7 employee engagement trends shaping the modern workplace

Organizations are losing the employee engagement battle. Employee engagement levels fell to their lowest in over a decade in 2024, with data showing that only 31% of employees are engaged, according to Gallup.

• Why it matters: There is a direct link between employee engagement and business performance. High employee engagement leads to high productivity, and high employee productivity fuels growth. 

70% of employees report that they would go above and beyond for the company if they felt valued and engaged. Leaders must take a step back, conduct engagement surveys, look at what fuels employee engagement, and direct resources in the right direction.

Employee engagement by the numbers

Only 31% of employees in the US said they were engaged in 2024, a figure that hasn't been so low in 10 years. Actively disengaged employees also rose to 17%, a slight increase from the previous year, according to Gallup’s report.

72% of employees say how well they understand organizational goals affects their engagement levels at work. And for the employees who understand goals and are engaged:

• 63% see an impact on productivity.
• 59% in motivation.
• 54% in satisfaction with work.
• 45% in their ability to collaborate well.
• 44% in their ability to solve problems at work.
• 37% in creative thinking.
• 35% in their ability to stick to project timelines.

In the US, the highest employee engagement decline happened in workers under the age of 35 years, and especially among Gen Z employees. Critical employee engagement elements like receiving recognition, clarity of expectations, feeling valued, and having the tools and opportunity to do what they do best saw a notable decline. 

If you thought the slipping employee engagement is not having a big impact on a business’s bottom line, think again.

• The global economy lost $438 billion in lost productivity in 2024 due to the dropping employee engagement levels, according to Gallup. 

🔎 Zoom in: To bring this closer to home, your organization might be losing $2,246 per disengaged employee per year. 

7 employee engagement trends to keep an eye on in 2025

As the impact of employee disengagement becomes more apparent, companies are starting to rethink their employee engagement initiatives. 

1. Clarity on how and why critical business decisions are made affects employee engagement

Employees want to understand the “why” behind key business decisions, not just the “what.” Your organization’s ability to clearly explain the reasoning behind critical decisions will have a direct impact on your team’s engagement levels. 

The 2025 state of internal communications report conducted by Axios HQ uncovered some very interesting insights into how strategic communication affects employee engagement. Employees reported that they would be more likely to go above and beyond in their responsibilities when they were well informed about:

• What are their career growth opportunities?
• What roles do they play in bringing key business initiatives to life?
• Leadership decision-making process.
• Tools and resources are available to help them.
• Why and when goals and operations shift.
• Top-level goals and directives.
• Who are the decision makers in key initiatives?
• Company financial performance.

What it means for you: The days of making business decisions behind closed doors and expecting employees to follow directives blindly are truly behind us. Leaders must invest in clear, transparent communication to inspire their teams and build a sense of inclusion and trust.

Providing the context behind business-bending decisions will reduce anxiety and resistance to change among your staff. Employees will feel more valued and empowered, and this promotes alignment around business priorities. 

2. Strategic investment in comms is boosting employee engagement and satisfaction

68% of the organizations that increased their investment in internal communications over the last 18 months saw an increase in employee engagement. 

• 73% saw increased employee net promoter scores (eNPS) and satisfaction.
• 72% saw a boost in culture and morale.
• 68% witnessed a rise in alignment with business goals.

There's always been a direct connection between effective internal communication and employee engagement and alignment. Quality internal communications improve how well employees understand organizational goals and priorities, leading to more alignment, more efficiency and more profit.

Your part: Invest in a reliable internal communications strategy to strengthen employee engagement, teamwork, and collaboration. That starts with a regular newsletter. 

•  "A regular, ongoing newsletter cadence where you’re communicating with employees on a regular basis, that's run and managed by the CEO, is the only and/or best answer to: “How do you develop a culture that works to promote associate engagement in a post-COVID world?" says Chuck Cohen, managing Director of Benco Dental.

Go deeper: Learn how Yahoo increased employee engagement and trust, boosted buy-in to its vision, and improved employee understanding of company direction with Axios HQ software. 

3. Frequent recognition is driving employee engagement

50% of employees say they find themselves doing the minimum requirements at work, and 22% of them report they would have done better if they felt more recognition for their extra contributions. 

Employee recognition is one of the simplest ways to drive engagement. Yet, only one in three employees reported that they got recognized or praised for doing a good job in the last seven days, according to a Gallup report. 

You’re staring at an employee retention problem when two-thirds of your workforce say they're not being recognized. The same Gallup report explains that employees who feel unrecognized are twice as likely to quit in the next year. 

⚙️ How it works: Create recognition programs that honor a job well done and let your entire workplace know that you see and value their contributions. It also shows employees what the desired outcomes are. Leaders can recognize their employees through... 

• Public recognition with an award or commendation.
• Private recognition from bosses and peers.
• Promotion or increase of responsibilities to show trust.
• Monetary awards.

Interestingly, who the recognition comes from is just as important. Recognitions from an employee’s immediate manager and the CEO or a high-level leader being the most memorable recognitions.

4. Growing use of AI to boost employee engagement and satisfaction

Organizations are integrating artificial intelligence into various workflows to boost employee satisfaction and engagement. They're...

• Personalizing internal communications to resonate with each employee individually.
• Monitoring employee sentiment from pulse surveys and interactions.
• Deploying AI assistants to make it easier for employees to find the information they need to do their job. 

Admittedly, safe AI adoption is one of the key challenges leaders face. 41% of leaders anticipate that addressing the safe adoption of AI with their employees will be difficult. Employees are also curious to know how organizations plan to adopt AI technologies and whether their jobs are at risk.

👉Your part: Be transparent with your employees about how you plan to adopt AI. You should also be clear and decisive in communicating how the changes will happen and the reasoning behind them.

5. The rise of employee ambassadors

Employee ambassadors are passionate employees who voluntarily promote the company’s core values and culture. Organizations are increasingly turning to employee ambassadors to drive employee engagement, strengthen company culture and trust, and help with talent acquisition and retention. 

Uber's Director of Global Internal Comms, Netta Conyers-Haynes, says the organization created employee ambassador groups to "really understand employee sentiment, how people are processing information and what their opinions and feedback are in a way that was more conversational.” 

🔬 Try it out: Identify employees across different departments and levels who demonstrate alignment with your company values and empower them to share their experiences in their own voices.  

6. Growing focus on manager engagement

Managers are the linchpin of engagement at every workplace. So much so that the leading cause of the $438 billion in annual lost productivity is the drop in manager engagement. That's caused employee disengagement which, of course, affects productivity. 

Salesforce CEO, Brad Burns, explains that “we’ve done research at Salesforce that shows 75% of our employees trust the information their manager shares with them the most.”

Managers are supposed to champion employee engagement, but it’s hard to expect them to do that when, according to Gallup, only 31% of managers are actually engaged.

Train your managers to be good communicators so that they can engage and inspire your employees. Invest in upskilling initiatives that can help managers:

• Learn how to connect the big picture from C-level execs with the core duties of each team and cascade them down clearly.
• Master how to engage remote and hybrid teams to enhance employee experiences.
• Understand how to measure productivity based on outcomes, not attendance.

7. Increasing RTO plans to boost productivity metrics

Return-to-office (or other hybrid work models) is one of the three topics leaders expect will be really difficult to discuss with their employees in 2025. It’s alongside other tough subjects like political issues and impact, as well as Diversity and Inclusion or DEI changes, progress, and accountability.

Still, RTO is a topic leaders will have to face in 2025 because reports show a link between some hybrid models and optimal employee engagement. This signals a need to more from fully remote work to hybrid models that drive engagement while still giving employees perks like work-life balance. 

• Employees prefer to work two to three days of the week from the office, a schedule that can also boost engagement, according to Gallup. 

👉 Your part: Leaders will need to be careful in how they implement and communicate RTO plans, as 37% of employees report that they’d expect terminations or look for jobs elsewhere if their organizations increase in-office requirements. 

Explain the “how” and “why” behind your RTO plan and give your managers and their teams some flexibility to adjust in-office requirements to suit their unique situations.

The bottom line

Employee engagement has been declining since the pandemic, and this is costing companies thousands of dollars in lost productivity. 

Organizations need to go back to the drawing board, monitor employee engagement trends, and adjust their employee engagement strategies to keep up with the post-pandemic expectations of employees.

Go deeper: How to build employee engagement with strategic internal communications