The essential role of HR in employee engagement: 10 vital factors

Employee engagement is a measure of how dedicated and invested employees are in their work and workplace. Highly engaged employees believe their company values their contributions, has their back, and that the work they do makes a difference. Disengaged employees are just the opposite. They don’t think their company cares about them, and they don’t feel like the work they do matters. So, in return, they don’t care about the company or the work they do. And this directly – and massively – impacts your company’s bottom line.

Disengaged employees cost the world $7.8 trillion in lost productivity, according to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace: 2022 Report.

Let that number sink in for a second. Do you really think you can afford to have disengaged employees in your workplace? This is where HR comes in.

Impact of employee engagement when HR gets it right

As an HR pro yourself, you understand the role of HR in employee engagement. To put it simply, if you weren’t there, it wouldn’t happen. HR professionals are essential to the engagement process, as you’re there to keep your finger on the pulse and ensure every one of your fellow team members feels fulfilled in their role as well as comfortable and confident in the workplace. But how does it happen? What are the core functions of HR, and how do they affect the engagement levels of employees?

In this post, we’ll break down exactly how HR impacts employee engagement. If you want to learn more about how employee engagement affects employers, be sure to check out our other article: Employee engagement: What it is & how it benefits employers.

1. Talent acquisition and recruiting

HR ensures the right talent gets hired for the organization by accounting for current and future talent needs. They identify where any talent gaps within the business lie, what expertise is required, and which key roles are necessary for success.

HR develops talent management strategies to reduce gaps in the talent pool by building one both internally and externally through effective job descriptions, showcasing the company culture, detailing future development opportunities and making it clear employee wins are celebrated.

Having a talent pool means HR can quickly recruit new hires in an emergency, and it vastly reduces the odds of making a bad hire. Plus, HR makes sure new employees are onboarded effectively and have all of the tools, support and resources they need to hit the ground running.

2. Onboarding

As anyone who has ever been hired before knows, onboarding is as defining a moment as it is stressful. First impressions matter, and if a new employee shows up on their first day in a disorganized, disenchanted, and disgruntled work environment, they’ll be planning their exit strategy before the end of the day.

HR pros ensure this doesn’t happen by creating onboarding and orientation experiences that help new employees feel comfortable with their new role and within the organization at large. Through a comprehensive onboarding process that includes office tours, style guides, brand guides, company guidelines, calendars, password access, welcome swag, clearly defined role responsibilities, and opportunities for the employee to express their own goals for the role, employees can feel engaged right from the get-go.

Check out our 9 best practices for onboarding new employees.

3. Training and development

Gallup reports that 87% of millennials rate professional development opportunities as a major factor in whether or not they’ll pursue a job. So considering the fact that millennials are the largest labor force in the US at 35%, businesses must emphasize growth opportunities within their organization.

HR teams are there to ensure current training and development opportunities aren’t only offered to every employee, they’re also of value. Employees must feel challenged at work to feel engaged, but this challenge must also come with ample encouragement. Employees need to know they’re going somewhere to go above and beyond, and this comes in the form of clear development opportunities.

Through regular feedback, HR professionals can ask employees which skills they most want to improve to create robust development programs that are multi-faceted, including career advancement opportunities, networking opportunities, technological skills, soft skills, and personal development. Of course, this also means making sure managers have the right training to create supportive environments for their employees.

4. Performance management and employee evaluations

Another way HR keeps employees engaged is through regular performance reviews and performance management. But without clear expectations and metrics of success, how can you evaluate an employee’s performance or expect it to improve?

HR teams can help managers develop different methods of measuring employee performance, including efficiency, consistency, quality of work, creativity and innovation, working well with others, adaptability and so on. Do employees respond to messages in a timely manner? Are they team players, or do they work in a silo to meet their own personal goals? Are employees satisfied in their role or are they growing bored and disengaged?

While performance reviews aren’t easy, they are essential to effective talent management. When done right, regular employee feedback and employee engagement surveys can inspire personal and professional development, company loyalty and significantly boost engagement.

Talent management software is vital to ensuring quality performance reviews that leave both the employer and employee satisfied. Talent management systems should streamline end-to-end employee goals and development, all the way from initial recruitment to exit interviews. This can be done through applicant tracking, learning management and succession planning capabilities, and performance management, which provide employees with continuous feedback.

5. Compensation, incentives, and recognition

While money and compensation isn’t the only thing keeping employees at an organization, it plays a big role. HR has a direct influence on managing wage gaps, ensuring fair wages and making sure raises occur in a fair and timely manner.

Sixty-nine percent of employees say they would be more engaged and work harder if they were better recognized. It’s an HR team’s job to ensure employees feel seen by their employers and celebrated for their hard work. If a team member comes in day after day, gives 100% and is never or rarely recognized for their effort, over time, they’ll become apathetic and dissatisfied. Why are they working so hard only to be ignored and undervalued?

Employee recognition programs and fair compensation are crucial to maintaining employee engagement, as it makes each team member feel valued. It makes them feel like the work they do matters. It’s HR’s responsibility to make sure this happens. Work with management to develop a cost-effective recognition and compensation program, and gather feedback from employees to ensure the program is something they’re interested in.

For example, you could:

• Give top earners extra time off for balance and employee well-being.
• Reward the whole team with an office lunch after the completion of a successful project.
• Acknowledge top-performing employees at a team meeting.
• Reward commitment to the company with a gift for notable employee anniversaries.

For more ideas, read our ultimate guide to employee recognition.

6. Open communication and team dialogue

HR can also positively influence employee engagement by fostering open communication with honest feedback and total transparency. Employees must feel comfortable and confident within the company to feel free to share new ideas or raise concerns. If they can’t, they won’t feel engaged with the work. How can employees feel confident enough to openly engage during town halls and larger group meetings?

To empower employees to communicate freely, HR pros must work with managers to ensure open communication is always maintained. Regular one-on-one meetings between managers and their team members are an ideal way to accomplish this, as they provide a safe space for team members to speak about their goals, hopes for the future and any issues they are having without bringing it up in front of everyone.

While one-on-one meetings are a must for fostering communication, think outside the box. What are some employee engagement strategies and interactive team-building activities that put communication at the forefront? For example, why not take your team to an escape room? This will encourage every member to communicate openly and work together outside of a strict work environment. Fun engagement activities like these help teams to engage with one another on a different level.

When team members feel comfortable communicating openly with each other, as well as HR and management, engagement will soar exponentially.

Discover 12 team-building activities your employees will love.

7. Conflict resolution

Just as it’s important to foster healthy communication, it’s also critical to address workplace conflict. In a perfect world, there would be no office conflict, but we’re all human. Misunderstandings happen, and it’s important to catch them before they mushroom and spread to all corners of the office.

Equip managers with the necessary tools to manage low-stakes conflict resolution within their own team, but don’t stop there.

Ensure every employee knows the door to HR is always open so that you can create an environment where managers and employees are comfortable involving HR when it comes to conflict resolution.

Communicate regularly and transparently with your team to build trust and rapport so that employers and managers alike see you as an impartial ally and mediator. This way, they will feel more comfortable engaging with you about sensitive topics.

8. Employee wellness and balance

Stress is a workplace’s silent killer. Excessive and prolonged stress can result in high blood pressure, heart problems, diabetes, arthritis, anxiety and depression. In fact, 80% of workers feel stress on the job, approximately 50% say they need help with learning how to manage stress and 42% say their co-workers need this kind of help too, according to the American Institute of Stress.

It’s imperative to the health of your organization that HR takes an active role in mitigating employee stress. Encourage employee engagement by seeking feedback from your team and addressing the dangers of stress head-on. Invite team members to join a group with a facilitator, ideally a clinician and make it a safe space to talk about the struggles they’re having inside and outside of the workplace.

Define the space at the start of every meeting with a few ground rules:

1. No judgment
2. No politics
3. Respect each other, and
4. Nothing leaves this room.

Simply providing employees with a comfortable space to talk about stress can help reenergize and re-engage them in their workplace. Ensure employees understand these meetings aren’t mandatory. Anyone who wants to join and respects the rules is welcome.

Learn more about how to tackle workplace stress in our article: What’s next for employee engagement? 5 ways HR can make a big impact.

9. Company culture

The company culture of your organization can make or break your team’s engagement. While many different factors play into your company culture, HR has a vital role in ensuring the right culture is being facilitated from the top to the bottom. With the continuing shift to remote and hybrid work, it’s more essential than ever that HR finds ways to maintain a healthy company culture no matter where their employees are located.

An employee’s performance is directly tied to their environment and the people around them. If several members of their team are disengaged or apathetic, it will rub off. Apathy is contagious.

The best way to assess your company culture is to ask the employees wrapped up within it. Do they feel the company and the people they work with consistently respect your core values? Can every employee name the company’s core values? Do employees feel welcomed? Do they feel like they’re a part of the culture? Or do they feel the company has lost its way?

Seeking this kind of feedback keeps employees engaged with the direction of the organization, which helps them feel more invested. The more invested they feel and the more they see themselves as part of the company culture, the more engaged they will be.

10. Using metrics to define success

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: You can’t change what you can’t measure. It’s crucial that HR pros like yourself put key performance indicators and metrics in place to measure your engagement efforts. Are they working? What’s your turnover like? How many days are employees missing work? Utilize feedback and employee surveys to aid your qualitative information.

Set goals for yourself when it comes to your current talent, employee net promoter score and retention rate. These goals will look different for every workplace, so take time to analyze the engagement of your team to determine the best steps forward for your organization.

Learn how to calculate your employee retention rate.