Employee Engagement: The Secret to an Engaged Workforce

By Michael AustinOwner and Editor

Updated Oct 1, 2026Published Jan 5, 20228 min read

Employee engagement is how involved and enthusiastic people are about their work and workplace. There is no single secret: Gallup’s research points to clear expectations, the right tools, regular recognition, a manager who cares, development and fair pay. According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2026 report, only 20% of employees worldwide were engaged in 2025.

So many factors go into an engaged, productive and happy workforce. When you think you’ve solved the problems affecting one department in your business, another department starts to slack, and then it’s back to the drawing board with regards to figuring out why certain employees are slacking in terms of productivity.

Ways to Improve Employee Engagement

Sometimes unhappy workers can be experiencing personal problems, but sometimes it can all simply be the result of a failure to spread out tasks efficiently or the consequence of giving the wrong person certain projects to complete.

In any case, it often comes down to a lack of motivation or drive on the part of the individual to really engage with the workload, and here are some tips to help you fix this problem if you’re worried about low engagement across parts of your workforce.

Give them the chance to prove their worth.

Perhaps you’re simply not challenging them. At the end of the day, your employees don’t want to clock in and clock out. The job may be important to them, but people like to be challenged in order to keep their brain active and progressing towards the fullest of their potential.

The solution to this might be to give your employee chances to prove their worth, which could easily be achieved by offering rewards in the form of bonuses to those employees who make the most sales or prove themselves to be the most dedicated worker of the week.

Going the next step up, you could also offer the opportunity for a promotion to the individual who truly proves themselves at the end of the month.

Certain rewards might be easier to roll out on a regular basis than others, but as long as you keep the entire workforce motivated and driven to achieve that reward, you give individuals a purpose to improve themselves and strive towards an end goal.

Get the wage right.

Whilst everything mentioned in the previous point is true, it’s also true that people want to be valued for their work monetarily.

There’s a chance that your employees may feel unengaged if your business grows, the workload increases, and yet salaries remain the same. You need to remember to pay people for the work they do, and this means assessing employees on an individual level.

Low engagement or disgruntled workers can result from poor wage levels. Running regular payroll checks in your accounting software helps make sure employees are paid correctly and on time, because repeated pay errors quickly erode trust.

If you want to keep your workers productive, you need to pay them efficiently for what they do, as this is their livelihood. As passionate as people may be for their career, nobody wants to feel ripped off and work for less than they deserve.

A fun workplace.

Whilst nobody should be lounging around or doing nothing whilst working in your office, that doesn’t mean you can’t create a fun environment in which they can work. Simply installing a pool table or TV in the break room could give employees the chance to unwind and return to their work refreshed, re-energized and engaged. 🙂

What Is Employee Engagement?

Employee engagement is the degree to which employees are involved in, and enthusiastic about, their work and workplace. Gallup defines engaged workers as people who are highly involved and enthusiastic and who act as psychological owners of their work. The academic concept is usually traced to psychologist William Kahn, who described engagement in 1990 as people expressing themselves physically, cognitively and emotionally in their work roles.

Engagement is not the same as job satisfaction. A satisfied employee may be content but passive, while an engaged employee puts discretionary effort into the work. Gallup groups employees into three categories: engaged, not engaged (often described as quietly quitting) and actively disengaged.

How Engaged Is the Workforce Today?

Engagement levels are low worldwide, which is why the topic matters to employers of every size. The figures below come from Gallup, which publishes the most widely cited engagement surveys.

Gallup reported that the 2024 U.S. engagement level of 31% matched levels last seen in 2014, after engagement peaked at 36% in 2020. Gallup also noted that within its best-practice client organizations, 79% of managers were engaged, which shows that low engagement is not inevitable.

What Drives Employee Engagement? The Gallup Q12

The Gallup Q12 is a 12-statement survey that measures the workplace elements most linked to engagement. Employees rate how strongly they agree with each statement, which makes the list a practical checklist for managers:

1. I know what is expected of me at work.
2. I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right.
3. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.
4. In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.
5. My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.
6. There is someone at work who encourages my development.
7. At work, my opinions seem to count.
8. The mission or purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important.
9. My associates or fellow employees are committed to doing quality work.
10. I have a best friend at work.
11. In the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress.
12. This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow.

Notice that several of the tips above map directly onto the Q12. Challenging work and the chance to prove themselves relate to doing what people do best and to opportunities to learn and grow. Rewards for strong performance relate to recognition. A fun, friendly workplace relates to caring relationships and having a close friend at work.

How to Build an Engaged Workforce: Step by Step

1. Measure first. Run a short, anonymous survey based on statements like the Q12 so you know which teams and which elements are weakest.
2. Clarify expectations. Give every role written goals and priorities. Gallup’s 2024 U.S. data showed fewer than half of employees clearly knew what was expected of them.
3. Fix tools and resources. Ask teams what equipment, software or information slows them down, and remove those blockers.
4. Recognize good work often. The Q12 asks about recognition in the last seven days, so frequent, specific praise matters more than an annual award. See these tips on rewarding employees the right way.
5. Develop people. Hold progress conversations at least every six months and offer training, mentoring or stretch projects. Our guide to employee training and organizational growth covers the options.
6. Support managers. Gallup’s figures show manager engagement falling fastest, so train managers in coaching and give them manageable team sizes.
7. Review pay regularly. Compare salaries with the market for each role and adjust when workloads grow, so people are not working more for the same pay.
8. Act on feedback and re-measure. Share survey results, agree on one or two changes per team and survey again to see whether they worked.

Common Mistakes That Lower Engagement

• Relying on perks alone. Games rooms and snacks do not fix unclear goals or a poor manager relationship.
• Rewarding only one metric. Contests based only on sales can discourage teamwork and ignore employees in support roles.
• Surveying without acting. Asking for opinions and then changing nothing undermines the Q12 element “my opinions seem to count.”
• Ignoring onboarding. New hires who never learn what is expected start disengaged. A structured employee onboarding process helps.

For a broader plan that fits your company’s size and culture, read our guide to tailoring an employee engagement strategy, and see the benefits of employee recognition software if you manage a large or remote team.

Written byMichael AustinOwner and Editor

Michael Austin is the current owner of Justwebworld and manages the platform’s editorial direction, content strategy, and digital publishing operations. With a strong interest in online media and modern publishing, he focuses on creating informative, engaging, and easy-to-understand content across multiple categories. Under his leadership, Justwebworld continues to grow as a trusted multi-niche digital publication covering technology, business, lifestyle, automotive, sports, travel, and trending internet topics for readers worldwide.

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