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Pietro Carmignani, EVP of partnerships at Wellhub, provides some simple tips to empower staff and keep them engaged
One of the best ways to elevate employee engagement is to provide employee benefits.
There is a right way to do it, though. Research from Vitality reveals that 52% of employees believe that their health and wellbeing benefits are just a box-ticking exercise from their employer. Over half of the employees in this study said that they would appreciate health and wellbeing benefits that are tailored to them.
But it’s occupational sick leave that staff rate as the highest priority, according to Ciphr. Inflation that matches or exceeds inflation comes in second while the ever-popular flexible working takes third place.
This article explores a few ways to make your workforce more engaged.
These sound like employee perks, but they are the law
First of all, let’s clear any legal confusion. A raft of changes are being sworn in as part of the Employment Rights Act 2025, which will put previously optional measures into law. The laws that are already in place are:
- Sick pay from the first day of illness, with the previous minimum earnings limit removed
- The right to ask for flexible working from day one of employment
- Paternity leave rights from day one of employment
- Unpaid parental leave rights from day one of employment
Employee health and wellbeing
Now, on to the detail. Companies such as Airbnb that offer holiday allowances to employees, and Netflix, that doesn’t have prescribed time off policies for salaried employees, are a new breed of organisation pioneering benefit concepts that appeal to a new generation of job candidates. Rather than focusing on conventional monetary benefits, there is a clear trend towards providing employees with a better quality of life, both inside and outside of work.
The Access Group says that Gen Z employees value training and learning opportunities as well as health and wellbeing perks such as in-person counselling.
Not only are healthcare and wellbeing benefits now proving popular with the latest generation of workers, benefits related to wellbeing are becoming a strong tool to help businesses maximise their profits, with advantages including the retention of employees, increased productivity, and fewer workplace accidents.
The World Health Organisation compiled a list of the advantages of health promotion at work, which includes:
- Promoting a caring public image
- Improving staff morale
- Reducing staff turnover
- Lowering absenteeism
- Increasing productivity.
Common wellbeing initiatives offered by companies to their workers include stress management, weight loss support, and gym membership; all of which are proven to keep your team engaged with a belief in the organisation and a willingness to ‘go the extra mile’.
Wellbeing initiatives can be implemented based on business objectives, incorporated as flexible benefits that address particular HR concerns, or can be based on employee feedback. When benefits are driven by feedback, it can encourage increased engagement in wellbeing efforts.
Employee engagement is a critical part of a company’s success – the staff are the means by which the business plan is executed, and their engagement determines the company’s outcomes.
When employees are engaged with their job, they are connected with the company’s overall vision and see their role as integral to achieving the organisation’s aims. It is a positive emotional attachment to their work.
The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) has identified three parts to employee engagement:
- Physical – When they’re engaged with their job, employees go all-out to complete their work, using high levels of energy to fulfil tasks
- Emotional – Having an emotional connection to their work means employees are strongly involved in what they are doing, and have a sense of purpose. They are inspired and challenged by their job
- Cognitive – Employees are fully immersed in their work – and less likely to ‘drift off’ on the job.
When teams are engaged on each of these levels, they are more invested in their work. But according to Gallup, we are facing a worldwide engagement crisis that could have long-lasting effects on the global economy. Gallup’s research reveals that worldwide, employee engagement has fallen to 20%. In 2025, employee engagement cost the global economy around $10 trillion in lost productivity (£7.4 trillion) – that’s 9% of GDP.
How to elevate your employees’ engagement levels
If your employees are not engaged, you could be putting yourself at a competitive disadvantage. Businesses that can improve engagement levels among staff stand to improve their profits, retain talent and gain customer loyalty. Here are some tips to help bring employees on board.
Empower staff
When your team feels empowered they will feel more engaged at work. According to the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas), good leadership should empower and motivate rather than control.
Embed company values
Another key ingredient is company values – these should be embedded throughout the organisation, and ‘lived on not just spoken’.
Promote positive relationships among colleagues
Bad blood among colleagues will most certainly result in a disengaged team. To create engagement, build a supportive environment in which employees help each other and treat each other with respect and integrity. Management can help promote this positive culture by focusing on the strengths of employees as a team, not praising individual performance.
Creating a culture of engagement
Engagement involves a cultural shift in the way organisations behave. It should be rooted into the business culture, rather than addressed annually, for instance when staff return an employee survey. Employee engagement should be at the forefront of every interaction between management and their teams.
Focus on strengths, not weaknesses
Research from Gallup shows that when management focuses on strengths rather than weaknesses, the result is greater engagement among staff. It found that employees learn their roles more quickly, produce more and significantly better work, and stay with their company longer. When managers support their employees’ growth and development by focusing on their strengths, team members are more than twice as likely to be engaged.
Shared goals
Employees are more engaged when they have a strong connection to shared goals, and an understanding of how their role fits in with the wider organisation. When staff are aligned with company objectives, they – and the company – are more likely to be successful.
Pietro Carmignani is EVP of partnerships at WellHub.
