Employee engagement issues can quietly derail your organisation – hitting performance, culture, and retention before you even realise it’s happening.
Keeping people genuinely engaged takes more than free coffee, yoga and a Friday quiz.
It’s about understanding what really drives your team, and what’s getting in the way.
In this article, we’ll dig into the most common employee engagement issues we see in UK workplaces and share simple, practical tips to help you fix them for good.
It’s important to remember, poor employee engagement can be caused by a variety of factors rather than one single factor.
Some of the most common reasons for low employee engagement are:
Because of how intertwined these factors are, addressing poor employee engagement often requires a thorough and holistic approach and is most successful with employee buy-in. That’s why regular feedback tools such as employee surveys are popular.
No two disengaged employees will ever look the same.
Disengagement comes in various forms, and whilst fully disengaged employees are easy to identify, there are also subtle signs you can look out for to spot employees that are beginning to become disengaged.
Many senior leaders aren’t able to identify or track when team engagement decreases, whilst others are unaware of how important it is for the overall health of the organisation.
Leaders and HR teams must ensure they have the correct methods to measure and manage employee engagement to make it easy for them to track and prioritise it within their team.
Inconsistency introduces doubt into your employees’ minds about how committed you are to the employee engagement strategy.
Ultimately this impacts employee engagement more and can impact your employee retention.
It’s important you stay consistent with initiatives, utilising effective communication and feedback to enhance your efforts.
One of the biggest employee engagement issues is lack of communication.
When communication is poor employees feel disconnected, undervalued and unengaged.
Open and honest communication is the foundation of employee engagement. Having regular communication with employees enhances their sense of belonging and commitment to the company.
By creating a work environment build on excessive micromanagement you will stifle morale and productivity, and introduce self-doubt in your team members.
To combat this focus on recognising ther value and the asset they are to your team. Show trust in their judgement and give them space to use their skillset to bring their projects to life.
Different demographics of employees have different needs, which in turn should be reflected in the differentiated approach you take to your employee engagement strategy.
Ensure you have a range of activities and benefits employees can engage with, and allow them to connect and engage in their own time.
When employees feel that their hard work goes unnoticed, they can quickly become disengaged.
Acknowledging and appreciating employee contributions boosts morale and creates a culture of appreciation and recognition.
Celebrating employee achievements through public recognition, rewards, bonuses, and career progression will always positively impact employee engagement.
A lack of training and development for employees can lead to them feeling undervalued and unsure of their long term future within your team.
Investing in employee training and development improves employee engagement and benefits the individual employee and the organisation.
A huge driver of higher levels of employee engagement is to implement employee wellbeing initiatives.
Promoting physical, mental and emotional health impacts productivity and absenteeism which in turn improves employee engagement. See our latest blog for 80+ ideas for employee wellbeing and benefits perks
It is important to ensure that you personalise your employee engagement strategies to different individuals.
For example, an employee in their early twenties will respond differently to activities than an employee in their 50s.
Whilst an employee with children may have different priorities than an employee without children.
If employees don’t feel that your employee engagement activities are suited to their needs, it can hinder your progress towards improved employee engagement.
Using employee feedback to tailor activities to your employees will bring higher engagement rates to your teams.
To improve employee engagement you have to have a thorough understand of how your employees think about feel about their place of work.
Gathering feedback using tools such as surveys, and making changes based on that feedback will help employees feel heard and show them they’re valued.
Create regular opportunities for employees to share feedback so you can understand changes in employee engagement in each of your teams and get ahead of any issues.
Learn more about how to use surveys to measure employee engagement here.
Employees look to their managers for cues on how to behave.
If leadership aren’t displaying good engagement and wellbeing behaviours, your employees probably won’t do it either.
Make sure managers – especially your leadership team – aren’t showing employees that the only way to be successful is to get burnt out.
Before you jump into fixing your employee engagement issues it is important to understand the barriers that will hinder your efforts.
There can be a range of things that will impact your efforts to improve employee engagement.
If you don’t have a clear employee engagement strategy you will struggle to create a structured plan that enhances key factors such as productivity, belonging, and wellbeing. This will make it difficult for you to identify and address these areas and will diminish the overall impact of your engagement efforts.
Failing to adapt your strategy in line with employee feedback, changing organisational dynamics or employee needs will result in a strategy that is less effective over time. Employee engagement is constantly evolving, and your approach to supporting it must be able to evolve at the same pace.
Without buy-in from senior leaders and managers, your employee engagement strategy and related initiatives may lack the necessary resource and direction needed to succeed.
If your organisation has cultivated a rigid culture that is resistant to change it can impede efforts to adapt and evolve, particularly when it comes to the engagement strategies you put in place in response to shifting employee needs and external factors.
Introducing the wrong survey tools can lead to unreliable data collection and inaccurate measurements of employee engagement. This will hinder your ability to address specific issues and improve overall employee engagement. Interested in learning more? Read Stribe’s buyer’s guide to employee engagement software.
It’s important to remember you don’t need to have all the answers, all at once. Just start!
We aren’t just employee survey software.
Here at Stribe we also have a team of people scientists that work with you every step of the way.
Our experts are an extension of your team, guiding you through every step of your workplace engagement journey.
About the author
Lucy Harvey, COO at Stribe, has 11+ years’ experience in purpose-driven leadership roles across health, wellbeing, internal communications, employee engagement, and marketing. She is passionate about creating workplaces where people are happy, fulfilled, and feel comfortable and safe to talk.
