What employee engagement strategies actually work? A guide for HR leaders

Here's the paradox keeping CHROs up at night: turnover rates are down, but engagement scores are plummeting. Employees are sticking around, but they're far from thriving in their roles. Many are spending significant time and brainpower thinking about leaving… and some are even discussing exit strategies with their career coaches, creating a disconnect between retention metrics and actual workforce health.

When disengaged employees check out and do just enough to get by, productivity suffers, there are fewer advancement opportunities for high performers, and the organization is vulnerable to mass attrition the moment market conditions shift and competitors ramp up hiring.

As someone who coaches employees across industries, I see this pattern repeatedly: people are staying in jobs they don't love while HR leaders celebrate low attrition numbers. It's time to look beyond surface-level retention metrics and address what's really happening in your organization with employee engagement strategies that actually work.

The state of employee engagement

The numbers tell a troubling story. According to Gallup's latest research, employee engagement has dropped to a decade low, with only 31% of employees engaged at work (down from 36% in 2020). This decline represents the first sustained drop in engagement in over a decade, signaling a fundamental shift in how employees relate to their work.

But the data only captures part of the problem. What's emerging now is more nuanced than the "quiet quitting" trend that dominated headlines in recent years. Yes, some employees are still doing the bare minimum. But increasingly, we're seeing what the Wall Street Journal calls "job hugging.” Employees are clinging to their current roles despite deep dissatisfaction, driven by economic uncertainty and fear that opportunities elsewhere are limited.

This creates a dangerous illusion for HR leaders. Your retention metrics look healthy. People aren't leaving. But they're staying put out of necessity, not commitment.

The business impact is significant. Disengaged employees deliver baseline performance rather than peak output, and when they stop contributing ideas, challenging assumptions, and driving improvement, your organization becomes reactive rather than proactive. The ripple effect matters too. Disengagement can become contagious on teams, normalizing apathy and creating a culture of discontent. 

• Remote and hybrid work amplifies these challenges. When we l
•  worked in an office, you could sense team energy. You noticed when collaboration declined or someone checked out. Remote work removes those informal indicators. Without intentional structure and connection, employee disengagement can brew for months before it shows up in productivity metrics. By then, you're managing a crisis, not preventing one.

Why employees aren’t leaving (even when they want to)

Understanding why employees remain in roles where they're disengaged requires examining both internal organizational issues and external market forces. Let's start with what you can actually control.

The organizational issues are both structural and cultural. Role ambiguity leaves employees unclear about responsibilities, reporting lines, and what success looks like. Goal-setting processes are either absent or ineffective. I still encounter clients who receive no clear goals, or worse, unrealistic targets that are constantly shifting. Manager training is virtually non-existent for first-time leaders, so people get promoted from individual contributor roles with zero preparation for managing former peers. 

Reward structures lack clarity and fairness. Employees do exceptional work with no path to promotion or compensation increase. Career progression pathways have become opaque as companies stop posting internal openings transparently, leaving employees feeling stuck with no clear way forward.

Imposter syndrome and confidence challenges amplify these organizational failures. When employees lack role clarity, receive inadequate feedback, and see no career path, their confidence erodes. They question their capabilities and whether they deserve better opportunities. This internal uncertainty keeps them stuck even when external opportunities exist.

These internal failures are compounded by external pressure. Economic uncertainty is keeping people in roles they would otherwise leave. A year ago, changing jobs was easier. Today's market is tighter, and employees know it. But fear-based retention isn't the same as engagement-based retention. When people stay because they're scared to leave, you're only benefiting from temporary market conditions that will eventually shift. And when they do, you'll face mass attrition from employees who were waiting for the right moment.

The workplace engagement tactics every leader needs to unlock performance at scale

Now for the good news: most of this is solvable. Some solutions are structurally simple, even if they require organizational commitment. Let's break down the employee engagement strategies that create meaningful impact.

Structural solutions: Clear roles, goal-setting, and making engagement everyone’s țresponsibility

Start with role clarity. Document what each role is responsible for, where responsibilities begin and end, reporting structures, and decision-making authority. Then implement clear goal-setting processes with regular check-ins. Goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound, but more importantly, they should be discussed at least quarterly so employees always know where they stand and what support they need. It's not complicated, but it requires discipline and follow-through.

Create manager accountability frameworks that cascade through the organization. HR engagement strategies should include: designing engagement surveys, establishing company-wide engagement goals, providing data and insights, creating policies for managers, offering support for those who need development, and holding the organization accountable for improvement.

But the responsibility for engagement sits with managers and senior leadership. This can't be HR's job alone. Senior leadership needs to own employee engagement through regular check-ins on team health. Every manager should have an engagement goal as part of their performance management objectives. If you're managing a team with a 60% engagement score when the company average is 80%, that failure should impact your compensation and employment security, just like missing revenue targets.

Address budget constraints proactively. You're already spending money on engagement programs that aren't working. Redirect those resources toward high-impact investments like manager training and structured development programs. Get C-suite buy-in through data by showing the connection between engagement scores and business outcomes: retention rates, productivity metrics, and customer satisfaction. 

Leadership development: Build the skills that matter

The most critical investment you can make is developing your managers' capabilities.  The correlation between manager competence and team engagement is direct and measurable.

Train first-time managers before they fail. Don't promote someone into management and hope they figure it out. Provide structured training on the skills that matter most: giving and receiving feedback, practicing accountability, having difficult conversations, delegation techniques, and time management. 

Engagement strategies for remote and hybrid teams

Remote workforce engagement requires intentional strategies to build connection and community.

 If you have a fully remote workforce, bring people together quarterly. These meetings don't need to be expensive off-sites; just opportunities to connect face-to-face, brainstorm, and build relationships. 

Use the camera intentionally for weekly team meetings where face-to-face connection matters, but be strategic. Not every quick question needs a video call.

Create cross-functional project teams that collaborate on meaningful work rather than siloed tasks, and invest in special projects that cross organizational boundaries where employees from different groups work together. 

Implement structured mentoring programs, but don't force matches. Help employees identify potential mentors and facilitate those connections organically.

Skill development: Make it targeted and relevant

Eliminate "click-through" online training. You know the kind: employees click through slides, guess at answers until they pass the quiz, and retain absolutely nothing. It's worthless. Stop spending money on it.

Provide allowances for external learning. Can employees attend conferences once a year? Take courses on relevant topics like AI applications in their field? Access industry-specific training? When you invest in people's growth, you signal that you value their development. That investment increases engagement and retention.

Offer targeted coaching for specific skill development. This is where focused, expert-led development makes the biggest difference. Generic training programs fail because they're not connected to individual challenges and goals. When someone works with an expert who has relevant industry experience and focuses on specific skills they need right now, that creates real, measurable behavior change.

The workforce is evolving. Economic conditions will eventually improve. When they do, employees who've been staying out of fear will start exploring opportunities elsewhere. Organizations that proactively address disengagement will retain their talent. The ones that don’t will face an exodus.

This crisis presents an opportunity. Companies that recognize the warning signs and implement meaningful employee engagement strategies now can get ahead of the problem. The tools exist. The solutions are clear. What's required is organizational commitment and the courage to implement meaningful change even when it's uncomfortable.

The question isn't whether you can afford to invest in engagement. The question is whether you can afford not to. Low turnover hasn’t bought you loyalty, but it has given you time. Use it wisely. 

Ready to transform your workforce from disengaged to genuinely engaged? Start by assessing your current manager training programs and engagement accountability frameworks. Consider how targeted, expert-led skill development for your leadership team could create the foundation for lasting organizational change. Because the difference between a workforce that stays and a workforce that thrives often comes down to whether their managers have the skills to lead them there.