Engagement is the leading priority for HR teams for the fourth year in a row, our 2025 State of People Strategy Report shows.
Among the HR professionals we surveyed, 44% identified employee engagement as their number one focus, just topping performance management at 40%.
This comes as no surprise. “Do more with less” has become the motto for organizations this year, and engagement is a driver of both high performance and employee retention, according to a 2024 Gallup meta-analysis.
With engagement playing such a pivotal role in organizational success, HR leaders need actionable strategies to move the needle. This article will explore:
- How HR teams encouraged engagement this year
- The crucial role of managers in creating engaged teams
- What engagement initiatives to plan for in 2025
- How to secure leadership buy-in and resources for engagement programs
How did HR teams drive engagement this year?
A deep dive into our data on employee engagement shows a clear winner for the most popular engagement strategy — and some more concerning trends.
L&D programming was the preferred choice for driving employee engagement.
Half of our HR respondents told us that they used learning and development (L&D) programs to engage their workforce, making it far and away the most popular engagement strategy in 2024.
Growth and development is a major driver of engagement. For instance, LinkedIn’s 2024 Workplace Learning Report found that 70% of employees felt learning improved their sense of connection to their company, and 80% said it gave them a greater sense of purpose in their work. So, we weren’t surprised to see many HR teams indicating L&D programming as their employee engagement tactic of choice.
Driving Engagement — or Masking Workforce Burnout?
The next two most popular options — additional paid time off and additional benefits — reflect a more worrying trend. These two approaches are typically used to help address employee burnout, which is still a major issue, especially among younger workers, according to our 2023 survey with YouGov in the UK.
Additional paid time off and benefits may well help with burnout by giving employees time and resources to recover. However, HR also needs to be thinking about longer-term approaches that reduce the overall risk of employee exhaustion and stress.
For example, our 2023 survey showed that a flexible working policy was one of the most important factors for employee performance. Yet while European HR teams were more likely to be supporting initiatives related to flexible time off, additional PTO, and benefits, our 2025 State of People Strategy Report found that globally, only 29% of HR teams offer flexible time off, just 27% offer remote work options, and just 9% offer a four-day workweek.
Our recommendation: HR needs to develop year-round strategies to tackle the underlying causes of employee burnout. Luckily, there’s a significant overlap between approaches that boost employee engagement and those that will mitigate burnout.
In addition to flexible working policies, our research identified four keys to a thriving workplace:
- Trust and autonomy
- Regular praise and recognition
- Clear expectations and well-defined responsibilities
- A positive and inclusive organizational culture
Understanding employees’ needs and motivations for staying engaged is also crucial. HR teams hoping to foster higher engagement and less burnout in 2025 should consider:
- Regular surveys and pulse polls to measure current levels of engagement, spot issues before they snowball, and build your understanding of the shifting priorities and mood of your workforce
- Manager training and support, so that managers know how to check in on employees, ask for honest feedback, address potential burnout, communicate clear expectations, and encourage engagement
- Employee recognition programs, to create a positive and rewarding working environment, communicate to employees that they are valued and appreciated, and promote a sense of fairness and encouragement
To read more guidance on addressing workplace burnout, check out our ebook How to Prevent and Treat Workplace Burnout.
What engagement strategies should you plan for 2025?
While salary budgets in the US look set to increase moderately again in 2025, the European Central Bank predicts a “sharp slowdown” in pay raises over the next two years. Forward-thinking HR teams on both sides of the pond would be well advised to consider approaches to engagement other than increasing compensation.
When we asked survey respondents for their suggestions, L&D opportunities were again the number one response, with 68% of respondents suggesting these would help increase engagement.
Other suggestions could be grouped into four categories:
1. Improving Transparency Around Growth and Compensation
Aside from increasing compensation and offering learning opportunities, HR teams told us they believed better communication would help boost engagement.
For instance, HR teams could foster engagement by:
- Creating accessible, easy-to-understand career paths (a choice supported by 64% of respondents)
- Giving greater clarity around performance expectations (recommended by 62%)
- Providing greater transparency around existing compensation guidelines (44%)
- Offering proof of equitable compensation practices (36%)
2. Improving Collaboration Between HR and Management
Many respondents suggested that HR could increase engagement by improving their two-way communication with management. Methods included:
- Communicating survey feedback with managers, and helping them to course-correct when needed (recommended by 51% of respondents)
- Creating structure for performance reviews (40%)
We’ll share more thoughts on the HR-manager partnership below.
3. Advocating for Balanced Workloads to Reduce Burnout Risk
With employee stress and exhaustion remaining an ongoing risk, survey respondents advised HR teams to play an active role in preventing burnout, by:
- Ensuring workloads are manageable (popular with 46%)
- Advocating for more manageable workloads in the future (42%)
4. Investing in a Positive Employee Experience
Our respondents also saw opportunities for HR teams to contribute to a more equitable and enjoyable employee experience, by:
- Allocating budget for team-building activities (42%)
- Investing in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) programming (23%)
Getting Leadership Buy-in and Resources for Engagement
Engagement remains a top priority for HR professionals — but many lack sufficient resources to invest in engagement initiatives:
- Over half (55%) of HR professionals reported that, while their organization recognizes the importance of employee engagement, leadership will not provide the necessary resources to support it.
- Plus, 51% told us they had plenty of ideas to boost engagement but not enough resources to implement them.
Melanie Naranjo, chief people officer at Ethena, suggested in our report that this might be a case of communication breakdown between HR and business leadership.
“The key is to clearly articulate the impact of employee engagement on business needs, and to do so in language that reinforces your leadership team’s priorities,” she remarked.
“You need to connect the dots for your CEO. Just because HR leaders know that low employee engagement leads to lower productivity, missed business goals, and less revenue for the company, doesn’t mean your CEO understands it, too. Instead of just saying, ‘Employee engagement is down, and we need to fix it,’ explain the impact of low employee engagement on the core business priorities.”
Natalie Breece, the chief people and diversity officer at thredUP, also pointed out that many engagement initiatives are low-cost but high-impact. If budget is a problem, she commented, then HR teams might want to try thinking laterally:
“It's often the scrappier initiatives that leave the biggest impression. For instance, a simple handwritten thank-you note can make employees feel truly appreciated. Regular coffee check-ins where business discussion is prohibited during the first 10 minutes can foster deep connections between colleagues.”
The HR-Manager Engagement Partnership
Naranjo also observed that “too many HR teams make the mistake of taking on all facets of employee engagement themselves.” This is simply too big a job for a single team, she pointed out:
“HR teams can’t be responsible for holding employees accountable to performance standards and making sure every employee feels included and seen.
“Instead, they should focus on distributing the load by empowering their managers, leadership team, and overall employees to be culture and engagement stewards themselves, holding each other accountable to high standards, and partnering to create inclusive and successful working standards.”
Managers have an outsized impact on the wellbeing of their teams. For instance, research shows that, worldwide, managers have as much of an impact on people’s mental health as their spouses.
They are the most frequent touchpoint for employees, meaning they shape much of the daily employee experience. They are therefore the key to driving engagement throughout the organization, said Breece:
“It’s HR’s job to shape culture by setting the vision, but it's the managers who will make the vision come to life in the workplace. HR and managers must work closely together to ensure the vision is effectively implemented. HR provides the necessary tools, training, and resources, while managers apply these elements in their daily interactions with their teams.”
HR teams are missing out on this vital partnership. For instance, 51% of our HR respondents said sharing survey feedback with managers to help with course corrections can increase employee engagement.
Instead of allowing employee engagement data to remain siloed in HR platforms, HR teams who hope to create high-performing workforces must work more closely with managers in the year ahead.
Our data shows that most managers do indeed understand the importance of key people initiatives, like performance reviews (74%) and weekly one-on-ones (55%), but there’s still room to improve.
“Engagement and wellbeing programs won’t succeed without managers making them relevant on the ground,” warned Breece.
For example, Breece suggested a close working partnership between HR and managers on engagement initiatives. “HR develops and promotes wellness programs, but managers personalize them,” she said. “HR may launch L&D initiatives, but managers identify team-specific growth opportunities.”
Managers also need support.
Managers don’t just need a closer partnership with HR — they also need greater support.
In fact, 30% say they’ve felt too overwhelmed by management responsibilities in the last six months to carry out their role to the best of their ability. Just 41% feel fully engaged and energized. Many managers told us they’re struggling with change fatigue and burnout, which is likely to trickle down to their teams if managers aren’t better equipped.
If you hope to partner with managers to drive employee engagement, you may need to start by providing them with the support and resources they need to become engaged themselves.
The good news is that HR can make a major difference in manager wellbeing. Our research showed that HR teams that meet their managers' needs have a dramatic effect on how those managers feel.
Managers who said their HR teams met all their needs were far more likely to say they were fully engaged and energized, far more likely to feel connected to their direct reports, and much likelier to remain with the organization “as long as possible.”
Engagement is a major challenge, and neither HR nor managers can be solely responsible for driving it at an organizational level. Instead, employee engagement must be a team effort, where HR provides managers with tools and resources, and managers ensure they use those tools to promote engagement from the ground up.
A Sample Engagement Schedule for 2025
Making engagement a priority in 2025 will take more than one-off initiatives. HR teams committed to retaining and motivating their employees might consider a regular schedule of engagement programs. Here’s a sample engagement schedule:
Weekly
- Manager-employee one-on-ones: Keep employees and managers on the same page with dedicated weekly sessions to discuss goals, challenges, learning needs, and two-way feedback.
- Manager-team meetings: Short, focused weekly check-ins can help managers and teams agree on priorities, address immediate concerns, and share updates.
- Peer recognition: To make employee recognition part of the culture, schedule at least a weekly opportunity for employees and managers to give shout-outs through your recognition platform or internal communication channels.
- HR office hours: Create a weekly opportunity for employees and managers to discuss any issues or questions, and provide informal feedback on engagement programs or other HR initiatives.
Monthly
- Employee pulse surveys: Use short, focused surveys to gauge employee sentiment, establish benchmarks to track progress, and gather feedback on current HR programs. Remember to share the results of these surveys with individual managers, to help inform their direction and approach with their team.
- All-hands meetings: Use large-scale meetings (either at the team, department, or company level) to create opportunities for employees to share suggestions, ask questions, and give feedback on organizational decisions — and for leadership to provide key updates and celebrate milestones and achievements.
- Social initiatives: Regular team-building initiatives, such as an away day, coffee chat, themed day, group learning opportunity, skill exchange, or hackathon, can help promote a positive working environment.
Quarterly
- Manager training: Sessions on topics like performance management, inclusivity, coaching, communication, and employee burnout can be a good way to ensure managers have the resources they need to support their teams. Remember to consider how to align the additional time required for training with the already heavy workload of most line managers.
- L&D opportunities for employees: In addition to individual skills training, quarterly learning sessions help boost performance while showing your workforce that you’re investing in their long-term development.
- HR-manager Check-ins: Encourage a positive working environment by promoting close alignment with managers. Use these quarterly meetings to discuss team dynamics, address findings from your pulse surveys, and offer managers personalized guidance or resources.
Annually
- Annual engagement survey: Run a comprehensive employee engagement survey to assess workforce wellbeing, check in on the main drivers of engagement, collect detailed feedback to inform your HR initiatives for the rest of the year, and set a benchmark to improve next year.
- Share survey results: Communicate the results to leadership and managers. Give managers feedback and resources to tackle red flag issues. Ask managers to discuss results with their teams and plan team-level actions to address any problems.
- Develop an engagement action plan: Break down the survey data into top priorities and action points. Create an annual strategy to improve or maintain engagement levels, and address areas of opportunity.
Employee engagement is a team sport.
As we head into 2025, employee engagement will remain a top priority for HR teams hoping to foster top performance, retention, and wellbeing. But our research makes it clear that engagement is not the responsibility of HR alone.
HR teams can set the stage with innovative L&D programs, transparent communication, and year-round initiatives to combat burnout and foster growth. However, it's the partnership with managers — those closest to the employees — that will bring these strategies to life.
The message for 2025 is clear: Engagement isn’t just a priority — it’s a team sport. And with the right strategies and partnerships in place, it’s a game every organization can win.
For more insights into the challenges and opportunities facing HR and leadership teams next year, check out our 2025 State of People Strategy Report.
