to enhance communication include clarity in messaging to employees, channels for employees to share information and receive feedback, platforms for regular check-ins, and the use of communication technology.

Connect: Building meaningful relationships.

Workplace connection is two-fold; connection to the organization itself and connection with others at work. Employees are more likely to feel connected to an organization whose values they believe in and which gives them a sense of belonging. Connection among employees is also critical to the organization’s success because connected employees collaborate better in teams and have healthy working relationships. Healthy relationships at work reduce stress and prevent burnout, and employees are more productive as a result.

Contribute: Empowering contribution and collaboration.

In any organization, every employee contributes to the overall goal in one way or another. To make contributions more efficient, organizations need to empower their people by:

• Setting clear goals and objectives: Employees understand the value of their work when they see the alignment of their contributions with team and organizational goals.
• Encouraging open communication, where everyone is comfortable sharing ideas, feedback, and concerns while also providing feedback. This can be made efficient with communication and collaboration tools.
• Recognize and reward contributions: Individual and team achievements should be recognized. Contributions should be rewarded and linked to specific successes achieved by individuals or as a team.

Implementing Employee Engagement Best Practices

Employee engagement has become more innovative in recent years and organizations are using different approaches to keep their employees engaged. Engagement practices go beyond just a few nice-to-have programs and are focused on bringing the best out of employees. Here are some ways to foster an effective employee engagement action plan.

Create a positive work environment.

A positive work environment allows employees’ creativity to shine through. Employees feel heard, their hard work is valued and recognized, and there is collaboration and inclusion. Beyond the remuneration, a positive work environment allows employees to grow and develop their careers. 

A positive work environment can be created by:

Encouraging effective communication: Effective communication is important to the workplace and impacts all aspects of work. When employees can express their concerns and share ideas and opinions without fear of criticism or retribution, there is better collaboration, teamwork, and productivity. Effective communication also reduces conflicts, helps employees build positive relationships at work, and creates a welcoming atmosphere for everyone.

Creating growth opportunities: A 2024 survey showed that about 23% of American workers are not satisfied with growth and development opportunities at work. It is also the reason many people leave their jobs. Organizations must provide opportunities for growth with learning tools and training opportunities that will help employees build their careers. A positive work environment creates opportunities for employees to assess their career trajectories and provides access to learning opportunities.

Wellbeing: Employee wellbeing programs aim to take care of every aspect of employees’ needs in and outside the workplace. One of the ways to foster a positive work environment is to have well-being programs that address needs at every stage. This is an especially important strategy in healthcare employee engagement or any industry with a high-stress work environment. Wellbeing programs such as physical and mental health initiatives, flexible work options, childcare, and volunteer opportunities help to increase happiness and boost employee engagement. Check out Disney's employee engagement and well-being strategies for more inspiration.

Recognition programs and their impact

Recognition programs are initiatives designed to acknowledge and appreciate the contributions of employees to the success of an organization in line with its goals, objectives, and values. Employee recognition programs can be in the form of peer-to-peer recognition, manager-led recognition, and leadership-led recognition. Examples of recognition programs include:

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• Formal recognition: These are structured events that are usually part of the organization's annual programs where outstanding employees and teams are recognized and rewarded.
• Informal recognition: These may be verbal or written announcements made to recognize achievements. This is usually done by managers, supervisors, or a member of senior leadership, usually at a meeting or company event.
• Awards: They are usually performance-based e.g. Innovation awards and customer service awards. These may attract monetary rewards such as cash gifts, gift cards, or recognition items such as plaques.
• Achievements and milestones recognition e.g. employee of the month or year, long-service awards.

Recognition programs help build morale among employees, increase happiness, and improve loyalty. They also increase motivation, improve teamwork, and boost employee engagement.

Regular feedback and performance reviews

Performance reviews are formal assessments where employee performance is assessed to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas where improvement is needed. Perform reviews also aim to provide constructive feedback, and set goals for employees towards development and future performance. Performance reviews help to change behavior to improve work habits. It is also a source of data for several workplace processes such as rewards, promotion exercises, culture assessments, and workplace surveys.

The feedback from performance reviews and other surveys helps to motivate employees, boost morale, and ensure accountability. It can also help to improve skills providing information on areas the employee needs to upskill in.

Employee Engagement Strategy Examples

Real-world examples of successful engagement strategies

Communication

Clear communication is a crucial engagement strategy because it helps to build trust by keeping employees informed and providing feedback on concerns. J2 Interactive successfully increased manager-employee communication. Heather Capel, the Vice President of Professional Services says that employees can have one-on-one communication with managers even though the company has employees distributed all over the United States. The company also uses PerformYard’s 360 Feedback software which provides a complete picture of performance across the year, even if the mentor hasn’t been working with the employee directly.

Feedback 

Feedback is important to performance. It informs leadership and helps in decision-making while also informing employees to take action as required. Westfield Capital Management successfully increased employee feedback by adopting PerformYard’s 360 Feedback and Performance Management software which has made performance reviews and feedback easier. “Our employees give feedback all the time. We like the request feedback feature on PerformYard. It's a nice add-on because now feedback is given throughout the year,” said Mary Lyons, a member of the company’s HR team. 

Employee Development

The opportunity for growth and development allows employees to broaden their skills and this can increase job satisfaction and boost engagement. With PerformYard’s Performance Management solutions, Cassady Schiller was able to implement a formalized coaching process combined with a transparent review process which resulted in faster employee development. 

Case studies demonstrating productivity improvements.

An example is Kaiser Permanente's employee wellbeing programs focused on employee resilience programs to address wellness issues and overall employee productivity. This helped to improve employees’ commitment to their jobs. 

Conclusion

Summary of key engagement strategies

The key strategies of employee engagement are communication, recognition, development, work-life balance, inclusion, leadership, and alignment of individual goals with organizational objectives. By paying attention to these strategies, organizations can create an engaging environment where employees feel motivated, valued, and connected. This drives better performance, productivity, and long-term success.

The future outlook for employee engagement

The future of employee engagement will focus on work flexibility, personalization, purpose, well-being, and continuous growth. Organizations that embrace these trends and leverage technology to foster meaningful connections will build more engaged, productive, and resilient employees.