what impacts employee engagement in 2024?

High levels of employee engagement have long been linked to improved business outcomes, including increased retention, higher productivity rates and lower absenteeism.

Despite these benefits, many employers still struggle to maintain meaningful engagement levels with their workers. If your company wants to improve its hiring and workforce management outcomes, making employee engagement a priority may help.

This blog takes a closer look at what employee engagement is and what factors impact it.

what is employee engagement?

We can define employee engagement as the level of commitment and enthusiasm your workers have toward the company. Don’t confuse engagement with job satisfaction, which solely measures employees’ level of happiness on the job. Employees can be happy with their job duties and working conditions and still feel disengaged in the workplace. 

Why is employee engagement so important? Because engaged employees tend to be more:

• optimistic
• productive
• team-oriented 
• hard-working 
• willing to contribute positively to the company

With barely one-in-five workers stating that they are engaged in the workplace, the rise of ‘Quiet Quitting’ should come as no surprise. These disengaged employees don’t have the same investment in the company or the company’s success. All too often, disengaged workers are satisfied with completing the bare minimum and then going home.

At a time when talent scarcity and the growing skills gap are putting added pressure on companies to meet production demands, such a high level of disengagement is not sustainable. It’s crucial to take steps now to improve engagement throughout the workplace

8 factors that impact employee engagement 

Before you can take any steps to improve employee engagement throughout the workplace, you must first understand what factors directly impact engagement. Here’s a look at the top eight factors impacting employee engagement in the workplace.

• trust in the company
• personal values
• efficient leadership
• pride in work
• safe work environment
• enhanced experience
• clarity of role
• personal growth

1. trust in the company

Trust between employers and their employees is one of the key components of employee engagement. Simply put, if your employees don’t have trust in the company, it can be difficult—if not impossible—to build any type of meaningful engagement.

Let’s look at an example. Say your organisation is requesting input regarding a newly implemented workplace process using feedback tools, such as surveys or interviews. The level of participation and engagement from your workers directly relates to how much they trust the company. If your workers feel the company doesn’t really care about their opinions, that it will be used against them or that it won’t take action based on their feedback, they are less likely to provide any useful input. 

To build trust with your co-workers, it’s important to focus on:

• effective communication
• transparency
• fairness 

2. alignment with personal values

Today’s employees, especially those in the younger generation, want to work for a company that has a purpose and mission aligned closely with their own personal values. For example, our 2024 Randstad Workmonitor study shows that 37% of UK workers wouldn’t accept a job if they did not agree with the views of the organisation’s leadership.

Not all companies can offer these types of positions, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create a company mission that aligns with your workers’ values. For example, environmental, social and governance trends are principles that many companies can promote while simultaneously connecting with employees.

3. efficient leadership

When it comes to influencing workplace engagement, the leadership of the company is critical. In fact, managers often have the most direct contact with your workers, and they have the power to promote engagement in the workplace or hinder it.

A recent study shows that 57% of workers admit to quitting their jobs due to a bad manager. It’s not likely that lack of engagement is the only reason these workers quit, but it does show the significant role managers play in your workers’ decision-making.

Some managers simply don’t have the aptitude or capabilities to be strong leaders. One study reveals that companies select the wrong person for management 82% of the time. In these cases, employers may need to reevaluate their internal promotion policies and practices. There are many other managers, however, that only need the right tools and training to effectively promote engagement in the workplace.

Keeping your employees engaged also means making sure you communicate to them on a regular basis. Having regular town halls, info updates or just to touch base. Managers should make sure they plan these moments.

4. pride in work

According to Harvard Business School professor, Linda A. Hill, “a clear and compelling purpose is the glue that binds a group of individuals together." Think about it. The first step of any workplace collaboration effort is to develop team goals and objectives. These goals, then, become the focal point of the team.

Your colleagues want to be part of a team. They want to take pride in their work and see how their roles play a greater purpose in the overall success of the business. It’s through this sense of joint purpose that employee engagement can take hold and flourish.

Remote and hybrid work schedules can make this type of engagement more difficult. Through regular team meetings, frequent check-ins and constant feedback, engagement in the workplace, even in remote environments, can flourish.

It can also be difficult to build this sense of purpose and pride among deskless workers. These workers encompass nearly 80% of the global workforce and account for almost all shift workers, especially those working in manufacturing, healthcare and retail. Deskless workers tend to focus on their daily tasks, workplace safety and productivity and spend less time attending company meetings and participating in collaborative projects.

For these roles, manager interaction is crucial. Managers can help employees feel valued at work by providing adequate feedback and consistent recognition.

5. safe work environment

A safe work environment promotes engagement, and high levels of employee engagement in the workplace can significantly reduce the number of workplace incidents. Studies show that employees who aren't engaged in the workplace experience 60% more accidents than engaged workers. As you already know, safety issues in the workplace can lead to higher turnover, increased costs, losses in productivity and decreased job satisfaction.

To create a safe workplace environment, it's up to the company to provide:

• necessary tools
• training
• practices and policies 

However, it’s the role of managers, mentors and trainers to ensure these practices and policies are followed, the tools are used correctly and that all employees are fully trained. This requires communication, organisation and engagement.

Your employees must also be able to communicate any safety questions and concerns and feel as if leadership is listening and ready to take action if necessary. It's only through this level of engagement between company leadership and employees that you can achieve meaningful results.

6. enhanced employee experience

Many employers erroneously believe that employee engagement and employee experience are the same things. This is simply not true. The employee experience is the journey a worker takes from the first contact with the company (when applying for the position) to their exit from the company. While employee engagement should be a critical part of the employee experience, it is not a specific process, course or timeframe.

Rather, employee engagement is based on emotions, perceptions and feelings. It’s the level at which an employee feels committed to the company and its overall success. The earlier in the employee experience you can begin engagement, the better results you can achieve. The trick is to develop strategies to increase employee engagement during each stage of the employee experience.

7. clarity of job role

Developing a comprehensive job description is one thing. Having the details of this job description transfer into the actual role is another thing altogether. One of the top reasons new hires leave their positions so quickly is that the job doesn’t match the job description. This lack of job clarity right from the start can significantly damage employee engagement and increase new hire turnover rates.

New employees aren’t the only ones seeking more clarity regarding their roles and job duties. Workplaces are complex environments with many moving parts. It’s not uncommon for workplace processes to change and shift over time, requiring workers’ duties and responsibilities to also change and shift. Unfortunately, all too often, the workers are the last to find out. 

Oftentimes, managers assume that workers understand their new duties without ever fully clarifying who is responsible for what. This can lead to: 

• confusion
• frustration
• disengagement
• lower job satisfaction
• reduced productivity

It’s up to leaders and managers to ensure that all workers fully understand their roles and what’s expected of them in the workplace. The good news is that your company can achieve higher levels of employee engagement by adding clarity to your workers’ job roles.

8. investment in personal growth

Engagement is a two-way street. If you want your employees to be committed and invested in the company, the company must be committed and invested in its workers. Today’s engaged workers want to know their companies offer career development and training opportunities within the organisation.

According to our 2024 Randstad Workmonitor:

• 72% of workers want to future-proof their skills through training
• A quarter (24%) UK workers would quit a job that didn’t offer learning and development opportunities to future proof their skills

This is good news for employers, since it shows that employees want to develop their skills.

You can use a career development programme and employee training options to boost employee engagement within the company and increase workers’ commitment to the company. It’s important to create an employee training and development programme that is transparent, unbiased and available to all workers. Without employee involvement, your efforts could have the reverse effect and hinder employee engagement.

Your company should develop a process for measuring employee engagement, such as employee surveys and exit interviews, so it can gauge this level accurately. You also want to have effective employee engagement tools and strategies in place to boost engagement levels with your workers.

Download our guide outlining the eight key factors impacting employee engagement.

This is an updated version of an article originally published on 28 March 2023.