Top trends in employee engagement

AURORA, Colo. — Yelp made waves in 2022 when it became one of the early adopters of shifting to permanently remote work in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The decision, which came about in large part due to employee feedback, is just one of the ways Yelp has put listening to workers at the center of its people strategy, Chief People Officer Carmen Amara and Senior Director of People Business Operations Brad Auernig told a Workhuman audience.

Employee engagement has shifted in what’s being called the “big stay” — a time that began around 2023, when employees decided to stay put in their roles, prizing stability over the draw of a new position. Yelp is experiencing this phenomenon along with other workplaces; its average tenure expanded from 2.8 years in 2022 to 3.9 years today, Amara said. 

“But just because retention is high, that doesn’t mean that employee expectations are not evolving,” Amara said. Potential challenges of the “big stay” include maintaining workers’ motivation, avoiding career stagnation and preventing burnout, she said.

Amara and Auernig outlined a few strategies Yelp is using to keep workers engaged.

1. It employs a dynamic listening style — and takes action.

Listening to employee feedback creates “a foundation necessary for employees to thrive,” Auernig said, pointing to several approaches the company takes to listening: consistently through an annual survey, regularly at large events, and as-needed through focus groups and smaller surveys or events. 

What about survey fatigue? “The truth is employees get worn out in providing feedback when they don’t see change,” Auernig said. “It’s about turning insights into action quickly and effectively.” 

Yelp asks leaders to take feedback and do “1-2-3.” First, pick one issue. Next, devise two solutions. Then, commit to three follow-ups. “Don’t just listen,” Auernig said. “Do something with what you hear.”

2. It focuses on growth beyond promotions.

When employees stay longer in the organization and their roles, “they need to feel like they’re continuing to move forward,” Amara said, noting that investment in growth and development is essential — not optional.

How can HR foster this feeling? Yelp offers cross-functional projects, for one, Amara said. Employers can also offer mentorship and job shadowing, promote continuing education and certifications, and encourage workers to use AI tools to create a personalized development plan.

“It’s really imperative that we do not wait for promotions to celebrate growth,” Amara said. “We absolutely need to recognize skill-building, stretch assignments and progress along the way.”

3. It emphasizes purpose.

Finally, employees need to understand how the organization they work for makes a difference every day for those it serves. Yelp consistently reinforces the “why” of the company, Auernig said, and helps employees connect how their work contributes to the broader project. 

“When people feel connected to the purpose of the company, they will thrive,” Auernig said. “They will bring their best selves to work.”

HR teams may be relying on misleading employee engagement surveys to develop initiatives and make critical decisions about productivity and agility, according to a report by people analytics firm Visier.

Nearly half (47%) of 1,000 U.S.-based employees surveyed in October 2024 said they often or occasionally feel pressured to withhold feedback, and another 6% rarely or never answer honestly, the responses showed.

Trust — or rather, a lack of it — in their organization’s data management system is the main culprit: 37% of employees said they don’t believe engagement surveys are ever really anonymous. They also said managers don’t get how they feel; 44% believe their manager would rate their emotional state differently than they would, while 21% said their manager would inflate it.

Employers have come to rely on surveys to gauge engagement, but the tool has been showing cracks for a while, according to the Visier report.

In other words, when surveys fail to accurately reflect employee sentiment, they won’t be effective in developing what’s needed to keep workers “engaged, productive and motivated to meet changing company needs,” Sarah Gonzales, Visier’s senior director of content, creative and design, wrote in a recent blog.

Pointedly, the top three subjects employees find the most difficult to be honest about — overall job satisfaction (36%), leadership performance (33%) and their relationship with their manager (30%) — directly impact how organizational strategy, programming and budgets are planned, Gonzales said.

Also of concern, dishonest responses are on the rise, particularly among younger, junior-level workers, the survey found.

For example, 26% of millennials and 24% of Gen Zers said they often feel pressured to hold back, compared to only 15% of Gen Xers.

The findings come at a time when U.S. employee engagement is at the lowest level in a decade, according to a January report from Gallup.

The forecast isn’t reassuring, the report indicated. Employee detachment is growing nationwide, particularly among workers under 35, and those in finance, technology, transportation and professional services, Gallup found.

The Visier survey highlighted another recurring problem: The disconnect between management and staff.

For instance, executives overestimate how much their employees trust them, a gap that has been growing in recent years, according to a PwC March 2024 report.

Notably, faulty engagement surveys may also be responsible for the disconnect between what HR teams prioritize and what employees believe is important for engagement, SurveyMonkey suggested in a September 2024 report.

The disconnect can vary by generation, geography, identity and parental status, but was most significant among companies that lacked strong feedback, advocacy and understanding of employee needs, SurveyMonkey found.

“To foster a productive engaged workforce, leaders can’t overlook opportunities to translate employee feedback into direct action,” but they’re “flying blind” without candid feedback, Gonzales emphasized in the Visier blog.

The firm’s findings shed light on how to move forward. In particular, the second most common reason employees said they aren’t being completely honest is that they don’t believe their employer will act on their feedback in a meaningful way.

However, employees were candid about what they’d like employers to do to improve productivity over the next 12 months. The No. 1 action? Thirty-one percent said they want regular updates on what their employer has done in response to their feedback. 

Better communication and transparency about company changes are next as the most requested actions: More than a quarter (26%) of employees said they’d like to see improvements in these areas.

Around 1 in 10 respondents confessed that being honest in these types of surveys takes too long, Visier reported.

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By Axonify

For HR leaders in frontline industries like hospitality, food service and retail, the challenges are felt acutely. High employee turnover drains resources, low engagement stifles productivity and outdated training programs leave teams unprepared for the demands of a dynamic market. The constant churn isn't just a staffing issue; it's a direct assault on the bottom line, impacting everything from customer satisfaction to operational efficiency. Frontline HR professionals must build a resilient, skilled and motivated workforce in environments characterized by tight schedules, diverse learning needs and a deskless workforce.

The good news is that these pervasive issues are solvable, and technology is leading the way. Modern learning and enablement platforms, like Axonify, are purpose-built and designed with the unique realities of the frontline in mind, redefining the way organizations approach learning, communication and task management.

Revolutionizing training and engagement

The shift is away from traditional, static training methods, which often lead to low retention and disengagement. Instead, Axonify leverages brain science (how people really learn and retain information) and AI to deliver a dynamic, personalized and engaging learning experience that fits seamlessly into the flow of frontline work.

Combating high turnover: Address turnover by fostering a more confident and capable workforce. Your ability to deliver bite-sized, daily learning sessions makes training accessible and reduces the friction often associated with lengthy courses. By delivering training over time and then continuously reinforcing critical knowledge, employees gain the skills and confidence they need to succeed, leading to higher job satisfaction and, ultimately, improved retention. Axonify helps you with the capacity to onboard and upskill employees faster is crucial in industries with high churn, ensuring new hires are quickly productive and feel supported.

Boosting employee engagement: Engagement isn't just about surveys or who comes to the staff holiday party; it's about making employees feel valued, informed and connected. Axonify supports high engagement rates through:

• Gamification: Incorporating game mechanics, points, rewards and leaderboards to make learning fun, motivating employees to log in daily.
• Personalization: AI-driven adaptive learning tailors content to individual knowledge gaps and roles, ensuring relevance and maximizing impact.
• Two-way communication: Real-time, targeted communication from corporate to the frontline and vice versa. This ensures employees are informed, heard and feel part of a larger community, fostering a culture of feedback and recognition.

Modernizing outdated training programs: Say goodbye to generic, one-size-fits-all training. Axonify’s approach is agile, data-driven and designed for continuous improvement through:

• Microlearning and spaced repetition: Information is delivered in short bursts and reinforced over time, aligning with how the brain learns and retains information effectively.
• Mobile-first accessibility: Recognizing that many frontline workers are deskless, solutions are accessible on any device–smartphones, tablets, POS systems, or kiosks–allowing learning to happen anytime, anywhere.
• Real-time analytics: HR leaders gain invaluable insights into knowledge growth, confidence levels and how learning impacts business outcomes. This data enables continuous optimization of training strategies and proactive identification of coaching opportunities.

Revolutionizing training and engagement

The shift is away from traditional, static training methods, which often lead to low retention and disengagement. Instead, Axonify leverages brain science (how people really learn and retain information) and AI to deliver a dynamic, personalized and engaging learning experience that fits seamlessly into the flow of frontline work.

Combating high turnover: Address turnover by fostering a more confident and capable workforce. Your ability to deliver bite-sized, daily learning sessions makes training accessible and reduces the friction often associated with lengthy courses. By delivering training over time and then continuously reinforcing critical knowledge, employees gain the skills and confidence they need to succeed, leading to higher job satisfaction and, ultimately, improved retention. Axonify helps you with the capacity to onboard and upskill employees faster is crucial in industries with high churn, ensuring new hires are quickly productive and feel supported.

Boosting employee engagement: Engagement isn't just about surveys or who comes to the staff holiday party; it's about making employees feel valued, informed and connected. Axonify supports high engagement rates through:

• Gamification: Incorporating game mechanics, points, rewards and leaderboards to make learning fun, motivating employees to log in daily.
• Personalization: AI-driven adaptive learning tailors content to individual knowledge gaps and roles, ensuring relevance and maximizing impact.
• Two-way communication: Real-time, targeted communication from corporate to the frontline and vice versa. This ensures employees are informed, heard and feel part of a larger community, fostering a culture of feedback and recognition.

Modernizing outdated training programs: Say goodbye to generic, one-size-fits-all training. Axonify’s approach is agile, data-driven and designed for continuous improvement through:

• Microlearning and spaced repetition: Information is delivered in short bursts and reinforced over time, aligning with how the brain learns and retains information effectively.
• Mobile-first accessibility: Recognizing that many frontline workers are deskless, solutions are accessible on any device–smartphones, tablets, POS systems, or kiosks–allowing learning to happen anytime, anywhere.
• Real-time analytics: HR leaders gain invaluable insights into knowledge growth, confidence levels and how learning impacts business outcomes. This data enables continuous optimization of training strategies and proactive identification of coaching opportunities.

A path forward for frontline success

For HR leaders, the imperative is clear: to move beyond traditional HR challenges and embrace solutions that empower the frontline workforce. Implementing a comprehensive, science-backed platform like Axonify, can directly impact high turnover, low employee engagement and the shortcomings of outdated training. By providing relevant, engaging and accessible learning, you can build a more resilient, knowledgeable and productive frontline, ready to meet the demands of today and tomorrow.

Axonify is the frontline learning and enablement platform that improves team performance, customer experiences and sales. Trusted by companies like Walmart and Marriott, Axonify uses AI and personalized development to transform potential into performance. Discover how a modern approach to frontline t can transform your workforce. Learn more about Axonify’s solution for learning, communications and operations today.

The global percentage of engaged employees fell to 21% in 2024 — and managers may be at the heart of the problem, according to a Gallup report.

Managers suffered the steepest decline in engagement compared to every worker category, Gallup said, especially managers under 35 and women managers.

Reports have been warning about a “manager crash” for months; one meQuilibrium study from November 2024 posited that 2025 could bring a significant downturn in manager well-being and the ability to do their jobs due to a lack of support. 

A Top Workplaces report from January also flagged manager burnout as one of the top challenges employers will face in 2025. 

“Manager engagement affects team engagement, which affects productivity. Business performance — and ultimately GDP growth — is at risk if executive leaders do not address manager breakdown," Jim Harter, Gallup’s chief workplace scientist, said in a statement.

To fix disengagement, Gallup recommended training and development for managers. Managers likely agree; 45% of managers surveyed by TalentLMS said their company isn’t doing enough to cultivate future leaders and that leadership training remains a neglected initiative, according to a December 2024 report.

Of those development opportunities, Gallup highlighted teaching managers how to be better coaches. Providing manager training improved manager thriving from 28% to 34%, Gallup said; this percentage improves even further if a manager has someone to encourage that ongoing development.

Following the “quiet quitting” and “quiet firing” phenomena, researchers at TalentLMS have highlighted another silent crisis: “quiet cracking.” The term describes employee disengagement, tanked performance and plans to quit.

One in 3 of survey-takers said they experience workplace unhappiness “occasionally,” whereas 1 in 5 said they experience workplace unhappiness “constantly” or “frequently.”

While about half of employees surveyed said they aren’t experiencing “quiet cracking,” 54% said they feel that way to some degree, according to the survey.

The root cause of quiet cracking may be workers feeling insecure in their current jobs, the report indicated. This lack of confidence could be the result of a lack of training, which makes workers feel insecure in their role, according to the data. Employees who said they hadn’t received any training in the past year were also 140% more likely to feel insecure about their jobs. 

Researchers also outlined a lack of connection as a factor in quiet cracking. Employees say they are experiencing what researchers called “managerial disconnect,” with 47% of employees experiencing quiet cracking saying that their managers do not listen to their concerns.

Ultimately, TalentLMS researchers called this phenomenon “less visible than mass resignations” à la The Great Resignation, “yet no less damaging.”

Back in 2022, worker advocates and people leaders alike were asking employers and employees to meet in the middle and ensure work-life balance for all involved amid the rise of “quiet quitting,” or workers opting to perform the bare minimum.

Meanwhile, other companies reportedly resorted to quiet firing, which is when managers start to phase workers out of their roles — potentially in response to quiet quitting.

Nikhil Arora, CEO of Talent LMS’ parent company Epignosis said that the solution to fixing quiet cracking is simple.

“When people feel stuck, unheard, or unsure about their future, that’s when disengagement creeps in. Giving employees space to grow — through learning, skilling, and real conversations — is one of the most powerful ways to turn things around,” Arora said in a statement. 

Not only does giving employees this space show workers that they matter, Arora said, “but [it] helps them rediscover a sense of purpose and forward momentum, something we all seek at work and in life.”

Career development opportunities can highly influence both employee engagement and retention — and more employers are taking notice, according to a report from Gallagher.

In a survey, about 43% of employers said they support career development to improve engagement, and 35% said they increased the importance of career well-being in 2024.

“Hiring and retaining talent is one thing, but driving better organizational outcomes requires effective engagement solutions,” William Ziebell, CEO of Gallagher’s benefits and HR consulting division, said in a statement. “If employees are given more opportunities to develop and advance their knowledge and skills from their employer, they’re more likely to gain a sense of purpose in their work, leading to increased motivation, engagement and buy-in.”

In a survey of 3,500 U.S. organizations across 22 industries, 57% said they have a formal strategy for improving employee engagement, marking an increase of 9 points since 2022. Career development, growth and mobility continue to top the list of key drivers of engagement and retention, they said.

Although 43% said they support their workers in developing and pursuing a career path, only 19% said they strive to offer interesting and challenging work, according to the survey. To boost engagement, companies can consider ways to challenge their employees with new goals, increased responsibility and promotions, Gallagher said.

Other reports have similarly indicated the importance of development, especially regarding employee engagement. For example, businesses may need to invest in employee development and adopt cross-functional career pathways to adapt to a “post-industrial economy,” according to a report from The Josh Bersin Co, a human capital advisory firm. A focus on reskilling and retaining workers will ultimately fuel productivity and growth, the firm said.

Unfortunately, most leaders tend to overestimate employee engagement and believe their workers are more loyal than they actually are, according to a report from Right Management, a talent brand under ManpowerGroup. However, investing in employee development can improve engagement and retention, particularly among mid-career and middle-layer workers who feel less engaged and need additional support from leaders right now, the report found.

A disconnect exists between what HR teams prioritize and what employees believe is important for engagement, which can vary by generation, geography, identity and parental status, according to a report from SurveyMonkey.

Notably, the gaps between HR professionals and employees were most significant among companies that lacked strong feedback, advocacy and understanding of employee needs.

“The real insight here might be that HR’s success is inextricably linked to their company’s willingness to foster an open environment that supports honesty and advocacy,” the report said. “HR teams are only as effective as their ability to collect authentic feedback from their employees.”

SurveyMonkey surveyed 304 HR pros and 2,593 U.S. workers about company culture, leadership, HR teams and the impact those teams have on the workplace. Overall, 53% of HR pros said their companies are increasing their focus on employee experience versus the bottom line.

However, 80% HR pros voiced concerns that employees weren’t providing open and honest feedback about their experiences at work. At the same time, 39% of workers said they’re uncomfortable sharing open and honest feedback with HR, and 44% said they don’t provide honest feedback because they don’t feel it will lead to change.

Although HR pros said they believe employee voices carry equal — or slightly greater — weight than leadership or management when it comes to decisions about the employee experience, most workers disagreed. Only 21% said they have a voice, and about half said leadership has the biggest say in employee decisions.

In another example of the gap, HR pros were twice as likely to believe they are proactive rather than reactive to employee needs. Conversely, employees were twice as likely to say HR was primarily an advocate for the company rather than worker needs.

Employers should be careful about requesting employee feedback if they’re not prepared to take action, which could negatively affect trust and engagement, according to a McLean & Co. report. Although many employers understand the importance of listening to workers, employees still say they don’t feel heard and that providing feedback doesn’t seem to make a difference, the report found.