3 cool ways to bring back engagement | 2-minute video

If employees seem reluctant to give it their all, it’s likely time to bring back engagement.

The good news: Employee engagement actually rose last year, according to Gallup’s Global Workplace Report.

The bad news: Less than a quarter of employees are engaged.

So, while an increase looks hopeful, there’s a long way to go to get the bulk of employees fully engaged again.

Tools to bring back engagement

What’s the problem? Boredom, disconnect, stress, to name a few.

What’s at stake? Productivity, turnover, morale, reputation, well-being, to name more than a few.

Here, in our 3-Point from HRMorning video series, we have HR leaders and experts who’ve seen the problems with engagement come and go. And they have some creative ideas on how to engage employees.

For starters, you want to start earlier.

Click, watch and listen for more details on the best ways to bring back engagement.

Transcript (edited for clarity):

What’s wrong with employee engagement?

A lot, according to research from Better Up. They found that just a third of employees are engaged.

Some issues: Employees don’t have strong relationships at work. They don’t feel connected to their jobs or the company. Some are stressed. Some are bored.

While it might not be an engagement crisis yet, the potential’s there. To get ahead of that, one expert says you need to address employee engagement a lot sooner than you might have in the past.

Urbanski: It’s our application process. It’s onboarding. It’s training. It’s meetings. It’s all hands to make sure everyone walks away feeling, or they leave feeling, inspired because some of them need that. They need to feel empowered. Some of them need that they feel prepared or they just feel cared for. They need to feel validated and heard. And that’s how you engage people because when we talk about engagement it’s about the senses. There’s a feeling that comes along with it.

Andreatta: And then you wanna lean into more activities that are like those casual conversations around — What did we do this weekend? What are you reading right now? What’s your favorite movie? That’s how we build those little moments of trust. And if we just focus on work, work, work and only tasks, we miss that opportunity to build that interconnective tissue that really holds teams together.

Davis: It’s not just about the grind at all. Intentional recovery is a key part to unlocking high performance. And we know that. We have deep roots in that. And so when we’ve taken that to the workplace, again, that’s where we’re testing and really understand how can we create the environment to encourage intentional recovery?

So engagement is important at every point in people’s careers. To improve all around:

• Start early. Create an engagement strategy for everything from the application process to exit interviews.
• Build connections. Never overlook the power of casual conversation to create more engagement.
• Recover with intention. Nearly everyone can perform better and become engaged when they disconnect from work.

Of course, employees have to take some responsibility for their degree of engagement. But with your intentional influence, you can make an immediate impact.