3 Things You Must Do to Solve the Silent Crisis of Disengagement

We’re currently in the midst of a global employee engagement crisis, and yet, there doesn’t seem too be much noise about it. When employees choose to either quit or suffer in silence, it falls to HR and management to bridge the gap. Of course, there’s still the question of how to solve employee disengagement once and for all.

As was discussed in our recent SHRM webinar, only around a third of employees are engaged at work. This is based on data from Gallup, which put US engagement at 31% in 2024, its lowest point in a decade.

Make no mistake, however. This is not just a US problem. If anything, Gallup’s global findings are even starker, putting worldwide employee engagement at just 23%. So, you might be wondering, what happens when disengagement runs rampant?

The consequences of employee disengagement

In short, productivity and workplace cohesion suffer. Your people will probably look for new jobs elsewhere, and those who stick around may only do so for the paycheck. Between the loss of vital talent and the fact that remaining employees might coast through their jobs, things like service quality and the rate of innovation will inevitably decline.

If you don’t figure out how to solve employee disengagement now, your organization won’t last. With that in mind, let’s look at where traditional engagement techniques fall short, and what you can actually do to support and motivate your people.

Why traditional engagement efforts are failing

Employee engagement isn’t a new concept. In fact, we’d love to know what rock you’ve hidden under if you’re just now hearing about it. Despite this, however, the techniques many employers use to generate engagement fail miserably.

This stems from a failure on the parts of HR and leadership to genuinely understand the employee experience. They might not understand what issues actually matter to people, or intentionally try to distract from more serious concerns using superficial solutions.

Take the whole “corporate pizza party” fad from recent years. It’s basically a meme at this point. People may be worried about their long-term job security, or unreasonable work demands. But don’t worry, have a few boxes of lukewarm pepperoni!

The same goes for things like ping-pong or foosball tables, and that whole “we’re a family” culture some companies have. The former isn’t bad in isolation but tends to be a band-aid solution for more serious threats to engagement.

Meanwhile, employees find faux-family work culture insincere and saccharine at best, and outright manipulative at worst. If you really want to solve the silent disengagement crisis, you need employee engagement strategies that go beyond shallow sentiments and perks.

This is why a lot of businesses now rely on employee engagement software. Modern tools can track engagement by using quantifiable metrics to identify workforce trends like stressors and productivity blockers.

Your people want to know their well-being and personal development matter to you. However, proving that requires you actually to engage with employee sentiment across your organization.

How to solve employee disengagement with three strategies

Now we’ve established why all of this matters, let’s actually look at how to fix employee engagement. About time, right?

It can take a lot of work to repair disengagement in your business, but it’s simpler than you might think. We’ve outlined three highly effective workplace disengagement solutions below, which are all exemplified by different elements of our Human Success Platform. Let’s get right into it.

1. Increase role clarity and alignment

Lack of role clarity and alignment can be major contributors to disengagement at work. Role clarity is an employee’s understanding of their job and its associated responsibilities, while alignment is the extent to which different projects or functions complement and support one another.

Role clarity is something you should establish during or even before onboarding new staff. Responsibilities should be transparently conveyed to all applicants and reaffirmed across the onboarding stage. To improve role clarity for existing employees, managers should set renewed expectations as part of regular performance conversations.

As for alignment, you could think of it as a metric for how easily and effectively people across your business work together. In the words of our Chief Product Officer, Andy Roberts:

“What you’re looking for is around 80% of goals or OKRs to be aligned in some way, shape or form. If they’re not, it will typically tell you that maybe your employees are not focusing on the right things.”

OKRs are one of the best tools for creating organizational alignment, and an important part of the Human Success Platform. They connect employee tasks to your overarching business objectives, clearly displaying them so everyone sees how their work fits in.

In fact, goal-setting in general can also be a good way of reaffirming role clarity, as employees have their responsibilities and performance expectations laid out for them.

2. Foster continuous learning and growth

Don’t underestimate the impact of learning on employee engagement. While some people might be content in their current role, many employees aren’t satisfied with static careers. Even putting aside the idea of promotion prospects, it’s natural for people to want to learn and grow professionally.

In terms of how to solve employee disengagement, fostering learning in the workplace shows employees that you value their development while offering new avenues of their job to explore.

Another contributing factor in disengagement can be the ways roles change over time. To quote Zensai’s Chief Business Officer, Robin Daniels:

“Learning, of course, means that somebody has the skills that they need today to be successful, but also for the future, because we know how rapidly things change.”

Without proper training to update their skills, employees can feel lost trying to navigate new tools and policies. That aside, continuous learning and development can keep your people from getting bored of their roles in the long term.

3. Improve feedback and performance conversations

Of course, it doesn’t take new tech to make employees feel lost. Improving feedback and performance conversations is an essential part of how to solve employee disengagement.

Performance management is another area where traditional techniques have long since failed modern businesses. Annual reviews without supporting feedback leave employees waiting for (and dreading) it the whole year.

By the time review season does roll around, so much time has passed that the inciting incidents for feedback are distant memories at best. And that’s assuming that an annual performance review isn’t unfairly weighted towards the weeks or months leading up to the conversation.

That’s why some of the best software for employee engagement includes or integrates systems for ongoing feedback. For example, our Human Success Platform uses regular employee check-ins for both goal-tracking and two-way feedback between managers and employees.

Feedback systems like our employee check-ins are best used frequently and consistently. We find a weekly cadence works best, as feedback is always delivered near the point of impact. 

This way, employees receive regular coaching from their manager, while also having a way to supply progress updates and voice issues from their end. These check-ins also provide real-time engagement and performance documentation, which lends valuable support to your formal performance reviews.

Check-in regularity is essential for building up an honest dialogue between employees and their line managers so that your people don’t stay silent when something threatens their engagement or well-being. As Andy Roberts puts it:

If you can break down those barriers of communication by normalizing this process of feedback, you will end up with much better conversations, and it will mean that managers are able to align with employees more frequently.

How employee engagement impacts businesses

We’ve talked a lot about how damaging employee disengagement can be for businesses. This is so that you understand what the current state of engagement has led to. That said, we thought it best to leave you on a more optimistic note.

Viewing this in terms of how to solve employee disengagement is one angle. You can also view it as boosting employee engagement to reap the benefits, which is much more positive. To illustrate that point, let’s finish up by looking at the main ways high employee engagement can affect your organization.

Innovation and performance

Where does innovation come from?

It’s an important question, especially for companies trying to stay ahead of the competition. While there’s no accounting for the spark of inspiration, the right mindset for employees to innovate is one of engagement. Tools like Engage365 use two-way feedback to give employees a voice. This allows them to share ideas which can help your company innovate and improve.

When employees are disengaged, they’ll do the bare minimum. When they’re highly engaged, they want to go the extra mile. This is called “discretionary effort,” and it’s not something you can compel people to give you.

Highly engaged employees also pay more attention, meaning they’re more likely to notice things. In other words, engaged employees are more keenly aware of areas for improvement. While this does mean they’ll technically have higher expectations of employers, they can also have practical suggestions for implementing change.

Engagement also benefits performance in ways besides innovation. Engaged employees are more likely to care about the standard of their work, while the additional level of focus they bring means you can rely on them more than disengaged colleagues to catch their own mistakes.

Profitability and growth

Organizations with high employee engagement don’t just see happier teams—they outperform their peers in measurable ways. Here’s why:

• Boosted performance & innovation – Engaged employees deliver higher-quality work, drive creativity, and contribute to a more dynamic, forward-thinking organization.
• Increased revenue potential – A workforce that feels valued and supported is naturally more productive. When combined with strategic training and development, engagement translates into tangible business growth.
• Reputation matters – Word spreads quickly. Companies with disengaged employees risk being labeled as difficult employers, which can hinder recruitment and make it easier for competitors to attract top talent.
• Thriving work cultures attract talent – Prioritizing engagement helps create a supportive, high-energy environment that not only retains employees but also draws in like-minded professionals eager to contribute to your success.

By solving employee disengagement, companies position themselves for long-term growth, innovation, and a powerful competitive edge in the market.

Keep learning about employee engagement

As you can tell by now, this article is intended to be a primer on the state of employee disengagement, as well as what HR and business leadership can start doing about it. After all, with barely a third of employees engaged at work, something eventually has to give.

It’s true that engagement rates have been fluctuating around their current levels for a while now, but that isn’t a reason to ignore it. If anything, it’s an indicator that the state of engagement has been incredibly far-gone for some time.

The issue of how to fix employee engagement isn’t one we can address overnight. Depending on the state of your work culture, it might take a lot of time and effort to rebuild engagement in your business. But that’s all the more reason to start today.