6 Employee Engagement Challenges and How to Overcome Them
Uncover six overlooked employee engagement challenges -- from poor manager communication to lack of recognition -- and practical solutions for each one.
A paltry 36% of US employees are engaged in their work, as per data from Gallup. On top of that, 11.5 million workers left their jobs in the time period between April and June of 2021.
It’s no secret that engaged employees are less likely to skip work and are much more productive. They are also more likely to stay with their organization.
So with roughly 2% of the entire US workforce quitting on a monthly basis, you can’t afford to ignore the employee engagement challenges in your company. Identifying employee engagement barriers in the workplace and addressing them should be your top priority.
But what should you look for? What might be the issues in your organization hurting employee experience and retention?
This post will help you understand what those barriers are, and what you can do about them.
Let’s begin.
Employee engagement challenges that can make or break your business
A study shows that a highly engaged workforce can reduce a company’s turnover rate by 25 to 59%. And it all starts with identifying the barriers to high employee engagement. These are:
1. Excessive red tape
How many procedures and rules should an employee follow to get basic tasks done in your workplace? If there are too many, it will negatively impact employee engagement.
According to the Employee Outlook Survey from the CIPD, unnecessary rules and procedures are the biggest hurdles to employee productivity.
Your work environment is supposed to provide a smooth work experience where employees can get things done easily with minimum stress. This will require simplifying your work processes wherever possible.
How to overcome this employee engagement barrier?
See which admin tasks are taking the most time for both the admins and workers. Then reduce the number of sign-offs required to approve these tasks.
Implement a tool that can automate common workflows. With Blink’s micro apps, for instance, admins can create and share digital forms, collect data, and automate key workflows.
2. Line managers and supervisors with poor communication skills
If there’s anyone in the position to bring the skills and focus of team members into alignment with the goals of the organization, it’s the middle manager.
In factories and other similar establishments, for example, line managers form a pivotal link between frontline staff and senior leaders. Yet they are often ill-equipped to engage their teams.
The Management Empowerment Report reveals that just one-third of front-line managers received specific training to support employees. Most have been chosen for the role because they were good workers, not because they were good managers.
Inspiration and transparency in communication are critical improvements a leader can make towards solving employee engagement challenges.
How to overcome this employee engagement barrier?
Open channels of two-way communication among the line managers and their teams.
Provide managers with resources and tools to collect staff input with methods such as internal surveys and quizzes.
Support with adequate employee engagement training for managers on how to engage and communicate with their teams.
3. Lack of one-on-one time
Only 21% of millennials and 18% of non-millennials meet with managers on a weekly basis. Most say they meet less than once a month.
One-on-ones are essential for managers to get to know employees on a personal level and discuss their needs, concerns, and growth opportunities. They could be considered a key driver of employee engagement.
Not just that.
Without frequent one-on-one meetings, a manager’s ability to communicate effectively with employees about projects and performance is limited. And what suffers as a result? Employee engagement.
So, to avoid barriers to good employee relations, you must make sure that the managers in your company meet regularly with the staff.
How to overcome this employee engagement barrier?
Direct managers to schedule regular one-to-one meetings with their team members. And make it a key performance indicator that determines their progress in the managerial role.
Train managers to create an agenda in advance and approach these meetings as a consultant, not an authoritarian. Instead of just discussing technical details of the job, managers should help workers prioritize tasks and understand the big picture.
4. Shortage of growth opportunities
A study by BlessingWhite found a lack of growth opportunities to be the most common reason employees leave their jobs. If you’re serious about removing employee engagement barriers, increasing development opportunities is a must.
Failing to consider workers’ career progression will trigger the feeling that they are stuck in a dead-end job. And sooner or later, they’ll jump ship to discover better opportunities.
In contrast, employers that encourage workers to learn new skills don’t just retain them longer, but also stand to gain from the new insights employees bring to the table.
How to overcome this employee engagement barrier?
Have a professional reinvestment budget. Allocate sufficient resources to invest in each employee’s professional growth plan. Case in point: Jake Goldman, from 10up. In his words:
“We provide a dedicated budget accrued at $3,000 per worker per year. And we give managers and employees several ways to use these resources, from self-coaching and online classes to attending and speaking at professional events worldwide.”
Start by outlining a path for growth that will keep employees engaged and help you retain top talent. Plus, offer support and training in the form of stipends or bursaries to help employees get there.
5. Not enough transparency
Research shows the majority of employees (75%) care about the performance of their employer, but only 23% feel they have insight into how well the business operates.
Transparency in the workplace refers to a genuine, two-way openness of communication between the workers and the management. And lack of transparency is an employee engagement barrier that can undermine the trust between employees and managers.
So it’s essential to show your employees the bigger picture — how their work is tied to the goals of the company as a whole. It leads to a high level of communication and trust, which in turn fuels employee productivity and engagement.
How to overcome this employee engagement barrier?
Make sure workers are being kept in the loop about small or large matters concerning the organization.
Regarding the decision for which the stakes are high, make it a point to explain the “why” behind them. This is a better approach than just laying down the new rules.
Regularly share business performance reports with the employees, regardless of whether it’s struggling or doing great.
Lack of reward and recognition
According to an Indeed survey, 30% of people who quit their job within the first six months would have stayed longer if they were recognized more for their contributions.
Employee reward and recognition are at the heart of impactful employee engagement strategies and high levels of retention. On the other hand, not having an employee recognition program in place will leave workers demotivated and dissatisfied with the organization.
How to overcome this employee engagement barrier?
Recognizing your employees doesn’t have to cost the world. Often a simple (and free) thank you can have a massive impact on engagement. Other ways to recognize your employees without breaking the bank can include a free celebration lunch or a monetary bonus for the employee of the month.
Make sure you celebrate big and small wins with your team, especially when they exceed expectations. Get creative and make the culture of encouragement and appreciation a central part of your organization.
6. Employees feeling unheard
A study found that 82% of employees have ideas to boost business performance. But more than one-third of employees struggle to get these inputs to the upper management.
This is one of the most critical employee engagement challenges because if employees are to be engaged with their work, they need to feel heard.
A 2020 employee experience study found that organizations that act on feedback have double the engagement score of those that don’t. And this kind of engagement is possible only when senior managers listen to workers’ thoughts and opinions.
How to overcome this employee engagement barrier?
Transparent, one-to-one meetings can help workers feel heard, along with anonymous question and answer sessions and employee feedback forms.
Adopt a communication or employee engagement tool that creates multiple channels between managers and workers. Blink, for instance, also lets managers create polls and surveys that can be used to find out what workers really think.
High employee engagement is a big advantage that can help you stay ahead of the competition. But as you can see, accomplishing the same remains a challenge for many organizations.
But that’s not to say it’s impossible.
Top workplaces have been successful at reducing employee engagement challenges with communication and alignment. And there’s no reason you can’t do the same.
These tips and best practices for employee engagement we have shared will go a long way in overcoming employee engagement barriers and creating a workplace where workers feel more included, engaged, and valued.
There most common challenges of employee engagement are: 1. Lack of support from leadership 2. Communication gaps between employees and departments 3. Difficulty measuring employee engagement 4. Not having the right technology 5. Lack of growth & recognition 6. Poor work-life balance
What can hinder employee engagement?
There can be a lot of things that will hinder your employee engagement efforts. The challenges we mentioned already will all hinder your efforts, but others can include: 1. Choosing the wrong tools & technology 2. Not having, and sticking to your engagement strategy 3. Not adapting your approach if needed. 4. Not having complete buy-in 5. Recruiting the wrong people
A paltry 36% of US employees are engaged in their work, as per data from Gallup. On top of that, 11.5 million workers left their jobs in the time period between April and June of 2021.
It’s no secret that engaged employees are less likely to skip work and are much more productive. They are also more likely to stay with their organization.
So with roughly 2% of the entire US workforce quitting on a monthly basis, you can’t afford to ignore the employee engagement challenges in your company. Identifying employee engagement barriers in the workplace and addressing them should be your top priority.
But what should you look for? What might be the issues in your organization hurting employee experience and retention?
This post will help you understand what those barriers are, and what you can do about them.
Let’s begin.
Employee engagement challenges that can make or break your business
A study shows that a highly engaged workforce can reduce a company’s turnover rate by 25 to 59%. And it all starts with identifying the barriers to high employee engagement. These are:
1. Excessive red tape
How many procedures and rules should an employee follow to get basic tasks done in your workplace? If there are too many, it will negatively impact employee engagement.
According to the Employee Outlook Survey from the CIPD, unnecessary rules and procedures are the biggest hurdles to employee productivity.
Your work environment is supposed to provide a smooth work experience where employees can get things done easily with minimum stress. This will require simplifying your work processes wherever possible.
How to overcome this employee engagement barrier?
See which admin tasks are taking the most time for both the admins and workers. Then reduce the number of sign-offs required to approve these tasks.
Implement a tool that can automate common workflows. With Blink’s micro apps, for instance, admins can create and share digital forms, collect data, and automate key workflows.
2. Line managers and supervisors with poor communication skills
If there’s anyone in the position to bring the skills and focus of team members into alignment with the goals of the organization, it’s the middle manager.
In factories and other similar establishments, for example, line managers form a pivotal link between frontline staff and senior leaders. Yet they are often ill-equipped to engage their teams.
The Management Empowerment Report reveals that just one-third of front-line managers received specific training to support employees. Most have been chosen for the role because they were good workers, not because they were good managers.
Inspiration and transparency in communication are critical improvements a leader can make towards solving employee engagement challenges.
How to overcome this employee engagement barrier?
Open channels of two-way communication among the line managers and their teams.
Provide managers with resources and tools to collect staff input with methods such as internal surveys and quizzes.
Support with adequate employee engagement training for managers on how to engage and communicate with their teams.
3. Lack of one-on-one time
Only 21% of millennials and 18% of non-millennials meet with managers on a weekly basis. Most say they meet less than once a month.
One-on-ones are essential for managers to get to know employees on a personal level and discuss their needs, concerns, and growth opportunities. They could be considered a key driver of employee engagement.
Not just that.
Without frequent one-on-one meetings, a manager’s ability to communicate effectively with employees about projects and performance is limited. And what suffers as a result? Employee engagement.
So, to avoid barriers to good employee relations, you must make sure that the managers in your company meet regularly with the staff.
How to overcome this employee engagement barrier?
Direct managers to schedule regular one-to-one meetings with their team members. And make it a key performance indicator that determines their progress in the managerial role.
Train managers to create an agenda in advance and approach these meetings as a consultant, not an authoritarian. Instead of just discussing technical details of the job, managers should help workers prioritize tasks and understand the big picture.
4. Shortage of growth opportunities
A study by BlessingWhite found a lack of growth opportunities to be the most common reason employees leave their jobs. If you’re serious about removing employee engagement barriers, increasing development opportunities is a must.
Failing to consider workers’ career progression will trigger the feeling that they are stuck in a dead-end job. And sooner or later, they’ll jump ship to discover better opportunities.
In contrast, employers that encourage workers to learn new skills don’t just retain them longer, but also stand to gain from the new insights employees bring to the table.
How to overcome this employee engagement barrier?
Have a professional reinvestment budget. Allocate sufficient resources to invest in each employee’s professional growth plan. Case in point: Jake Goldman, from 10up. In his words:
“We provide a dedicated budget accrued at $3,000 per worker per year. And we give managers and employees several ways to use these resources, from self-coaching and online classes to attending and speaking at professional events worldwide.”
Start by outlining a path for growth that will keep employees engaged and help you retain top talent. Plus, offer support and training in the form of stipends or bursaries to help employees get there.
5. Not enough transparency
Research shows the majority of employees (75%) care about the performance of their employer, but only 23% feel they have insight into how well the business operates.
Transparency in the workplace refers to a genuine, two-way openness of communication between the workers and the management. And lack of transparency is an employee engagement barrier that can undermine the trust between employees and managers.
So it’s essential to show your employees the bigger picture — how their work is tied to the goals of the company as a whole. It leads to a high level of communication and trust, which in turn fuels employee productivity and engagement.
How to overcome this employee engagement barrier?
Make sure workers are being kept in the loop about small or large matters concerning the organization.
Regarding the decision for which the stakes are high, make it a point to explain the “why” behind them. This is a better approach than just laying down the new rules.
Regularly share business performance reports with the employees, regardless of whether it’s struggling or doing great.
Lack of reward and recognition
According to an Indeed survey, 30% of people who quit their job within the first six months would have stayed longer if they were recognized more for their contributions.
Employee reward and recognition are at the heart of impactful employee engagement strategies and high levels of retention. On the other hand, not having an employee recognition program in place will leave workers demotivated and dissatisfied with the organization.
How to overcome this employee engagement barrier?
Recognizing your employees doesn’t have to cost the world. Often a simple (and free) thank you can have a massive impact on engagement. Other ways to recognize your employees without breaking the bank can include a free celebration lunch or a monetary bonus for the employee of the month.
Make sure you celebrate big and small wins with your team, especially when they exceed expectations. Get creative and make the culture of encouragement and appreciation a central part of your organization.
6. Employees feeling unheard
A study found that 82% of employees have ideas to boost business performance. But more than one-third of employees struggle to get these inputs to the upper management.
This is one of the most critical employee engagement challenges because if employees are to be engaged with their work, they need to feel heard.
A 2020 employee experience study found that organizations that act on feedback have double the engagement score of those that don’t. And this kind of engagement is possible only when senior managers listen to workers’ thoughts and opinions.
How to overcome this employee engagement barrier?
Transparent, one-to-one meetings can help workers feel heard, along with anonymous question and answer sessions and employee feedback forms.
Adopt a communication or employee engagement tool that creates multiple channels between managers and workers. Blink, for instance, also lets managers create polls and surveys that can be used to find out what workers really think.
High employee engagement is a big advantage that can help you stay ahead of the competition. But as you can see, accomplishing the same remains a challenge for many organizations.
But that’s not to say it’s impossible.
Top workplaces have been successful at reducing employee engagement challenges with communication and alignment. And there’s no reason you can’t do the same.
These tips and best practices for employee engagement we have shared will go a long way in overcoming employee engagement barriers and creating a workplace where workers feel more included, engaged, and valued.
There most common challenges of employee engagement are: 1. Lack of support from leadership 2. Communication gaps between employees and departments 3. Difficulty measuring employee engagement 4. Not having the right technology 5. Lack of growth & recognition 6. Poor work-life balance
What can hinder employee engagement?
There can be a lot of things that will hinder your employee engagement efforts. The challenges we mentioned already will all hinder your efforts, but others can include: 1. Choosing the wrong tools & technology 2. Not having, and sticking to your engagement strategy 3. Not adapting your approach if needed. 4. Not having complete buy-in 5. Recruiting the wrong people
Is your internal comms tech stack bursting at the seams?
Technology should make work easier. The right internal communications tech has the power to transform the employee experience and get everyone pulling in the same direction.
But when your internal comms tech stack is bursting with tools — all pinging, updating, and overlapping — things get messy.
With different tools for communication, collaboration, engagement, and more, employees get a fragmented digital experience.
And for the IT team behind the scenes? It’s a constant juggling act of integrations, logins, security, support tickets, and updates — plus eye-watering costs for all those subscriptions.
Of course, each one of those digital tools serves a purpose. But used together, they can create friction, silos, and a digital employee experience that doesn’t live up to expectations.
Overwhelmed by your tech stack? There’s a better way.
Let’s explore how to consolidate your tools without compromise — and why a single, mobile employee app can simplify your stack, save your budget, and elevate the experience for everyone.
The current state of internal comms tech: A tool for every need
Internal communication teams wear a lot of hats. They’re responsible for amplifying company culture, keeping track of employee sentiment, sharing essential company updates, and boosting employee engagement.
To tick all those boxes, many organizations end up with a patchwork of internal communications platforms. A survey tool here. A chat app there. A weakness in one tool is fixed by bringing another software solution into the mix.
In any given organization, there are often separate tools for:
Real-time chat and collaboration
Social media-style engagement
Critical communications
Employee surveys and feedback
Employee training
Virtual meetings and town halls
AI content support
Employee journeys
Peer recognition
Task management
Before you know it, these tools are fighting for employee attention. They’re adding to the noise and making it harder for comms teams to cut through with vital messages. Maintaining multiple, overlapping solutions is also costly — and it creates a real headache for CIOs and IT teams.
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The CIO’s challenge: Complexity, cost, and employee fatigue
If you’re managing a complicated internal comms tech stack, you’re probably experiencing one, if not all, of the following challenges.
IT burden
Managing integrations, security, compliance, and maintenance for multiple tools puts a strain on your IT team. Help desk tickets mount up because users struggle to learn each new platform and remember all those login details. For companies with high employee turnover rates, onboarding and offboarding staff across different platforms takes up a huge amount of time.
Cost overload
A bloated internal comms tech stack eats into your budget. When different tools cover similar ground, you pay multiple times for the same features, many of which aren’t even used by your comms team or employees. Costs mount up, draining resources that could be better used elsewhere.
Employee disengagement
App overload kills engagement. Employees bounce between platforms. They miss messages. Some tune out completely. You get poor usage and adoption rates — and a tech ROI that simply doesn’t add up. Despite (on paper) covering all the bases, your internal communication tools don’t provide the seamless digital experience employees have come to expect.
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The solution: An all-in-one employee app
With new and improved internal comms tech tools on the market, it doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t need to make do with a hotchpotch of platforms, each fulfilling a slightly different internal comms function.
Instead, you can consolidate all internal communications andworkplace tech into one software solution. And you can do this without compromising on security, functionality, or the employee experience.
With a unified employee app, you have one platform, one login, and one powerful digital workplace for all your internal communication needs. Here’s what consolidation can do for your organization.
One hub for all communications
The best employee communications apps bring all comms under one digital roof. So everyone can stop toggling between tabs!
Employees can access a news feed, instant messaging, alerts, surveys, and videos from the same dashboard. Comms teams can unify their messaging across integrated communication channels. IT teams have just one comms platform to manage and maintain.
Streamlined integrations with existing enterprise tools
The right employee app acts as a hub for all workplace tech. It offers seamless integrations with tools like Workday, ServiceNow, and Microsoft 365.
Your team doesn’t need to spend time creating and customizing integrations from scratch. And with one command center, it’s easy to maintain, secure, and scale your tech ecosystem.
Improved user adoption and engagement
Fewer internal communication tools means less friction and high levels of user adoption. What’s more, with single sign-on (SSO) and deep integrations, users can access all workplace tools via one central, user-friendly dashboard.
Everything from HRIS tools to L&D programs to pay stubs is right at employee fingertips. So adoption of other workplace tech improves too. And — if you pick a mobile-first solution — you improve uptake among frontline employees, which means better comms engagement across your entire workforce.
Reduced costs and complexity
By eliminating redundant software and establishing a single employee app you reduce costs and complexity. Your budget goes further — and your IT team is less stretched, so they can focus on value-add activities instead of tackling endless support tickets.
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Why Blink? The all-in-one employee app
Blink was built as an all-in-one workplace solution — everything your workforce needs in one intuitive platform designed for easy use on mobile devices.
Wondering whether our employee app is the answer to a sprawling internal comms tech stack? Take a look at what Blink can bring to your organization.
Real-time chat and collaboration
Blink makes a great alternative to Slack and Microsoft Teams, particularly if your organization has a lot of frontline workers. As a mobile-first solution, Blink gives all employees easy mobile access to secure chat and collaboration tools via both desktop and smartphone apps.
Social-style news feed and engagement
Workplace from Meta will soon be defunct. But your workforce can still enjoy an engaging social-media-style experience with Blink. You get a news feed and other modern social features, like Stories, Communities, live streaming, and user profiles.
Mobile alerts and push notifications
Say goodbye to a tangled web of email and SMS communication (which most employees ignore anyway). With Blink, you can use mobile-first alerts and push notifications to share critical updates with your workforce.
Surveys and pulse checks
Surveys and polls are another built-in Blink feature, so you don’t need a third-party tool to find out what your workforce is thinking and feeling. Your comms team can seek regular feedback from employees and view survey data alongside platform usage stats.
Video and live updates
Blink offers integration with Zoom. But you can also use native tools for video and live updates. Users can video call from within chat. Leaders can use the live stream feature to host company-wide meetings from the news feed, giving employees the option to comment and interact during the event.
AI-powered content
Another big benefit of Blink is its built-in AI functionality. Users don’t have to switch between ChatGPT and your employee communications platform. Instead, they can keep their data safe and sound by getting Blink to create, improve, or summarize content, right within the feed.
A wide range of integrations
Blink’s App Marketplace contains integrations with many of the most popular workplace tools. You can set up integrations with your learning and development, project management, CRM, payroll, HR software, employee scheduling, time tracking, and more. One app, one seamless experience: Get one-click access to what you need, when you need it.
Easy identity management
Another way Blink eases the load of your IT team is with user management tools. Rather than using another external identity management provider like Okta, you can use Blink to automate user administration, assigning permissions based on groups, job roles, location, and more. You can use single sign-on right in the app, reducing the number of accounts and login details you’re responsible for.
Rock-solid security
Blink can handle authentication, including secondary biometric authentication, for you. You can also fence particular functions, controlling the areas that workers can access in integrated tools. Blink gives you everything you need to keep company data safe on employee devices.
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Simplify, save, and strengthen employee experience with an employee app
Lately, the internal comms text stack has become a little… unwieldy. In many organizations, a complex network of tools is harming the employee experience, complicating internal communications, and stretching IT teams to the limit.
But with the help of an employee app, you can fix all that.
Employees get a dynamic digital workplace, where they can access multi-media company news and time-sensitive critical updates. It’s easier than ever for them to connect with co-workers, launch video calls, and respond to surveys.
Your internal comms team has tools to share information and gather feedback on employee experience. They can unify their messaging and keep a close watch on employee engagement figures across all workplace software.
And last but by no means least, an employee app brings benefits for your IT team too. Streamlining your tech stack reduces tickets and software maintenance tasks. It frees up your budget while bringing comms clarity to your entire organization.
Blink. And create a streamlined digital experience for every worker and every team.
The best modern intranet platforms for organizations ready to move beyond SharePoint
SharePoint has been a mainstay in the enterprise toolkit for over two decades. It’s a powerful document management system, deeply integrated with Microsoft 365, and often the default choice for storing and sharing internal files.
But here’s the problem: SharePoint was never built to be a communications platform.
While it excels at managing content libraries and handling compliance-heavy workflows, SharePoint often falls short when it comes to engaging employees, delivering real-time updates, and building a connected culture across modern, distributed teams.
In a world where employees expect internal tools to be as intuitive and engaging as the apps they use outside of work, SharePoint can feel clunky, outdated, and hard to navigate—especially on mobile.
That’s why more organizations are seeking SharePoint alternatives that are easier to use, faster to deploy, and actually drive adoption. Whether you’re leading HR, IT, or Internal Comms, this guide will help you find a platform that fits how people work today—not how they worked in 2005.
Below, we break down the top 10 SharePoint alternatives in 2025—from modern employee apps to full-featured intranet platforms—so you can choose the right solution for your team.
#1. Blink
Best for modern organizations that want one app for everything work-related
Blink is a next-generation employee platform that combines intranet, internal communications, and essential tools in one mobile-first app. Unlike SharePoint, Blink is designed with the end user in mind—delivering a personalized, social-style experience that’s as easy to use as your favorite consumer apps.
It works across all employee types—desk-based, remote, frontline, and hybrid—giving everyone a single access point for updates, resources, and action.
Standout features:
Personalized feed with dynamic content
Native mobile and desktop experience
Chat, surveys, micro-apps, and file sharing in one place
Fast rollout with minimal IT dependency
Rich analytics to track engagement and reach
Instagram at work features like Stories
Ideal for: Mid-to-large organizations ready to unify communications, culture, and tools in a single platform. Limitations: Not focused on traditional document-heavy intranet use cases.
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#2. Interact
Best for internal comms teams building structured, branded intranets
Interact is a well-established intranet platform known for its structured content management, branded design options, and targeting capabilities. It helps internal comms teams deliver timely, relevant content to the right audiences, while offering tools for feedback and measurement.
Standout features:
Drag-and-drop design tools
User segmentation and targeting
Feedback features (likes, comments, polls)
Integrations with Microsoft 365 and other tools
Ideal for: Communications teams in mid-size organizations. Limitations: Mobile experience isn’t its strongest suit.
#3. Staffbase
Best for enterprise comms with campaign-style messaging
Staffbase is built for centralized internal communication at scale. With a branded employee app and features tailored to top-down messaging, it’s a strong choice for large organizations where internal communications is a dedicated function.
Standout features:
Personalized content feeds
Internal email and newsletter tools
Branded mobile apps
Communication planning and analytics
Ideal for: Enterprises with large, distributed workforces and centralized comms teams. Limitations: More focused on broadcasting than collaboration.
#4. Happeo
Best for Google Workspace-based companies
Happeo is a sleek, modern intranet designed to integrate deeply with Google Workspace. It blends intranet content, social channels, and G Suite tools into a unified interface that’s especially popular with remote and digital-first companies.
Standout features:
Real-time Google Drive integration
Team channels and social intranet feed
Drag-and-drop intranet page builder
Easy onboarding and admin
Ideal for: Teams using Google Workspace who want a polished UX. Limitations: Less relevant for Microsoft-heavy environments.
#5. LumApps
Best for complex enterprise needs and deep integrations
LumApps is an advanced intranet and employee experience platform with a strong focus on personalization, multilingual content, and integration across enterprise systems. It's a go-to for global companies that need a highly structured, configurable solution.
Standout features:
Rich personalization based on user roles
AI-powered recommendations
Microsoft and Google integrations
Multilingual and multi-brand support
Ideal for: Large enterprises with global teams and complex requirements. Limitations: High cost and long implementation time.
#6. Simpplr
Best for AI-driven content delivery and lifecycle comms
Simpplr’s strength lies in making large volumes of content feel personalized and accessible. With built-in AI and lifecycle capabilities, it helps organizations deliver the right information at the right time—especially useful for onboarding, change management, and HR comms.
Standout features:
AI-powered content targeting
Lifecycle campaigns (e.g., onboarding)
User-friendly CMS
Engagement analytics and sentiment tracking
Ideal for: Enterprises that want smarter content delivery. Limitations: More focused on desk-based teams than mobile workers.
#7. Igloo
Best for governance and compliance-focused content management
Igloo offers a more traditional intranet experience with emphasis on document control, structured spaces, and knowledge management. It’s well-suited to organizations with strict compliance, approval workflows, or audit requirements.
Standout features:
Version-controlled document repositories
Approval workflows and access control
Wiki-style knowledge base
Integration with cloud storage systems
Ideal for: Legal, finance, and regulated industries. Limitations: Interface can feel dated; not mobile-first.
#8. Jive (by Aurea)
Best for peer collaboration and internal communities
Jive prioritizes community-driven engagement. It’s a feature-rich platform that encourages social interaction, collaboration, and internal networking, with robust forums and group spaces for employee-led discussions.
Standout features:
Community and interest groups
Discussion threads and forums
Recognition and gamification
Advanced user activity analytics
Ideal for: Knowledge-sharing organizations with a culture of collaboration. Limitations: UI feels less modern; slower updates and innovation.
#9. ThoughtFarmer
Best for small-to-mid teams that want a clean, simple intranet
ThoughtFarmer focuses on usability and simplicity. It offers enough flexibility to meet most intranet needs while staying easy to use for both employees and admins. It’s known for its approachable design and personal touch.
Standout features:
Easy intranet editing tools
Staff directory and org chart
Localized content targeting
Light project and task tools
Ideal for: Mid-sized companies that don’t need enterprise complexity. Limitations: Not ideal for global scale or highly mobile teams.
#10. Basecamp
Best for teams focused on projects, not pages
While not an intranet in the traditional sense, Basecamp is a viable SharePoint alternative for small, project-driven teams. It consolidates file sharing, team comms, tasks, and scheduling into one easy-to-use platform.
Standout features:
Message boards, to-dos, and docs in one place
Calendar and schedule management
File versioning and access control
Notification control and auto-check-ins
Ideal for: Startups and small teams prioritizing execution over content architecture. Limitations: Lacks structured intranet features like targeting, workflows, or internal news.
Final thoughts: Choosing the right SharePoint alternative
The best SharePoint alternative isn’t just about replacing software—it’s about enabling a better employee experience.
Ask yourself:
Does this platform work for all employees—across roles, devices, and locations?
Is it engaging, personalized, and intuitive?
Will people actually use it?
If you want an intranet that employees love—not just tolerate—Blink is a powerful alternative worth exploring.
Change is the only constant? It’s a phrase we hear a lot these days. But it’s definitely true of business. And it’s also true of internal communications.
As new generations enter the workforce, as technology advances, and as employee expectations shift, internal communication trends are liable to change.
Keeping up with those trends is essential if you want to maintain an engaged and productive workforce. Because internal communications is how you keep employees in the loop, connect them to company culture, and inspire them to go all in for your organization.
So, as we approach the halfway point of 2025, we thought it a good time to recap the internal comms trends we’ve seen developing over recent months.
The latest internal communication trends
The five internal comms trends we’ll be looking at include:
Ask questions
Focus on employee-generated content (everyone is an internal communicator)
Prioritize mobile-first communication
More visual, conversational, and authentic content
Focus on employee wellbeing and mental health
Let’s take a look at these in more detail.
1. Ask questions
Employees want more than company updates — they want a voice within their organization. And while companies have traditionally focused on delivering top-down messages, there’s now increasing focus on two-way communication and interaction.
Whether it’s regular pulse surveys, leader Q&As, listening tours, or a good old-fashioned suggestion box, more and more organizations are seeing the value of regularly checking in with their workforce.
They’re giving employees the opportunity to be heard. Asking them questions and seeking their feedback on everything from the employee experience, workplace changes, ideas for innovation, and even the quality of internal comms itself.
It’s certainly a rising priority, with some organizations, including financial tech company Intuit, even employing a dedicated Head of Employee Listening.
So how do you make a success of employee voice initiatives? Here are a few ideas:
Start by asking the right survey questions. Align questions with your KPIs. Base questions around areas that you’re prepared to take action on. Word your questions neutrally and don’t overwhelm employees with too many survey questions.
Create a culture of psychological safety. You’re unlikely to get valuable feedback if employees don’t feel comfortable sharing their honest opinions. So train your managers in active listening and empathy. Champion open communication across your whole organization. And consider giving employees the option to give feedback anonymously.
Close the feedback loop. Only 58% of organizations take action to improve after receiving employee feedback. This leads to a loss of faith in the feedback process. So close that loop. Thank employees for their input, tell them about your findings, and clarify what you plan to do next.
Seek feedback regularly. The yearly employee engagement survey doesn’t cut it in a rapidly changing workplace. You’re more likely to miss vital insights relating to the employee experience and retention. Quarterly surveys, supplemented with short pulse surveys and increased leadership visibility can give you a consistent and cohesive view of what is happening with your workforce.
2. Focus on employee-generated content (everyone is an internal communicator)
Next on our list of internal communication trends? It’s EGC — or employee generated content.
Traditionally, creating internal communications content has fallen to marketing and communications teams. And while there's certainly still a place for that, internal communications professionals are increasingly taking on the role of curator. They’re enlisting the help of employees in the content creation process.
EGC is any content created by employees. It’s a way to share real, human stories from across your organization. And it can fit into any content category — videos, pictures, stories, blogs, a comment on a news feed post.
EGC is useful for a number of reasons:
It brings employees into the company conversation
It helps you publish authentic, relatable content
It creates a sense of community, trust, and belonging
Ultimately, EGC helps to improve company culture, employee satisfaction, and retention, while reducing content production costs.
There’s an added benefit. You can use EGC on your internal communication channelsand externally too. Share employee success stories on your website and social media channels and you build your employer brand, which makes talent acquisition that bit easier.
So how do you make EGC part of your internal comms ecosystem?
Recognition and incentives for contributors encourage more employees to take on the role of content creator. A short EGC playbook tells employees what to include and what to avoid in their content. You can also use internal communication tools with permissions and content moderation features so you can always be sure that EGC aligns with company values.
3. Choosing mobile-first communication
A surefire way to improve comms engagement in 2025? Mobile-first communication tools.
Just 52% of internal communicators are confident they have the right tools for reaching all employees, regardless of their location or work type.
They’re struggling to provide an equitable comms experience for a dispersed workforce, with the hybrid and frontline experience lagging behind that of desk-based staff.
Another revealing stat. Only 45% of comms pros say their comms tools provide a good user experience for employees.
They’re competing with the engaging, customer-grade experiences employees enjoy on popular messaging apps away from work. Clunky, desktop-only communication tech pales in comparison.
There’s another challenge looming. The number of digital natives within your workforce is growing. By 2030, Gen Z is predicted to make up 30% of the US workforce.
This is a generation that leans toward mobile-first, real-time messaging tools. In fact, Gen Z workers actively dislike emails, with 40% of them saying that email restricts their ability to show their personalities at work.
To provide an internal comms experience that aligns with the needs and expectations of an increasingly dispersed and tech-savvy workforce, many comms teams are enlisting the help of mobile-first employee communication and experience tools, in the form of an employee app.
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An app makes internal comms available to every employee smartphone. It makes it easier for your teams to connect, collaborate, access workplace resources, and stay up-to-date with the latest company news, no matter where they work. And it supports a more engaging comms experience.
4. More visual, conversational, and authentic content
What do TikTok and internal communications have in common? Much more than they did a couple of years ago.
The “TikTokification” of internal comms is in full swing, with communicators taking inspiration from social media’s engaging, multimedia, mobile-first content.
We’re talking short-form videos, an interactive news feed, co-worker communities, and snackable, personalized messages. Employees have the opportunity to respond to content too, sharing, reacting, and commenting in a way that keeps the conversation flowing.
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There’s research to support this shift — and to prove that a social-media-style approach doesn’t just suit the younger members of your workforce. For example, we know that 83% of people, a huge majority, prefer watching videos over reading or listening to instructional content.
Interactive, multimedia messages are more engaging. Which means workers are more likely to tune into your employee communication channels and act upon your content. This approach can also revolutionize frontline comms, helping you reach workers who don’t always have the time to read a long email or policy document.
Just last year, “wellbeing and mental health” was the 9th most communicated-about topic on internal communication channels. This year, it’s risen to 5th.
This, unfortunately, is a fair reflection of how the workforce is feeling. 53% of workers in the UK say that the demands of their jobs cause them excessive stress. In the US, 76% of workers report at least one symptom of a mental health condition — burnout, depression, or anxiety.
Despite this epidemic, just 55% of workers say that their organization genuinely prioritizes wellbeing. This is despite 81% saying that they look for mental health support when choosing where to work.
The takeaway? We need to do better.
Caring, empathetic communication helps keep your employees healthy, happy, and motivated. And you get the best results when your words reflect concrete action on employee mental health across your organization.
At Hilton Hotels, an employer renowned for its mental health and wellbeing support, they’ve made it easier, cheaper, and faster for employees to access their employee assistance program (EAP) and rolled out an education curriculum on topics like resilience, stress management, and grief.
At Safeguard Global, they discovered that workers were stressed and struggling with high winter heating bills. So the company stepped in and helped out with a monthly stipend, relieving their workforce of a major worry.
Clear communication about the mental health and wellbeing support you have on offer is vital. And internal comms can help in other ways, too. Because a positive workplace culture (which comms can help build) has a positive impact on employee wellbeing.
When your company culture incorporates appreciation, a sense of purpose, and opportunities for growth, the odds of employees experiencing mental health challenges decrease by up to 87%.
Ensure that everyone — including hard-to-reach hybrid, WFH, and frontline employees — experiences the same access to company culture and wellbeing support, and you experience these benefits across the board.
Put these internal communication trends into practice for a happier, healthier workforce
In 2025, we’ve moved way beyond the desktop-based intranets and top-down, text-based comms of old.
Today, employees want a voice. They want authentic, mobile-first, social-media-style communications that they can engage with on the go. And they want employers to tackle the topics that matter most, with mental health and wellbeing top of the agenda.
Organizations that embrace these internal comms trends stand to improve company culture and the employee experience. They can count on better engagement with company messages and better staff retention.
The C-suite has an important part to play. Internal communicators who have collaborative relationships with leaders are more likely to meet or exceed their success indicators.
Work together with your comms team and you can implement the communication tools, strategies, and cultural change you need to take your communications to the next level.
In the current landscape, remote workforce management is a vital skill for your business.
With more businesses moving towards remote and hybrid working – and remote work options becoming a strong pull for employee retention – there’s never been a better time to review how you manage remote employees.
Below, we run through exactly what you need to know to set up and manage a remote workforce effectively.
Remote workforce management
A remote workforce is any workforce that can complete its main duties away from a central place of work. Remote workforce management is the practice of leading and managing a remote workforce using a mixture of communication, processes and technology.
What’s the difference between mobile workforce and remote workforce?
Remote workers generally work in their own space, usually (though not exclusively) in some sort of home office. They are not obliged to stay here – they can work wherever they need to. This opens up a whole range of flexibility benefits – they can work on the train, whilst waiting to pick their kids up from school or in that cute cafe down the road which does the best flat whites.
A mobile workforce needs to move from location to location to complete its work. They might do this on a day-to-day basis, or be positioned in one location for weeks or months at a time. A few examples of mobile workforces include:
Drivers for bus, taxi, train or haulage fleets
Community healthcare teams
Consultants who work client side on long-term projects
On-the-move sales teams with numerous appointments each day
It’s easy to see why remote work is so appealing to employees – it’s flexible and great for work-life balance, whilst opening up a huge range of roles that would otherwise have been off-limits.
Because of remote work, the vacancies available to employees have increased significantly. An employee based in Atlanta doesn’t have to limit themselves to Atlanta-based roles – they could apply for roles previously based in New York, LA or even abroad.
What does that mean for you, as an employer?
Ultimately, you’re going to have to work harder to keep hold of your talent. March 2022 saw a record 4.5 million US workers quit their jobs, with common reasons for doing so including low pay, no career advancement opportunities and feeling disrespected at work.
This means that employee experience will play even more of a key role in employee retention than it does now, and is likely to become a key strategic focus for businesses in the coming years.
The benefits of a remote workforce
If there’s one thing the pandemic has proven, it’s that remote work can be a fantastic tool for both employee engagement and workforce productivity. Far from experiencing the chaos expected at the start of the pandemic, many businesses were immediately impressed by their employees’ ability to adapt to the ‘new normal’ and the productivity that accompanied that.
With a remote working policy, you can:
Access a wider pool of talent with no geographical limits – invaluable for hiring as open vacancies continue to hover around an all-time high.
Access a wider pool of talent that is often excluded from onsite jobs, for example, people with disabilitiesdisabled people, young parents and those without transport.
Improve employee work-life balance by removing commuting times and allowing your workforce control over when and where they work.
When managed well, remote work is a super effective way of expanding your talent pool whilst increasing employee productivity and retention. Equally, there are a few risks that you’ll need to be aware of – factor these into your remote employee management policy to minimize them.
Distractions and lack of direct supervision
Books, food, TV, hobbies…whatever your distraction of choice, your home has it, within seconds of your workstation. As a manager, it can be an uneasy feeling to have no direct oversight of your employees in this type of environment.
Isolation and fewer career advancement opportunities
In the Buffer State of Remote Work Report, 24% of respondents reported loneliness as a key difficulty of remote work – only ‘difficulty unplugging’ and ‘no reported struggles’ scored higher. Isolation can drain productivity and morale, so it’s important to invest in an inclusive digital workspace to combat this.
Communication and technology issues
Not being in the same physical space as your team can cause communication hiccups – make sure you have the right sort of software on hand to overcome this.
Security
If your employees aren’t in the office full time, it’s more difficult to make sure they’re completing their IT security training and using their work devices responsibly.
Bring your own device (or ‘BYOD’) workplaces are on a particularly slippery slope here. 83% of companies have some sort of BYOD policy for at least some of their employees, but only 32% require employees to register their devices with IT for software installation. If you are going down the BYOD route, make sure you have the right security procedures in place.
How do I create a remote workforce?
The answer that many businesses could give here is “get caught by an unprecedented global pandemic, send all of your employees home at once and figure things out from there.”
Now that the initial shockwave of COVID-19 has died down, however, you have the luxury of a controlled and managed shift to remote work. When you’re rolling out remote working, it’s important to give everyone time and space to adapt to new processes. This could include upgrading and monitoring your IT infrastructure to cope with remote working, buying in the right hardware or simply creating a suitable home workspace.
1. Give plenty of notice
If your employees plan their lives around being in the office during certain times each day, giving them space to adapt helps ease your workforce into the change. Aim for a month’s notice, ideally more if this decision has been a long time coming.
2. Roll out department by department, if needed
Going remote requires investment – and you may need to take a short term dip in productivity on the chin as everyone gets used to new arrangements. Rolling remote working out department by department might make this easier to manage, both cash flow-wise and for keeping key functions running as normal.
3. Plan for investment in software and office equipment
It’s a given that you’ll need to up your investment in cloud communication tools and product management tools. Equally, be prepared to spend on other amenities you offer your employees at the office – extra monitors, ergonomic chairs, laptop stands and more might all be useful.
4. Find the right people to oversee the process
A stakeholder panel is a great way to make sure all relevant voices are heard when planning your shift to remote work. Include managers, employees from teams who are going remote and representatives from any functions who might be impacted by this.
5. Allow for growth and adjustment
Is everything going to go swimmingly the instant you move out of the office? Probably not – expect slowdowns as everyone adjusts to their new normal. Keep monitoring progress and learning from your mistakes, and things will quickly start to pay off after this adjustment period.
How can I monitor employees working remotely?
Employees like remote work for the autonomy and responsibility it gives them – this is what contributes to the sky-high engagement and productivity rates at remote companies.
You should not be looking to monitor your remote employees 24/7. They won’t respond well to being micromanaged, and you’ll undo all the benefits remote work offers. Instead of monitoring, shift the focus onto building channels for effective two-way communication.
Start by:
Setting clear deadlines and expectations – are your employees expected to keep core hours, for example, or are you taking a more flexible approach?
Set up daily check ins – a quick ten-minute chat about the work day is reassuring for both manager and employee.
Regular feedback sessions ensure remote employees don’t feel ignored and can develop their skills at the same rate as an on-site employee would.
Use remote collaboration tools to keep in contact throughout the day. Instant messengers, employee apps and project management solutions all help here.
If you need visibility into how employees spend their day, consider an employee monitoring tool to track time usage.
Remote workforce management software
The secret to a great remote workforce management strategy? Finding the right software for the job.
There’s no ‘one size fits all’ here – it’s all about weighing up what you need to meet your unique requirements as a business. You might need the basics only, or you might need remote versions of several different systems to replace the office working environment.
How can technology help remote workforce challenges?
Whilst remote work has been a mainstream working practice since the pandemic began, nearly a quarter of employees reported not having the right equipment (hardware or software) to do the job as recently as spring 2021.
Remote work hinges on having the right tech. Remote employees need software to communicate with their colleagues, share ideas, keep track of deadlines, perform data analysis and more.
You’re likely to have some of this software available in an office setting anyway – so it’s the communication tools that really make the difference. Having intuitive and accessible employee apps, instant messengers and video conferencing tools on hand ensures communication channels stay open, productivity remains high and employees don’t feel isolated.
Remote workforce management technology: the must-haves and the nice-to-haves
The must-have software below would be pretty tricky to go without If you’re starting an online business from scratch!
An employee experience app app: mobile internal comms tools like Blink allow employees to share and access important info instantly, from their smartphone. Social feeds and two-way publishing allow employees to expand their internal network, whilst push notifications ensure that important messages aren’t missed.
Video conferencing: why opt for crackly, awkward and generally unreliable phone conferencing solutions when you can use cloud-based video platforms like Zoom and Teams to meet and discuss ideas face to face?
Workplace instant messenger: faster and friendlier than email, workplace messengers like Slack can be used to make remote communication easier (or just for idle workplace chatter that builds workplace morale – pet pic channel, anyone?)
Project management tools: distributed teams need an effective way of keeping on top of tasks and deadlines. Project management tools like Trello, Basecamp and Monday.com use intuitive visual layouts to display and manage these processes.
Depending on your needs, you could also consider:
Employee productivity tools: time trackers, note-taking apps and site blockers can all contribute to your employees’ productivity levels.
Online whiteboard tools: whiteboard and ideation tools like Miro allow your workforce to take remote collaboration beyond a shared Google Doc or Slack channel.
Employee monitoring software: if you’re concerned about productivity, one way to ensure your employees are keeping their minds on the job is by using employee monitoring software to track time usage.
Final thoughts on remote workforce management
As a manager, the transition to remote work can be tough. How can you provide the right levels of support and oversight when your employees are scattered across the country – or maybe even beyond?
With the right technology and the right approach, however, it’s more than manageable.
It goes beyond ‘manageable’ to ‘super beneficial’ in many cases – remote work removes the stress and time pressures of office-based working so that your employees can thrive. If you manage this with the right processes and the right tech, you’ve got a recipe for success!
Balancing employees’ happiness with their alignment to your company’s direction is not easy. And the most noteworthy example of this is Apple in its early days.
The company had positioned itself as an unconventional, new-age brand where creatives and rule-breakers flocked to work. So, as the company grew larger, cultivating the required discipline became a challenge. The more control senior management tried to exert, the more frustration it caused them and the employees.
What happened at Apple shows that a brilliant business model alone isn’t enough to push a business forward. In fact, none of it matters if your workers aren’t happy. Because if they aren’t, they won’t be engaged at work or receptive to new initiatives.
The good news? You can prevent this from happening at your organization. Not to mention boost productivity and build a strong employer brand. This article will show you why ensuring employee happiness and well-being is a must and ways to implement them at work.
Why is employee happiness important?
Research by Oxford University has found that happy workers are 13% more productive than unhappy ones. And that’s not the only perk of employee happiness and well-being. Let’s see the rest.
Happy employees equate to happy customers: Happy workers transmit their positive emotions to customers and prospects they encounter every day. And this helps nurture leads and makes them more likely to buy from you, or work with your business.
Happy employees collaborate better: Happy workers get along well with one another, boosting teamwork and effective communication. So projects run smoothly and meet deadlines.
Happy workers are healthier: Happy employees are more likely to remain physically and mentally fit. When you invest in employee well-being, you minimize workers’ sick days and loss of work output.
Happy employees are more loyal: When workers are happy in their jobs, they are less likely to quit or switch jobs. This helps you reduce the turnover rate and save money on new talent acquisition.
Top ways to ensure employee happiness
Use the following list to check whether you’re doing all you can to boost employee happiness and well-being at work. If you are, you’re on the right track. If not, it’s not too late to get started.
Value and respect your workers
In a survey of 129 large and midsize US businesses, 87% of leaders said that they are focusing on building a culture of dignity in the next three years.
Downtrodden workers can never consider themselves happy. If your company culture can’t assure dignity at work, then there is no hope for employee well-being.
That’s why respecting your workforce is not just a strategy for employee happiness, but a core principle that can set a solid foundation for all the other steps we have outlined below.
A happiness-driven company culture ensures that everyone is treated with dignity, and that respect is not being given selectively based on seniority, experience, color, gender, or any other factors.
So make sure to shape your work policies, communication, and every aspect of work in a way that each worker matters. Recognize employees for what they bring to the table and the contributions they make for your business.
Even simple gestures like high-fiving quick wins and taking their concerns seriously go a long way in making workers feel valued.
Encourage and act on employees’ feedback
Employees who feel heard at work are approximately five times more likely to perform their best work, according to research by Salesforce.
No workplace is perfect, and no employees expect it to be. But they do expect at the least that their problems and suggestions will be heard and acted on.
Yet in many workplaces, workers feel dissatisfied because their concerns are often brushed under the carpet. The result is diminished employee happiness and morale.
If you want to ensure employee well-being in the workplace, go out of your way to let your employees freely express how they feel and contribute new ideas.
Take group meetings, for example. Usually, the extroverts do most of the talking and introverts remain quiet. So it’s important to have weekly one-on-ones too to make sure everyone has a chance to be heard.
Develop your employees
A LinkedIn report states that 94% of employees would stay longer at a company if it invests in their professional growth. Knowing that you care about their development, workers will feel happy and more motivated.
Make sure to support them with adequate training and provide deserving workers with a clear roadmap and opportunity for promotion. Show them that their efforts are valued and will lead to their future growth. Plus, you can sign them up for seminars and conferences relevant to their work and ambitions.
Share positive feedback and constructive criticism
Data from 150+ countries and 1000+ organizations has found that 96% of employees appreciate receiving feedback regularly.
So you can imagine how important it is for workers to know how they are doing, what they are doing right, and if there’s something they can do better.
When you’re candid with your employees about their work, you demonstrate that you have faith in their skills and you care about employee well-being.
For example, if a worker has shared some great ideas in a group meeting, don’t wait to let him know how much you value the contribution. Even a small acknowledgment like below can have a great impact.
"Thank you for your suggestions, Jack! You came to the meeting prepared with well-researched ideas, and you're really helping us move forward with the project. Keep up the good work."
And don’t forget to set up weekly or biweekly meetings with your staff to go over their work. You can use this opportunity to give specific feedback that helps them excel in their roles.
Pay and treat workers fairly
Your employees may be enjoying what they do. But they should also get fair compensation for their work.
So don’t let any contribution slip through the cracks. Recognize and pay workers for every big and small investment they make at work. For example:
If they work overtime, pay for it.
If an initiative helped grow the company, give out bonuses to people involved.
Don’t underpay female employees for jobs similar to male employees.
Plus, there should be a transparent system that makes it easy to understand and reduce the pay gap among different employees.
You can even hire an external agency to avoid any bias or favoritism. This company will audit your performance review process and offer recommendations based on objective measures such as the current market value for job roles.
Reward workers’ accomplishments
We already touched a bit on rewarding your employees. But it warrants more attention. Having a reward and recognition program at work is crucial to employee happiness.
And rightly so. Your workers spend considerable time and effort in fulfilling your business mission. But if they feel their work isn’t acknowledged, they are more likely to be dissatisfied. So if you are serious about employee well-being, leave no stone unturned to show them what they do matters.
Apart from putting a formal reward system in place, there are plenty of small, informal things you can do to reward good work. These include a free meal, a company-wide update on what the employee is being recognized for, an extra day off, and even just a heartfelt thank you. Having these as little tactics as part of your overall employee engagement strategy will have a big impact.
Ensure proper communication
78% of US workers say that improving employee communication should be a high priority for their employer.
Workers are less likely to be happy if their responsibilities are not clearly communicated to them. And this is just one small example. Not communicating effectively with your staff can lead to a whole host of challenges, like frequent misunderstandings, workplace conflicts, and poor peer-to-peer relationships.
But just any type of communication isn’t enough. You can’t bombard employees with a ton of emails or unnecessary meetings in hopes of keeping them happy. You need to have the right channels, tools, and training.
And one of the best ways to tackle all these three areas is to use a single, unobtrusive communication platform like Blink. It follows a mobile-first approach. So it can reach workers wherever they are.
Not just that. It also requires minimum training. The social-media style interface ensures that workers know how to use it from the get-go.
Implementing such a solution can help you establish communication norms without isolating both desk-based and front-line workers.
Conclusion: ways to improve employee happiness and well being
Overall, workplace happiness is a significant factor in employee engagement.
But at the end of the day, there is no shortcut or magic recipe to make your employees happy. It’s about the cumulative impact of the small steps you take and the culture you build.
Use the strategies and employee engagement best practices outlined above to encourage a happiness-oriented company culture. Plus, look for your own creative ways to delight your workers and make them feel valued. In the long run, you’ll see that the payoff for such efforts really makes them worthwhile.
Also, the right employee engagement app can make a big difference in the success of your initiatives to boost employee happiness. So book a free Blink demo today.
Employee engagement is a critical focus for People teams— or any other business leader. Learn what it is, why it’s important, and how to improve it in our complete guide.
Employee engagement is the difference between soaring productivity rates and a sense of stagnation. It’s fifty people applying for a single vacancy, rather than fifty vacancies and one applicant.
Yet for all its importance, companies frequently misunderstand what employee engagement is and what it looks like. That's why we’re here to help.
Whether you're looking to better understand the definition and importance of employee engagement, drive employee engagement in your organization, or simply understand examples of employee engagement, this complete guide to employee engagement has something for you.
What is employee engagement? A simple definition
Employee engagement is the ongoing process of ensuring your workforce feels satisfied with their job, aligned with your organization’s values, and supported enough to give 100% during work hours.
Research by SHRM defines the term employee engagement as relating to the level of an employee's commitment and connection to an organization, while Investopedia defines employee engagement as describing the level of enthusiasm and dedication a worker feels toward their job.
At Blink, we believe true employee engagement is a combination of two equally important parts:
Attitude - the commitment a worker feels toward the company
Behavior - the effort that an employee is willing to invest in their job
Whichever way you look at it, maintaining employee engagement is a key factor in determining how successful an organization will be. It also provides key insights into employee satisfaction and sentiment, which can help identify areas that may need improvement.
To better illustrate what employee engagement looks like, here are some of the key attitudes and behaviors of engaged vs disengaged employees:
What is employee engagement for employers?
HR is all about people. So it makes sense that, if that is your role, you want the best for your co-workers.
Still, there’s more to it than that.
Employee engagement is important because it affects the performance of your company. Think back to a job you’ve not enjoyed in the past — did you give as much to that role as you did to the ones you loved?
Now extrapolate this out across an entire company of unhappy, unmotivated workers. In toxic environments, productivity nosedives. Depending on the type of organization you work for, this could mean a lower output rate, poor customer service, an increase in safety incidents, reduced patient satisfaction, missed deadlines, or any other number of issues.
What is employee engagement for employees?
For employees themselves, engagement isn't so much a daily activity they schedule time for. It's a natural byproduct of a strong employee experience.
Engagement is directly correlated to a positive work environment; when people feel respected, appreciated, and valued for their work, they are more likely to be an engaged employee. It's about being part of something bigger than just your job title — it’s that sense of satisfaction and fulfillment when you know you are making a difference.
Different groups of employees have different engagement expectations — and when those expectations match the day-to-day experiences of their roles, employees are more likely to be engaged.
Whether it’s your dispersed, frontline teams or your first-line managers, it’s worth getting to know what your employees expect from their engagement experience.
Why is employee engagement important?
Employee engagement efforts don’t need to be expensive, but they do need to be intentional. Issues created by poor employee engagement practices can cost your company thousands.
These include:
Reduced productivity: people don’t work well when they’re unhappy. If teams are consistently falling short of productivity targets you know to be reasonable, there’s a good chance they’re unhappy at work
Absenteeism: unhappy employees stay at home and use more sick days and mental health days than those employees who enjoy their jobs and work environments
Presenteeism: Between May 2021 and November 2022 alone presenteeism rose by 18%. As the cost of presenteeism has historically been found to significantly outweigh the cost of absenteeism, this is one common challenge for engagement leaders to tackle.
High employee turnover: if someone is disengaged, it makes them more likely to leave. Replacing employees is super expensive (think six to nine months’ salary, plus up to 213% of the total annual salary depending on the seniority of the position). Along with being a cost drain, the extra workload will put pressure on your other, potentially unhappy, employees while you find a replacement
Employer brand damage: a stream of employees leaving your organization won’t do your reputation any good. Not only will you end up with a large list of vacancies, but you’ll also struggle to find people to fill them. With more job seekers than ever using online review sites, such as Glassdoor, to screen companies before they apply, a poor reputation for employee engagement has never been so damaging
This creates a cycle that your organization doesn’t want to slip into. Breaking it, or making sure that your company doesn’t start to slip down it, is an essential task that requires time and dedication to tracking — and improving key metrics.
3 core benefits of employee engagement
Gallup provides interesting insights on the benefits of employee engagement. Organizations with highly engaged employees experience:
As you can see in the employee engagement statistics above, there is a vast array of benefits to be gained from increased employee engagement. In the below sections, we’ve found some of the most compelling evidence for three core benefits of employee engagement:
Improved discretionary effort offered by engaged individuals is one huge benefit of employee engagement initiatives.
Those with high engagement levels often perform above expectations and develop meaningful relationships with their peers, contributing to improved outcomes for everyone involved. These efforts are what is known as ‘Discretionary Effort’.
The discretionary effort your employees put in directly impacts the success of your business outcomes, whether it’s your overall employee output rates, your patient safety outcomes and satisfaction levels, or a direct increase to your bottom line.
Improved job satisfaction
Employee engagement has the dual benefit of improving both organizational success and job satisfaction on a personal level.
This is because engagement initiatives themselves provide employees with more development opportunities, better recognition for good work, and better prospects for career growth. When employees reap these benefits offered to them by engagement strategies, they feel like they make a real impact on the success of an organization, and that what they are doing is meaningful.
Don’t underestimate the historic power of meaningful work on your employee satisfaction levels — nine out of ten employees would take a lower salary for more meaningful work.
Increased employee retention
Employees are more likely to stay with the organization when they are more satisfied and engaged.
Research by the IJECM (International Journal of Economics, Commerce & Management) found that job satisfaction is a reliable and relevant predictor of employee retention. Highly engaged employees develop a greater sense of attachment to the organization and become more loyal, resulting in up to a 43% difference in employee turnover according to further employee engagement research.
How to improve employee engagement
There are a number of ways to improve employee engagement, but, at Blink, we like to think of engagement efforts as being split into three key categories:
Delivering on the 10 key drivers of employee engagement
Identifying the employee engagement strategies and tactics that work for your employees
Ensuring the best employee engagement tools and software
Key drivers of employee engagement
In order to improve employee engagement, you must understand what drives it, and focus your efforts there. What coreexperiences and tools do you need to provide to your workforce in order to boost the overall employee experience and drive engagement?
By focusing engagement efforts on enabling these core engagement drivers, you will be much more likely to see significant engagement improvements.
Employee engagement strategies and tactics
An employee engagement strategy is the plan of action you take to bring about an increase in employee engagement levels. On the other hand, tactics are the individual steps and actions that will get you there. In the context of an employee engagement strategy, this means the tactics are the specific engagement actions your teams take to implement the initiatives outlined in the strategy.
Employee engagement strategies combine a number of tactics, such as the use of team-building exercises, offering career growth opportunities, providing more effective recognition for good work and positive behavior changes, or improving your internal communication processes.
In order to effectively craft an engagement strategy, it’s important to have a clear vision of what you want to accomplish, and how you plan to get there.
By having a clearly defined strategy, it is much easier to measure the success or failure of any engagement tactic you try. When you identify which tactics work and which don’t, you can adjust your future strategy accordingly.
Employee engagement tools
Employee engagement tools are products and tech solutions that enable companies to measure, manage, and improve employee engagement levels.
Employee engagement software comes in many forms, from survey software used to collect employee feedback and communication platforms providing a channel for discussion between teams.Engagement analysis tools can also provide insight into how your engagement efforts are faring.
However, if your staff are juggling a number of platforms and tools for different parts of their work, it will be inconvenient and you're not likely to see great engagement results. That's why an all-through-one engagement super-app is the best choice for any business wanting to consolidate engagement efforts.
A super-app brings together all of your employee communications, engagement surveys, recognition programs, and employee rewards into one, central platform.
This will not only make your life easier but will also ensure a more consistent experience for employees while enabling you to get an aggregated view of their engagement levels with just a few clicks.
Examples of employee engagement in action
How Go North West achieved 96% monthly active engagement app users
The challenge
Like many frontline organizations facing a digital inclusion gap, Go North West faced challenges when it came to digitizing processes and communications in their organization. Historically, their internal comms were split across various channels, such as emails, mail to drivers' home addresses, depot noticeboards, and unregulated social media platforms.
With so many paper-based operational processes, Go North West faced high levels of non-adherence and inefficiency. On top of this, they were also facing an industry-wise staff shortage in the wake of the Great Resignation and COVID-19, which made growth for the company more difficult to achieve.
The solution
The first solution to the engagement challenges faced by Go North West lay in using Blink’s Hub — the super-app’s central portal for accessing processes, documents, and tools. Go North West could now use this to share duties,schedule, and running boards for easy access and updating.
After this, the company had to ensure critical information such as route diversions could reach all members of staff quickly and efficiently. This was where the team used the Blink Feed — a company-wide, mobile-first communications channel, supplemented with the use of Chats to fulfill shift swaps and fills and ensure smooth service delivery.
The team at Go North West also needed to streamline how they provided drivers and other members of staff access to critical processes and resources. This was where Blink’s Digital Formsand Custom Apps stepped in to revolutionize how the organization worked.
By moving to digital processes from outdated paper-based processes, drivers were able to:
Request annual leave with a few taps from the app, made easier with functionality such as auto-population and validation
Access their schedules through one-click access to DAS-Web
Submit near-miss reports via a custom app on Blink, allowing them to log incidents quickly and easily, increasing the number of submissions to drive process improvement
The outcome
The outcome of this engagement tech overhaul was a resounding success. Engagement levels, retention, and digitization efforts were all improved.
What did this look like in terms of engagement? Well, alongside achieving 96% monthly active app users, Go North West also saw:
30,000 opens of DAS-Web per month
6,000 Chat messages per month
98,000 opens of Hub content
17 daily app opens per user
186 monthly app opens per user
What a result! Widespread success across the operation, with Go North West achieving its goal of higher engagement.
The use of Blink’s engagement super-app has enabled the team to move into a digital-first future and deliver an efficient service that allows them to better serve their employees — and customers. A win-win for everyone.
It’s not just something you need to focus on when employee morale is down and stop as soon as it reaches manageable levels… it should be a central part of the HR or People team’s day-to-day activities.
So, before implementing any of the below, ask yourself:
How much time should we dedicate to this a week?
Who should be in charge of this area?
Who can manage the on-the-ground responsibilities associated with this?
Are there any tools (e.g. a new employee super-app) that could help us manage this workload?
In terms of exactly what to measure and how to measure it, there are two key areas you need to focus on:
The data that already exists in your company
Data that you actively go out and collect.
Measuring employee engagement using existing data
This is data that your HR team won’t have to set up any new processes for; it (should) already be monitored by various departments. The key here is collating it, as there’s a good chance that inter-departmental silos mean that you won’t necessarily be able to access it right away, let alone see the big picture.
We’re talking about:
Absence rates
Employee turnover
Number of complaints to line managers
Number of complaints to HR
eNPS scores
Customer reviews
Customer retention
Sales
Turnover
Social media engagement
There could be a myriad of reasons why customer satisfaction has dipped, so take a look at it alongside some of the other metrics listed, over an extended period of time.
For example, do eNPS scores dip when employee turnover is highest? Do customers write poorer reviews when absence rates are particularly high? Start to compare ‘result’ metrics (like sales, turnover, customer satisfaction, and customer retention) with employee wellness to see whether you notice any patterns.
From there, measure, measure, measure! Set up dashboards with all your chosen metrics so that you can track and compare them at a glance. You can then monitor employee engagement via its direct consequences — absence rates going down and productivity going up is a sure sign that your efforts are working.
To assess your current data, an engagement analytics tool can help. It will look at the data you already have (like those mentioned above) to identify how engaged your people really are and provide real-time insights into what might need improvement.
All of the above help to paint a picture of where you are with employee engagement, but they aren’t the only weapon in your arsenal. So, once you’ve got those dashboards up and running, move onto…
Measuring employee engagement by collecting new data
What’s the best, most efficient way of understanding your employee engagement levels?
Just ask them.
Regular, anonymous employee engagement surveys are the most efficient way of doing this. You might see these referred to as “pulse” surveys, and they are so much better for measuring engagement than the traditional annual long-answer survey for the following reasons:
Response rates tend to be higher. It’s much easier to encourage employees to complete three quick “rate on a scale” questions with an optional “any further comments” box than three pages of long-answer questions that they don’t have time to do.
You can keep them focused on one single issue each time. This gives your HR team a much better chance of addressing feedback successfully and sharing what they’ve done to address their co-workers’ concerns.
They encourage constructive feedback. The issue with running an annual survey is that employees see it as their single opportunity to get everything off their chests.
It’s difficult to respond to 12 months of input from an entire company in any meaningful way, particularly if the topics covered range from disagreement with the company’s strategic direction or low staff retention to dissatisfaction with the options offered in the cafeteria.
How to use your employee engagement data
Whether you’ve noticed that your absence rates are soaring way above your industry average or carried out a highly targeted pulse survey, you need to take action from this data. Understanding exactly how to use your employee engagement data is therefore crucial.
Align key stakeholders with a plan of action
First, sit down with all relevant stakeholders and agree on a workable course of action. Involving stakeholders here keeps things grounded — it’s tempting to offer your workforce the moon on a stick when they’re unhappy, but this isn’t realistic. Avoid promising things you can’t deliver on — broken promises won’t be taken well by your employees, no matter how ambitious they are.
If, for example, your employees have stated they want better quality break rooms or equipment, it’s wise to take the time to align with the leadership suite on whether they have the resources to help with this before you promise a tech overhaul or new break room to your workforce.
Track improvements in data with KPIs
Second, it’s super important to track these improvements against realistic employee engagement KPIs. Change in organizations is gradual, so make sure your targets reflect this and avoid the temptation to try and go from 0 to 100 in three months.
If none of your employees are having regular one-to-one contact with their line managers, an example target structure could look like this:
3 months in: 20% of all employees having regular catch-ups
6 months in: 40% of employees
9 months in: 60% of employees
12 months in: 80% of employees
You could also consider how you roll this out. It’s much easier to coordinate regular catch-ups for office-based positions, so you could focus on getting a full 100% in the first three months for office-based teams as a quick win. Whilst you do this, you can sort out the infrastructure for deskless and dispersed teams to be able to do this further down the line.
Consider new tech
Finally, think about any tools that might help you meet these targets and/or address employees’ concerns.
There’s now plenty of workplace tech to help with a range of issues, like employee apps to help communication, productivity software to help meet targets, and advanced CRM features that make meeting customer needs much easier for frontline employees.
Check with your leadership team to see what sort of support they could offer here. They’ll be looking for a solid return on investment and plan before giving the green light, so make sure that if you’re making a direct request for new software, you build a solid business case about why you need it.
The golden rule: never assume that your workforce will notice your efforts to improve things without you communicating it.
Your workforce is busy, and meaningful change takes time — so you’re not going to make everything perfect right away. To really show your employees that you’ve taken their feedback on board, you’ll need to be explicit.
Include announcements about your planned improvements into your internal communications strategy. If you’ve conducted a pulse survey, share the results. This is a gesture of transparency that people will really appreciate—and emphasizes that you’re taking employee feedback seriously.
When announcing any improvement plans, consider:
The channel that would work best: would more people see it via email, on a noticeboard, or via a mobile-first employee app?
The frequency of your communication: how frequently should you update your employees on the progress you’re making towards these goals
You could also consider providing updates in person at company meetings, as this adds a welcome personal touch.
Remember the small things alongside big things
Big, organizational changes take time, but there are smaller things you can do for your workforce in the meantime.
Reworking the employee journey so there are more obvious routes for internal promotion takes time. Easier things like upgrading the coffee machine, setting up a couple of lunchtime clubs, or getting a pool table for the break room does not.
Implementing a couple of easy-to-manage changes (either that your workforce has specifically asked for, or just off your own back) emphasizes your commitment to improvement while you’re working towards the more structural stuff. It’s not a substitute, but it is a good reminder to your workforce about what you’re trying to do.
Blink. And your employee engagement strategy takes shape.
Blink is the all-through-one engagement super-app that your business needs to make sure employee engagement isn’t an extra task on your list, but part of a holistic approach to people management.
Our platform includes all the tools you need for effective employee engagement, from surveys and feedback loops to recognition programs and rewards. We also provide comprehensive reporting dashboards and insights to monitor progress, track performance, identify problem areas and create actionable plans.
When it comes to employee engagement, Blink is the perfect solution for businesses of all sizes.
No matter where you are in your engagement journey, we’re here to help you create the best possible experience for your employees and drive maximum success for your business.
