Employee Engagement Is Not an Activity. It's an Outcome.

Most companies invest in employee engagement.

Very few can clearly explain what they are trying to change.

After working closely with HR teams, ERG leaders, and leadership groups across industries, I have realised this: employee engagement has become one of the most discussed and least clearly defined areas in organisations.

There is no lack of effort. There is no lack of intent. But there is often a lack of clarity.

This blog is about resetting how we think about engagement so that time, money, and energy are actually well spent.

Engagement Is an Outcome, Not a Deliverable

An activity is something you do. Engagement is something that happens as a result.

This distinction is subtle, but critical.

Workshops, townhalls, team-building activities, offsites, celebrations - these are tools. They are not engagement by default. They only create engagement when they are designed with intent.

When engagement is treated as a checklist item, outcomes become accidental. When it is treated as a design problem, outcomes become repeatable.

The Wrong Numbers We've Learnt to Chase

Most engagement efforts are measured using what I call comfort metrics.

They are easy to track, easy to report, and easy to justify.

Examples:

• Attendance percentage

• Number of chat messages

• Noise levels in the room

• Smiles in photographs

These numbers tell you something happened. They do not tell you if it mattered.

High participation does not automatically mean high engagement. Sometimes, it simply means people showed up because they were expected to.

The Metrics That Actually Indicate Engagement

Engagement is behavioural. That makes it harder to measure, but far more valuable when understood correctly.

Some indicators that consistently matter on ground:

Depth of participation
Who spoke up? Who volunteered? Who took ownership within the activity?

Cross-team interaction
Did people engage outside their immediate teams or silos, even briefly?

Energy curve
Was there a visible shift in energy from the beginning to the end?

Recall over time
Are people still referring to moments from the engagement two to four weeks later?

Voluntary continuation
Did conversations continue after the event without prompting?

None of these metrics are flashy. All of them are meaningful.

Measuring ROI Without Forcing It Into a Spreadsheet

Not everything that matters can be quantified neatly. But everything should be intentional.

The return on employee engagement often shows up as:

• Stronger peer connections

• Increased psychological safety

• Higher participation in future initiatives

• Better leadership visibility and approachability

If an engagement initiative cannot clearly answer why it exists, ROI will always feel ambiguous.

When the intent is clear, outcomes become easier to observe – even if they are not immediately numeric.

How Much Should Organisations Invest in Engagement?

This is the wrong question.

The better question is: Are we investing with intent or out of obligation?

Under-investing often leads to filler activities that neither inspire nor connect. Overdoing frequency without thought leads to fatigue.

In my experience, fewer, well-designed engagements outperform frequent, low-intent ones.

Budget does not decide impact. Design does.

A Reset for HR and ERG Leaders

Employee engagement is not about doing more. It is about doing things that matter.

When engagement is approached as an experience to be designed - not an activity to be executed - outcomes change. People feel seen. Conversations shift. Teams connect beyond roles.

Engagement is not a motivation problem. It is a design problem.

And design, when done right, compounds.