Elevate Your Workforce: The Ultimate Guide to Employee Engagement

Summary

• Employee engagement refers to the emotional commitment that employees have to their work and organization.
• Key drivers of employee engagement include a sense of fulfillment, skills development, effective leadership, access to the right tools, a people-centric approach, and flexible workspaces.
• Tech-powered strategies to improve engagement include offering personalized digital employee experiences (DEX), using feedback tools, leveraging AI, integrating collaboration platforms, and enabling self-service capabilities.
• HP’s AI-native Workforce Experience Platform (WXP) is a powerful solution that offers pulse surveys, self-help remediations, and automation to help boost sentiment and productivity.

If leadership and management shape a company’s overall design and framework, then employees form the foundation that supports the entire organization. Often, employees represent the business by embodying its values and brand, driving growth through hard work and innovation.

However, McKinsey’s research reveals that over half (55%) of employees feel disengaged in the modern workplace. This disengagement lowers productivity, with the estimated cost reaching a staggering $355 million per year for a medium-sized business with high turnover.

With so many unhappy and unfulfilled employees, how can corporate leaders tackle these challenges and help them feel valued, motivated, and connected to their work? What strategies and technologies can create a more engaging work environment that improves satisfaction and enhances the employee experience?

In this guide, we’ll explore key drivers of engagement and provide actionable strategies to transform the workforce experience. Let’s get started!

What Is Employee Engagement? 

Employee engagement refers to the level of emotional commitment, involvement, and enthusiasm that employees have toward their work and the organization they belong to. It goes beyond job satisfaction and is about being genuinely invested in the company’s success. 

A supportive work environment, opportunities for career growth, recognition, and the effective use of technology all play critical roles in elevating engagement levels. Employees that have access to the right tools and resources are generally more productive and satisfied in their work.

Why is employee engagement important?  

Employee engagement is essential because it drives overall business performance across the organization. According to research from Gallup, a comparison of employee engagement between top- and bottom-quartile business units found that engaged teams had:

• 81% reduction in absenteeism
• 58% fewer patient safety incidents (mortality and falls)
• 18% lower turnover in high-turnover organizations
• 43% lower turnover in low-turnover organizations
• 28% reduction in shrinkage (theft)
• 64% fewer safety incidents (accidents)
• 41% improvement in quality (fewer defects)
• 10% increase in customer loyalty/engagement
• 18% boost in productivity (sales)
• 23% rise in profitability

Meanwhile, according to HP’s 2024 Work Relationship Index, 69% of knowledge workers believe that a personalized work experience would enhance their relationship with work, while 68% say it would motivate them to stay with their company longer. 

The Cost of Disengaged Employees  

Research shows that only 28% of knowledge workers have a healthy relationship with work. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace Report found that employees who are not engaged or actively disengaged cost the world $8.9 trillion in lost productivity. That’s equal to roughly 8% of global GDP. 

Disengaged employees generally fall into three categories:

• Quitters: Employees who are planning to leave or are mentally checked out.
• Disruptors: Actively disengaged employees, spreading negativity and lowering team morale.
• Underperformers: Employees who are disengaged but stick around, doing just enough to get by.

Beyond the cost of lost productivity, each group impacts team dynamics and overall company success. Disengaged workers can damage the company’s reputation through decreased customer satisfaction and lower-quality work. Highlighted below are signs of disengaged and engaged employees.

6 Work Relationship Drivers to Engage Your Employees

According to HP’s Work Relationship Index, several vital drivers contribute to a healthy relationship with work, ultimately enhancing employee engagement. Here are the six fundamental drivers:

1. Fulfillment: 

Employees seek purpose, meaning, and empowerment in their work. When individuals feel that their contributions matter and align with a larger mission, their engagement levels increase. This sense of fulfillment often leads to higher job satisfaction and a deeper organizational commitment.

2. Skills: 

Building confidence through skill development is vital for employee engagement. When employees are encouraged to learn and grow, they enhance their capabilities and tap into their enthusiasm for personal and professional development. Organizations that prioritize continuous learning create a more engaged and competent workforce.

3. Leadership: 

Effective leadership plays a critical role in fostering engagement. Leaders’ empathy and emotional connection help establish trust and open team communication. When employees feel supported and understood by their leaders, they are more likely to be engaged and motivated.

4. Tools: 

Access to the right technology is essential for driving employee engagement. When employees have the right tools, productivity and satisfaction improve. Technology that simplifies workflows and supports collaboration boosts overall engagement. Optimizing software and hardware (such as PCs, printers, and collaboration equipment) requires a digital employee experience solution to ensure seamless functionality and peak performance. 

5. People-Centricity: 

A people-centric approach to decision-making ensures that employees are at the heart of organizational strategies. When organizations prioritize the well-being and opinions of their workforce, it fosters a culture of engagement where employees feel valued and involved in shaping their work environment. Encouraging work-life balance with flexible work options, vacation policies, and childcare benefits can help improve engagement.

6. Workspace: 

Flexibility and trust regarding where employees work are crucial drivers of engagement. Enabling seamless transitions between different work settings—remote, in-office, or hybrid—demonstrates a commitment to employee autonomy and well-being, boosting engagement.

Focusing on these six drivers can help organizations cultivate a more engaged workforce, ultimately improving productivity, employee satisfaction, and organizational success.

5 Tech-Powered Strategies to Improve Employee Engagement 

Implementing technology-driven strategies can lead to a more engaging and productive workplace. By creating personalized digital employee experiences and continuous feedback loops, organizations leverage data and analytics to help employees to perform their best. Additionally, AI, collaboration tools, and self-help capabilities can greatly impact productivity and satisfaction. Here are five technology-backed employee engagement strategies that can transform your workplace dynamics.

1. Personalized digital employee experience (DEX)

Digital employee experience refers to the quality of interactions employees have with technology and digital tools in their workplace. A personalized DEX can significantly enhance productivity and employee satisfaction. Research from HP found that 68% of knowledge workers, 75% of ITDMs, and 76% of business leaders seek a personalized work environment. Employees value tailored work environments so highly that 87% are willing to accept a 14% pay cut to have it. Notably, Gen Z workers will accept a 19% pay cut, emphasizing the importance of flexible and personalized work experiences in retaining top talent.

2. Continuous feedback 

In today’s workplace, employees are more vocal about the importance of open communication, empathy, and recognition. How leaders express empathy can significantly influence their team’s overall well-being, development, and retention. Despite nearly all business leaders recognizing the benefits of empathy, only a small fraction—about 28%—of knowledge workers regularly witness empathetic leadership in action. This gap highlights a critical area for improvement in fostering a more supportive and engaged workforce.

Utilizing employee pulse surveys for real-time feedback is crucial for monitoring engagement levels. Employee engagement software streamlines the feedback process and provides actionable insights from the data. These insights empower managers to make informed decisions and enable effective personalized interventions to address specific employee concerns.

3. AI in the workplace

The rise of AI in the workplace has transformed how employees interact with their jobs. HP found that AI usage among knowledge workers has surged to 66% in 2024, up from 38% in 2023. As AI adoption grows, it’s enabling a more tailored and personalized experience for workers, fostering deeper engagement and efficiency in their daily tasks.

4. Integrated collaboration tools

72% of workers say it’s important to have access to different technology that best fits their working style. Still, many are not confident their company will choose the right technology to support hybrid work models. 

Collaboration tools that facilitate seamless communication are essential for team connectivity. The right tools support diverse working styles and help bridge the gap between remote and in-office teams, ensuring productivity and alignment. Some examples include collaboration hardware and tools for video calls, time tracking, project onboarding, and feedback exchange. 

5. Self-help capabilities

Self-help or self-service capabilities use technology to empower employees to resolve common digital issues quickly. They can enhance employee engagement by empowering staff to resolve common digital issues independently with resources, tools, and actionable recommendations. By automating solutions and offering proactive suggestions, employees can address problems quickly without relying on IT, minimizing downtime and improving productivity.

This strategy also helps IT teams streamline workflows by reducing the number of routine issues that require ticket escalation. Proactively identifying problems and providing personalized solutions ensures a smoother, more responsive work environment, boosting employee satisfaction and engagement.

Everything to Know About Employee Pulse Surveys

According to Deloitte, annual surveys are the most common approach to measuring employee engagement, with 40% of global organizations using them. However, despite their importance, follow-up on annual employee surveys is often neglected, limiting their effectiveness.

Rapidly evolving technology has enabled shorter, more frequent employee pulse surveys. Pulse surveys are designed to gauge employee sentiment and engagement, and provide real-time insights into employee experiences. They create a more complete picture of the workplace environment and allow organizations to address issues quickly. 

What are employee pulse surveys?

Employee pulse surveys (also known as a “pulse check survey” or “pulsing”) are brief, regular check-ins that typically consist of a short list of questions. They gather employee sentiment on specific topics and can be administered weekly, monthly, or quarterly. 

Organizations use pulses to obtain timely feedback and monitor changes in employee engagement over time. They can provide real-time insights into employee experiences, improve communication between management and staff, give employees a platform to share their views, reduce the gap between leadership and employees, and facilitate organizational development.  

Why are pulse surveys important?

There are generally four fundamental reasons why organizations conduct surveys:

1. To identify warning signs of trouble within an organization.
2. To evaluate the effectiveness of specific programs, policies, and initiatives.
3. To gauge the organization’s strategy as an employer of choice among its workforce.
4. To predict and drive organizational outcomes, such as customer satisfaction and business performance.

With pulse surveys, companies can gain real-time insights into employee engagement and well-being and address issues quickly to improve overall workplace satisfaction.

Pulse survey best practices

DEX platforms now feature employee engagement software, enabling companies to use artificial intelligence and real-time analytics to gather feedback and better understand sentiment and engagement trends. In addition to utilizing this technology, the following pulse survey best practices can boost response rates and increase effectiveness:

• Asking short and concise questions: Keep questions simple and brief to ensure quick completion and reduce survey fatigue. Pulses often ask 5-10 multiple-choice questions with one or two open-ended questions. For better clarity, you can use a scale like the 5-point Likert scale (e.g., strongly disagree to strongly agree) to capture clear, actionable responses.
• Ensuring anonymity: Encourage honest feedback from employees by allowing them to respond without fear of consequences or repercussions.
• Aligning survey questions with objectives: Tailor your questions to address the core goals of the survey directly.
• Establishing regular scheduling: Create a consistent cadence for sending out surveys to maintain high employee engagement levels.
• Articulating the purpose: Explain the purpose and importance of the surveys to foster transparency and enhance participation.
• Following up on results: Take action based on feedback to show a commitment to improvement. Research shows that well-planned follow-up efforts can enhance employee attitudes, improve well-being, and reduce turnover.

6 Steps to Create Successful Employee Engagement Pulse Surveys

Here are six steps to creating a successful employee pulse survey:

Step 1: Align survey objectives with business strategy

Ensure the survey goals align with your organization’s overarching business strategy. This alignment helps gain leadership support and ensures that survey insights are actionable for driving outcomes.

Step 2: Design with simplicity

Keep the survey short and targeted. Focus on key areas of employee engagement that are relevant to your objectives. Too many or overly complex questions can lead to survey fatigue, low participation, and unclear results.

Step 3: Gain leadership support

Secure buy-in from senior leaders to champion the survey process. Their involvement is crucial in promoting accountability and ensuring the survey’s findings lead to action.

Step 4: Ensure effective communication

Communicate the purpose of the survey and share results transparently with employees. This will help build trust, show that feedback is valued, and lead to tangible outcomes.

Step 5: Develop an action plan

After collecting feedback, create a practical and measurable action plan. Focus on one or two significant improvements that address key concerns raised.

Step 6: Track progress and accountability

Follow-up to track the progress of action plans and hold managers accountable. This ensures that changes based on survey feedback are implemented and measured.

Organizations can create employee pulse surveys that drive meaningful change by following these steps.

Ways to Measure and Analyze Employee Engagement  

According to research by the Institute for Employment Studies (IES), employee engagement is measured using various approaches tailored to specific definitions of engagement. Some of the main ways to measure employee engagement include:

• Questionnaire rating scales: Surveys typically ask respondents to rate statements regarding their feelings and experiences at work, using agreement or frequency scales to quantify engagement levels.
• Utrecht work engagement scale (UWES): This widely used instrument measures engagement as a positive, fulfilling state of mind through dimensions such as vigor, dedication, and absorption.
• ISA engagement measure: The Intellectual, Social, and Affective Engagement Scale (ISA Engagement Scale) is a tool that assesses three components of engagement: intellectual engagement, social engagement, and affective engagement. It focuses on how employees connect with their work and colleagues.
• Job vs. organization engagement: Researchers have developed scales that differentiate between engagement with the job and the organization, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of employee involvement.
• Practitioner surveys: Various commercial survey products capture aspects of engagement related to the organization, such as pride, belief, and willingness to go beyond job requirements. Instruments like the IES measure these components.
• NHS engagement measure: The NHS assesses employee engagement across three dimensions: motivation, advocacy, and involvement, which provides a comprehensive view of how engaged employees feel with their work and the organization.

These measurement tools highlight the importance of aligning engagement metrics with specific organizational goals and definitions to capture a holistic view of employee engagement.​

Employee Engagement Software for Happier, More Productive Employees

As organizations navigate the complexities of modern work environments, technology is playing an increasingly central role in the future of employee engagement. Employee engagement software offers tools to facilitate ongoing feedback, real-time surveys, and performance analytics. It empowers organizations to gather insights and respond quickly to employee needs, enhancing engagement. Features like pulse surveys, sentiment analysis, and personalized action plans enable teams to make data-driven decisions that foster a positive workplace culture​. 

Modern DEX platforms now incorporate AI to provide actionable insights, enabling organizations to proactively identify areas for improvement. These platforms help close the gap between employee needs and business goals and allow companies to stay ahead of issues while boosting overall productivity.

Optimize employee engagement with the HP Workforce Experience Platform

The HP Workforce Experience Platform is an AI-powered DEX solution with robust employee engagement capabilities. It offers a holistic view of the employee experience, enabling organizations to gather insights through pulse surveys and a continuous feedback loop that quantifies employee sentiment and satisfaction. With AI-driven insights, the platform correlates employee feedback with specific devices, locations, and software usage to identify areas for improvement.

Additionally, the platform enhances productivity through self-help capabilities, allowing employees to resolve common IT issues independently with actionable recommendations and one-click fixes. Automated triggers streamline workflows by sending surveys based on employee interactions with their digital tools, ensuring relevant feedback is collected when employees are most available.

By leveraging these features, WXP reduces IT support costs and empowers organizations to enhance employee engagement effectively, driving greater satisfaction and productivity across the workforce. 

Want to learn more about Employee Engagement in WXP? Contact a team member to discover how HP can help transform your employee engagement strategy today!

HP Workforce Experience Platform¹ is a comprehensive and modular digital employee experience solution that enables organizations to optimize IT for every employee’s needs.

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¹At launch, some advanced features require a subscription.