HR leaders say the future of engagement lies in better managers, less workplace friction, and conditions that let people do meaningful work.

The concept of employee engagement is relatively new. The idea that employees could be invested in the workplace beyond the economic transaction emerged in the early 1990s with the work of academic William Kahn helping to challenge businesses to go beyond simple job satisfaction. Since then, engagement has gained momentum, including a 2009 UK government report that examined engagement as a factor in increasing the country’s economic performance. Engaging for Success by David MacLeod and Nita Clarke identified four enablers of engagement:

1. a clear strategic narrative from leaders;

2. engaging managers;

3. genuine employee voice; and

4. organisational integrity.

Throughout the years, the message has been clear. If workers are invested in the workplace, if they understand the purpose of the organisation and feel what they are doing contributes positively, they will be more loyal and consequently more productive. However, exactly how that happens in the workplace continues to evolve. Today it is no longer a question of designing and implementing distinct engagement-inspiring initiatives, but of addressing the employee experience as a whole.

According to Sarah Williams, chief people officer at OCS UK and Ireland, engagement is an outcome of how an organisation is led, how work is designed, and how people experience the organisation every day. She believes the real test of an organisation’s maturity is whether engagement is discussed alongside commercial performance, customer experience, and productivity at the leadership table. “If it isn’t, we probably haven’t yet fully understood its strategic value,” she says.

Interestingly, she doesn’t believe engagement is about creating a workplace where everyone is “comfortable.” She says, “It is about creating an environment where people care enough to contribute, challenge, innovate, and deliver.” Comfort is not required for that to happen.

Williams also says there is a greater focus now being placed on the quality of the employee’s relationship with their manager with regard to engagement. “The future of engagement isn’t necessarily another enterprise-wide initiative,” she explains, “it may be better managers having better conversations every day.”

William’s observation is echoed by Alice Desbouvrie, chief people officer at LumApps based in Paris. For her, engagement is about addressing the wider employee experience rather than small individual initiatives. This can mean considering more mundane matters. “You can have a strong culture and a compelling purpose, but if employees struggle every day to find information, access tools, or get simple things done, that frustration eventually affects how they feel about work,” she says.

“I think we’ve traditionally overcomplicated engagement,” she adds. “Employees don’t wake up hoping for another engagement initiative, they want to be able to do meaningful work without unnecessary obstacles.”

Desbouvrie believes engagement should stop being treated as a separate programme and, instead, organisations need to look at the basic employee experience. If an organisation can remove unnecessary effort for them, making their working lives easier and enabling them to contribute more, the result will always be more engagement. Employees are able to make their contribution to the direction and purpose of the business more directly and easily. This then has a positive impact on employee sentiment. Simply trying to improve how employees feel without addressing why they might be feeling that way presents a disjuncture, opening the way for disillusionment and demotivation.

And in terms of addressing employee experiences, Desbouvrie believes these are becoming more personalised and contextual. “A frontline worker, a manager, and someone at headquarters shouldn’t have to navigate the same experience,” she says. “Technology can increasingly bring the right information, tools, and support to people based on their role, location, and needs.”

Jen Lawrence, HR director at Ecotone UK, has driven engagement by ensuring their employees have a meaningful say in the workplace. “In one area of Ecotone, the company has brought people together to help shape our future and people priorities with a deliberately simple principle. Honest feedback, no rank in the room, and what we hear should genuinely influence where we focus.” She explains that the initiative doesn’t mean promising to fix everything. Being realistic and transparent with everyone about what happens next is crucial to real engagement rather than setting up expectations, which can be dashed.

Engagement is an outcome of how an organisation is led, how work is designed, and how people experience the organisation every day.

Managers also have a critical role to play. “Some of the most effective engagement activities aren’t really ‘activities’ at all,” she says. “Managers having regular, good-quality conversations with people, giving clarity, offering feedback and coaching, recognising contribution, involving people in problem-solving and showing a genuine interest in development.”

Ecotone has also been working to develop a feedback culture, which has meant concluding meetings with two simple questions: “What did I see you doing well ​and appreciate​, and what would I like you to consider doing differently (or more, or less of) that will help us drive our performance edge?” Lawrence reports that these two reflective questions have enhanced engagement, producing new business and individual opportunities for employees. The questions can be seen to have twin impacts on the workplace and employee, bringing the two closer together with more focus and clarity.

At a previous employer, Lindt, Lawrence also saw this happen through the creation of a clear organisational purpose, “Make People Feel Special,” which was used to promote and enhance engagement. This purpose was all-encompassing and was connected to business strategy, leadership development, and the wider organisational culture. “It wasn’t an engagement programme sitting alongside the business strategy,” she says, “it was part of how we intended to achieve it. Engagement becomes much harder when the strategy says one thing, leaders behave differently and employees experience something else.”

Looking forward, Desbouvrie believes AI will also change the approach to engagement considerably. “It can remove friction, personalise learning, identify patterns in employee sentiment, and help people navigate the organisation,” she says.

But Desbouvrie is equally clear that technological sophistication should not replace human connection. For her, the more technology comes into the workplace, the more important authentic leadership and human connection become.

Alongside this, she sees the emphasis switching from the measurement of engagement to measuring the conditions that create engagement. “Ultimately, the C-suite shouldn’t be asking, ‘What’s our engagement score?’” she says. “The better question is:  ‘Are we creating the organisational conditions that enable our people and our business to perform?’  That is where I believe employee engagement is continuing to head. From a measure of employee sentiment to a measure of organisational effectiveness.”