Fixing the Engagement Gap

In the companion piece to this blog, we discussed the latest statistics from Gallup’s annual State of the Workforce report, which has tracked employee engagement levels since 2009. This year’s key takeaway, indicating that 20% of the workforce is currently engaged in their roles, continues a decades-long trend of engagement hovering at these paltry levels.

There are myriad reasons that have fueled this dynamic over time. In the early 2010’s, when the global economy was in recovery-mode from the recession, employees were expected to “do more with less” during a time when the fear of continuing layoffs kept morale low. As the economy stabilized throughout that decade, low engagement levels were attributed to gaps in management ability, and organizations whose mission and cultures failed to inspire employees seeking meaning and purpose from their work. The pandemic then brought a host of new challenges, with the learning curve of hybrid work, 24/7 connectivity and culture-building over Teams meetings leading to employee burnout, and the now-retired buzzword of “quiet quitting.”

Today, many of these trends and challenges persist, but the latest driver is the uncertainty and fear surrounding AI, as employees see the largest and most successful companies in the world look to actively replace some of their previously prized employees with agentic AI tools, all in the name of reducing operating expenses to cover the capital expense of these new systems.

We don’t mean to take you on a history lesson for the sake of nostalgia. As we seek to identify solutions for business leaders to address this engagement gap, it is critical to understand these evolving and compounding catalysts that have led us to this seemingly intractable state.

Ultimately, there is no “magic bullet” that will solve all of these issues, but we believe there are a few actionable strategies that business leaders could consider to demonstrate their commitment to a better employee experience.

#1: Reframe your Employee Value Proposition with Real Data

We recommend surveying your employees to analyze the unique factors that influence the perception of their experience. These motivational levers can vary significantly from firm to firm, and sometimes even between business units within a company past a certain size. Present the survey as an honest and candid way to demonstrate your commitment to their first-hand feedback, which will be used to determine where the company will tangibly invest in employee-centric resources.

For instance, if the data indicates a desire for upskilling, executives could look to implement a more robust training program. If that data points to a need for more flexibility and autonomy, consider a more defined hybrid work program where in-office time is reserved for activities that require face-to-face discussion.

Using this data, executives can collaborate with HR/People leaders to develop a finely targeted Employee Value Proposition that focuses on the areas that mean the most to your staff. Consider repeating this survey every three to five years, which would have the dual effect of ensuring that your “people strategy” addresses the latest pain points, as well as continues to demonstrate that you hear their concerns and actively seek their input to maintain the best possible working environment. It’s always a win-win to show that you are hearing their feedback and take it seriously enough to adjust your policies.

#2: Fix the Manager-Employee Relationship

Ineffective managers have consistently been identified as a top driver of low engagement throughout the 17-year history of Gallup’s global study[i]. The low-hanging fruit to address this problem is investing in manager training. There are many avenues to consider, including live or virtual instructor-led training sessions, playbooks that lay out your guidance for managerial processes, and developing Slack/Teams channels dedicated to managers sharing best practices, to name just a few commonly-used strategies.

Beyond these time-tested measures, we speculate whether the role of the manager needs to be reinvented entirely in some cases. In a world where maximizing employee output is more crucial than ever, managers frequently shoulder a significant bulk of the team’s actual work output. When these team leaders are tasked with time-sensitive deliverables, it’s often the managerial and team-building actions that end up taking a back seat.

It’s as if we are asking the coach of the baseball team to also step up to bat.

Why are we not considering management a job role in and of itself? Pioneering business leaders could reconfigure team structures so that the manager’s job responsibilities are at least 80% related to actual managerial tasks, like conducting effective team meetings, identifying training opportunities to upskill, mentoring newer team members, acting as a sounding board for ideation and problem solving, finding inefficiencies in the current systems and processes, and reviewing team work at its final stages.

Meta has dipped its toes into this idea recently, looking to re-deploy middle managers as part of a long-term strategy to reduce organizational layers as means of increasing speed, efficiency, and accountability[ii]. Other companies, like Amazon, Google, and Intel, are re-framing the manager role as a “player-coach” who is focused on team guidance[iii]. 

#3: Be Clear About What AI Means For Your Business

AI advancements dominate the news. What started a few years ago as a nebulous tool that seemed to just be a hyper-powered Google, has evolved in a shockingly short time into the agentic tools that threaten entire industries. Anthropic’s Claude has progressed so far recently that groups as far-flung as graphic designers, software engineers, accountants, and yes, even communications professionals like ourselves, are all questioning whether their job will exist in five years. It’s a frightening notion for many of us, and is unquestionably driving down engagement levels. However, it is also an opportunity for executives to engage in poignant decision making: adapt or innovate, or be left behind.

Too often, we see some companies taking a cavalier stance towards this trend, encouraging employees to use as much AI as possible, and then using these learnings to eliminate the roles of the very individuals who trained these new company-specific AI agents. Not only is this disengaging, but  there are also signs that employees, especially Gen Z, are actively undermining these efforts[iv].

In the quest for reducing costs and offloading as much “repetitive” work to these AI tools, companies not only threaten the morale and engagement of existing employees, it is arguably a “double edged sword” that could have repercussions down the line. If your company stops hiring junior workers because you believe you can replace all “simple” tasks with AI, you deny a generation of future leaders with the foundational skills that they need to succeed in the future[v].

We believe that companies should consider being as transparent as possible to assuage these justified concerns. If you intend to downsize for AI, be clear about the timeframe and what you are looking to optimize. Rather than opaque explanations as to how you intend to harness this new technology, companies would benefit from candor, clarity, and transparency, while also reinforcing that you intend to use AI to empower your staff, rather than replace them.

Where do we go from here?

Engagement has been a sticky issue for 17+ years for a reason: the underlying factors that drive this low performance are both persistent and constantly evolving as the business world continues to transform rapidly around us. Additionally, too little attention has been placed on the value of human capital creation which may or may not be as quantifiable to the bottom line as “cost reduction” and “technology investment”. Measuring value by accounting principles alone, without people-focused soft value akin to creativity, innovation and invention, endangers your company’s long-term growth in favor of short-term bottom-line performance.

The good news is that many of the possible solutions to address this trend are low cost. They just require a reframing of organizational priorities to keep employees at the forefront, rather than an afterthought.

[i] https://www.gallup.com/services/182138/state-american-manager.aspx

[ii] https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-block-managers-player-coaches-org-leads-2026-4

[iii] https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-amazon-google-embrace-flatter-structure-fewer-managers-boost-efficiency-2025-5

[iv] https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/nearly-half-gen-z-workers

[v] https://theconversation.com/ai-could-mark-the-end-of-young-people-learning-on-the-job-with-terrible-results-275352