Why Engagement Still Matters in The Future of Work

Nick Lynn, Senior Director, Employee Experience, Willis Towers Watson

Not long ago, employee engagement was being written off as a fad that had had its day. There were numerous articles along the lines of “engagement isn’t working” and “engagement surveys are dead.”

Engagement approaches were criticised for being slow and cumbersome. The definition of engagement was vague. There was no agreement on how to measure it. The link to business performance was unclear. The term “employee engagement” originated in the 1990s, and the idea felt a bit old-fashioned.

However, engagement’s obituary was written too soon. In many organisations today, employee engagement remains a leadership priority. Most large companies continue to include an engagement measure in their annual report. There has been a boom in engagement surveys and a proliferation of new software products and solutions.

What are the reasons for this resilience, and why is it likely that engagement will remain a key topic for leaders in the years ahead?

One practical reason for the continued focus on employee engagement is stakeholder interest in holding leaders accountable for intangibles like human capital.

“Engagement provides an established means for getting at these issues. It’s not a perfect solution, but it is one that’s been widely adopted and formalised.”

In today’s economy, innovation, collaboration, and creativity are key drivers of business value. Investors are keen to get a handle on how well these capabilities are being nurtured and how well the talent is being developed. At the same time, external actors want a measure of how companies are living up to their community, social, and governance promises.

Engagement provides an established means for getting at these issues. It’s not a perfect solution, but it is one that’s been widely adopted and formalised. The Financial Reporting Council has even set out rules for companies to follow in terms of engagement approaches in the UK. Boards are responsible for overseeing the progress that’s made.

Another reason for the continued interest in employee engagement is the rise of new technologies that have made approaches simpler, faster, and better. This includes personalised user experiences, gamification, instant feedback, and smart analytics.

The practice of employee engagement has also evolved from large-scale events to an ongoing cycle of continuous feedback, involvement, and activation. Tools now provide rich insights in real-time into things like sentiment, mood, and even emotions.

Most companies have moved on from solely relying on an annual survey in terms of measuring engagement. They have built a “continuous listening strategy” that uses a mix of pulse surveys, life-cycle surveys, instant check-ins, daily polls, and virtual focus groups. They have also formed analytics teams to integrate survey insights with other data about their people. Most companies now use a combination of 3–5 measures for tracking engagement at an enterprise level.

The trend towards more frequent surveying accelerated during the pandemic. According to one study, the proportion of companies running quarterly surveys has increased from 7 percent to 28 percent in this period. Around 5 percent of companies are even surveying employees monthly. With more people working virtually, keeping in touch and maintaining a sense of connection has been essential. Dave Ulrich has described this as moving from “Management By Walking Around” to “Management By Checking In.”

From my perspective, I believe engagement is set to remain a focus for leaders long after the present COVID-related upheavals. This is because it will become ever more important to ensure high trust in the workplace in the future of work. In fact, companies will be competing based on the trust they establish with their workforce. Engagement approaches provide a way of organising those efforts.

The future of work means different things, but there will certainly be increased flexibility in how, when, and where work gets done and by whom. Organisations will become more fluid. Traditional notions of who’s part of the workforce will evolve to include new and different worker types.

Technology and human creativity will become more integrated and complementary. As routine elements of jobs are automated, people management will focus on enabling workers to excel at those human tasks that need empathy and judgement.

To do this well requires psychological safety and autonomy. Traditional top-down management will be superseded by decentralised leadership and agile teams.

Trust is the glue that’s needed to make all these things work. Engagement approaches provide a means for building trust at scale.

Moreover, in an experience economy, the link between employee experience (EX) and customer experience (CX) is critical for business success.

This is especially the case when it comes to technology. What has traditionally been “HR technology” is now best seen as “work technology.” How you communicate with, involve, and collect feedback from your front line directly impacts the service and innovation you can deliver to your customers. Moreover, the speed and accuracy with which you can produce insights and use feedback to design actions that improve experiences is a competitive advantage.

There is a maturity curve for engagement, and only a few companies are already at the advanced end. Around 10 percent of companies have established what you can call a “Transformative EX.”

These leading organizations have an EX strategy that is integrated with their business strategy, and they use technology to transform their employees’ experience and the business fundamentally.

Many other companies are still setting out their EX vision, and for this reason, engagement is going to remain front and centre for leaders for some time to come.

Financial

Customer Experience

Agile

HR Technology