What Employers Can’t Overlook About Employee Engagement

The past couple decades have seen huge events and changes in the world: 9/11. Wars. Swings in the economy, including the Great Recession. The pandemic, along with the accompanying widespread move to remote and hybrid work.

Despite constant change, however, employee engagement levels have remained relatively static — namely, they have not improved, according to Gallup data, and are now on the decline.

“We’ve been through everything outside of our buildings that doesn’t affect [employee engagement],” said Dick Finnegan, CEO of C-Suite Analytics, a Longwood, Fla.-based consulting firm that focuses on employee retention and engagement, on June 29 at SHRM25 in San Diego. “So, the only thing that’s going to affect it is if we change what’s happening inside our [work] buildings.”

Workplaces and company leaders haven’t yet cracked the code, instead continuing to focus on the same tactics to engage and retain workers, he said. They’re offering the same kind of employee benefits. They’re communicating to employees in the same way across the board. They’re relying on traditional employee recognition programs, such as an “Employee of the Month Award” or a clock or company swag to celebrate an employee’s work anniversary.

“The employee engagement train has been off track since the beginning," said Finnegan, author of The Power of Stay Interviews for Engagement and Retention (SHRM Books, 2018). “One-size programs miss the mark.”

Seminar: Employee Engagement: Elevating the Human Experience

Why Managers Matter Most

HR leaders don't consider the effect of managers and workplace culture — but they should, Finnegan said. First-line managers impact 70% of their team’s employee engagement scores, according to Gallup. 

“People don’t leave over one thing that happens,” Finnegan said. “They leave over a thousand papercuts,” and bad managers are often the culprit.

What can workplaces do to turn the tide and make sure managers are contributing to — rather than hurting — positive employee engagement? Traditional surveys are still important, Finnegan said, but they need to be overhauled. He offered five tips for creating an employee engagement survey model that works:

• Restructure surveys to get reports with scores from first-line supervisors who can build trust with their team. 
• Provide all levels of managers with a specific and measurable employee survey goal.
• Train managers to conduct stay interviews, then build one-on-one engagement plans with each member of their team.
• Hold managers accountable for achieving their engagement score goals.
• Improve or move. If managers miss their goals, ask for details and coach them to make them a better manager, Finnegan said, or replace them with “a leader who can build trust with their team.”

“If you do these things, I can tell you, it will work,” he said.

Retain Talent with Stay Interviews

Stay interviews are a vital piece of the puzzle, Finnegan said, and managers need to be the ones to lead them. Employers shouldn’t wait until an employee is out the door before digging into what’s working and what’s not.

Finnegan recommended five questions that are vital to address in stay interviews:

• When you travel to work each day, what things do you look forward to?
• What are you learning here?
• Why do you stay here?
• When was the last time you thought about leaving our team, and what prompted it?
• What can I do to make your experience at work better for you?

HR pros can be the people encouraging this overhaul in the workplace by telling other department colleagues about the importance of these processes. But even if the practice isn’t embraced companywide, just getting one manager to conduct stay interviews and focus on their own individual growth can be transformative in regard to improving employee engagement.

“You’ll be overwhelmed by the difference,” he said.