How to create & implement an employee engagement toolkit for a thriving workplace

True employee engagement is more than a buzzword — it’s the foundation of a healthy company culture. When people feel valued, supported, and motivated, they bring their best selves to work. Picture a workplace where every team member isn’t just present — they’re truly engaged. You’ll see professionals who are eager to collaborate, committed to their own professional growth, and invested in a shared vision for success. 

However, in the era of quiet quitting, there’s an ongoing employee engagement crisis. Right now, just 32% of the US workforce reported feeling actively enthusiastic about their work — and in 2022, the ratio of engaged-to-disengaged employees reached the lowest it’s been in the past decade. (1)

Our recent Workforce Trends Report showed that many HR leaders aren’t aware of the scale of the problem. In fact, less than one in three employees reported feeling completely engaged at work. (2)

The disconnect is real. But there’s a solution — building an engagement toolkit that’s focused on your team’s real wants and needs. We put together this comprehensive guide and free, downloadable checklist to help you do just that, so let’s get started.

1. Gallup, 2023
2. Leapsome Workforce Trends Report, 2023
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What is an employee engagement toolkit?

An employee engagement toolkit is a set of tools, templates, and resources people teams and leadership use to build a culture where people love coming to work. It’s a structured approach that helps human resources professionals implement and test effective engagement strategies.

The best employee engagement toolkits are tailored to teams’ and organizations’ particular needs. They contain key elements like engagement surveys and feedback tools, learning and development materials, rewards programs, communication blueprints, team-building initiatives, and wellness resources. 
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How creating an engagement toolkit can benefit your business

An engagement toolkit isn't just a ‘nice to have.’ A well-designed set of tools is essential to grow employee engagement, improve the team member experience, and meet organizational goals. 

The benefits of taking a strategic approach to engagement include:

• Improved productivity. Empowered, motivated employees get more done. Leapsome’s Workforce Trends Report found that engaged employees are more likely to go above and beyond in their roles. 
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• Greater job satisfaction. When teams are engaged, morale is high and individual employees are generally happier and more fulfilled at work.
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• More employee loyalty. High engagement levels boost employees’ sense of commitment to the company, in turn leading to better retention rates and reduced turnover. Indeed, our report showed that engaged employees are less likely to want to change jobs.
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• Better company reputation. Engaged, empowered team members often become ambassadors outside the workplace, elevating your company’s brand.
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• Enhanced creativity. Employees who are invested in their work are more likely to think outside the box and seek unexpected solutions. Research published in the International Journal of Human Resource Management found a strong link between engagement, empowerment, and innovation.
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• Improved mental health. A well-structured toolkit can help your team manage stress, reducing burnout and absenteeism. 
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• Better performance on organizational goals. Engaged teams are generally more aligned and effective, which contributes to improved business outcomes. For example, Gallup found that companies with highly engaged workforces were 21% more profitable than other firms.
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Free checklist: 8 steps to design a comprehensive employee engagement toolkit

Our checklist guides you through a strategic, process-based approach to building and rolling out your toolkit.

By following these steps, you can identify areas for improvement, plan targeted engagement support, and turn your team into satisfied, motivated, and proactive contributors.

⚡ Ready to supercharge your team’s engagement?

Download our free checklist and learn how to design a toolkit that boosts teamwork, motivation, and satisfaction. 

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6 components of an effective employee engagement toolkit

The more varied and dynamic your employee engagement toolkit, the better. The Association for Talent Development supports this, stating that “providing an array of resources to engage employees” is the best approach. Its latest study shows that organizations with at least four engagement initiatives are significantly more likely to excel on key performance measures.

In addition, Global People Advisor and Consultant Wristy emphasizes that it’s important to include resources that target engagement across the entire employee lifecycle:

"Employee engagement has evolved into talent engagement in the workplace. It’s a continuous process and needs to be constantly optimized. Engagement strategies should happen at every stage, beginning with hiring — creating an engaging and inclusive job description and a great candidate experience — and continuing throughout the entire employee journey via learning, performance reviews, recognition and rewards, and more."

With that in mind, let’s look at six essential elements a well-rounded engagement package should include.
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1. Surveys & feedback tools

Understanding what’s working and what’s not is the cornerstone of any effective engagement plan. Regular feedback helps you understand blockers to employee engagement and allows you to track the results of your initiatives to improve it. You’ll want to mainly focus on your current team members. However, you should also send exit surveys to complement interviews with employees who leave and ask previous candidates for their perspectives on your hiring process.

Dedicated survey platforms like Leapsome Surveys are particularly effective at helping people teams investigate candid employee sentiment and identify the engagement drivers that matter to people most.

2. Personal & professional development opportunities

Employees are more committed to their roles when they see clear paths for growth and the opportunity to take on new challenges, from language learning courses to leadership training or key industry accreditations. McKinsey found that the single biggest reason employees gave for quitting during “the great attrition” was lack of career development. Offering team members different ways to assess and expand their skills keeps them motivated and helps them see a future with your company. 

Specialized tools can support you in building an effective, centralized resource for professional development. With Leapsome Learning, you can customize team members’ learning journeys, design wide-ranging learning libraries, and measure the success of your employee development programs.

🚀 Engage your team with a culture of continuous improvement 

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3. Rewards & recognition programs

Nothing boosts morale like feeling valued — and research shows that praising your employees is a surefire way to boost engagement. 

Recognizing team members helps them to see the broader impact of their day-to-day tasks and stay connected to the company’s goals. Make sure employees are clear on what success looks like for them and celebrate them when they get there.

Compensation plans, incentive programs, and collectively celebrating wins via a public forum all contribute to a positive work culture. 
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4. Effective communication channels 

Over 90% of business leaders agree that poor communication negatively impacts both their team and company morale, productivity, and growth. Clear, consistent communication practices remove roadblocks, align team members, and foster a sense of inclusion. 

A great engagement strategy should include resources for effective information sharing, collaboration.. You’ll want to make sure your company intranet, task management software, collaboration platforms, and conferencing solutions are all easy to use and have the right capabilities to keep employees connected. But strong communication isn’t just about having the right tools — it’s about using them effectively.

Perhaps the most common form of communication within a company is via meetings, including 1:1 and team meetings . However, our recent survey revealed that employees believe that over half of their meetings are a waste of time, and productivity may be further harmed by 1 in 3 meetings having no agenda. It’s crucial to strengthen your meetings and async communication by conveying clear messages, setting shared objectives and agendas, and defining follow-up points.

5. Team-building & social initiatives

Group activities help strengthen team bonds and create a sense of community, making work about more than just tasks and deadlines. This is especially important in remote and hybrid environments, where spontaneous ‘watercooler’ moments are much rarer.

In their bestselling book Work Better Together, workplace well-being experts Jen Fisher and Anh Nguyen Philips say: 

“Research shows that social connection in the workplace improves employees’ commitment to their work and their colleagues. This is incredibly valuable when you consider that the nature of our work is more collaborative today than ever before.”

An effective employee engagement toolkit could include plans for structured team-building exercises and casual social outings, as well as opportunities to get to know other departments. 
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6. Wellness & work-life balance supports

Strong work-life balance can lead to improved mental health, reduced burnout, and ultimately higher job satisfaction. 

There are many ways to improve work-life balance, from offering increased vacation days, additional breaks, and flexible work hours to providing workshops on stress reduction, personal health, time management, and boundary-setting. 

Everyone’s different, so speak to your team to understand what they need to improve their well-being at work. Run employee wellness surveys to get actionable insights and decide which wellness and flexibility initiatives to center in your engagement toolkit. 
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How to implement your engagement toolkit in 7 steps

There’s a lot to keep in mind as you create and roll out employee engagement resources. But don’t worry — we’ve broken the process down into seven manageable steps for success. Use our roadmap to build and roll out an employee engagement toolkit that actually makes a difference.

💥 Effective toolkits drive cultures of engagement

Our step-by-step guide empowers HR leaders to create targeted engagement initiatives that motivate their teams.

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1. Assess current engagement levels

Start by gathering insights on the current state of employee engagement across your organization. This initial assessment will help you pinpoint problem areas to focus on with your toolkit. Baseline data also lets you benchmark engagement so you can measure the impact of your efforts over time.

Here’s how to do it: 

• Design a comprehensive survey that covers multiple dimensions of engagement, from job satisfaction to company loyalty.
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• Share the survey with the wider team, making sure they see it as an opportunity to make their voices heard and contribute to new initiatives.
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• Once the survey is complete, analyze and segment the data by department, role, or location.
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• Run follow-up interviews with representatives from different departments or roles to dig deeper in key themes that arose.
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• Streamline the process with a specialized tool like Leapsome Surveys that provides customizable, expert survey templates, collects meaningful feedback, and helps you visualize and interpret your results.
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2. Define clear, measurable objectives

Now, use the data you collected at a starting point to articulate the main goals of your employee engagement toolkit. 

Follow these key steps: 

• Review your data to determine the key engagement areas your toolkit should target.
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• Work with leadership and department heads to align your engagement goals with wider company objectives. For example, if a major organizational goal is prioritizing innovation, you may want to build in related development goals and a rewards plan that celebrates creative problem-solving. 
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• Make each goal clear and measurable. Define Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that’ll allow you to track your progress.
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• Use Leapsome Goals to set, track, and align your goals across teams, departments, and the whole company.
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3. Get cross-functional input 

Incorporate diverse perspectives to make sure your toolkit will be effective in increasing engagement across different departments and teams. 

Gather a wide variety of input by:

• Sending surveys to a range of staff members with different roles, kinds of experience, and levels of responsibility and asking what makes them feel most engaged at work.
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• Creating a cross-functional task force that meets regularly to discuss engagement levels, goals, and plans.
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• Asking different departments to rate or provide feedback on a couple of sample engagement initiatives you’re thinking of including in the final toolkit. 
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4. Build & customize your toolkit

Use the insights you’ve gathered to craft an engagement toolkit that addresses your people’s unique needs.

Make sure to include many different resources. This will vary depending on the company and context, but be sure to cover the six key components we outlined earlier:

1. Survey and feedback tools
2. Personal and professional development opportunities
3. Rewards and recognition programs
4. Communication channels
5. Team-building and social initiatives
6. Wellness and work-life balance supports

Customize your toolkit by building in different engagement opportunities for different teams and employees based on their specific challenges. Look for ways of tailoring professional development paths to individual roles and responsibilities. For example, you couldoffer mentorship programs to entry-level employees and executive coaching to the leadership team. Leapsome’s Competency Framework feature makes it easy to assign team members a unique skill matrix based on their role and seniority level, and integrates this with goals and performance tracking.   

Varied teams may want distinct team-building and social initiatives, too. For example, a busy sales department might value opportunities to disconnect through group relaxation activities, while a creative team may prefer team creative planning and ideas sessions.
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5. Communicate your engagement initiatives

Effective communication practices will ensure that employees not only know about the toolkit, but also understand why and how they can use it.

Here’s what to keep in mind as you start to share your engagement strategy: 

• Draft a clear message. Explain why you’re introducing the toolkit and what benefits it’ll bring. You may want to include answers to FAQs or hold a question-and-answer session with employees. 
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• Define timelines. Make sure that all team members know when each component of the toolkit will launch and how they’ll be implemented. It’s a good idea to share a rollout calendar or a page that outlines how all the initiatives fit together.
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• Utilize multiple methods of communication. As well as sending out emails, you can use company messaging systems, team meetings, and even posters to share information about the initiative. 
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• Personalize what you say. Tailor your messages to different departments or roles and include information on engagement initiatives that are specific to them.
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6. Train managers & HR teams

Make sure all relevant HR staff and managers are equipped to implement the toolkit fully and confidently. 

Start by establishing roles within the HR team and defining who’s responsible for each area. Then, speak with team leads and managers who can act as ambassadors for engagement within their departments. 

Create documentation that managers from other departments can refer to. You may want to share a handbook that outlines all the different steps for each engagement initiative and gives clear use cases so they know when to suggest different resources to their team.

Run structured training sessions on different aspects of the engagement plan. You can combine live sessions with online, async learning experiences. Leapsome Learning can help you easily create and automate training resources so your team can learn quickly and effectively.

Provide ongoing support by setting up times to answer questions about different engagement initiatives.
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7. Roll it out in phases

A gradual approach lets you test, learn, and improve to make sure your toolkit is as effective as possible.

Use these tips: 

• Choose one department for the pilot phase.
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• Collect initial feedback using surveys, interviews, and other tools to get quick, candid reactions.
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• Look at your test group’s usage data to understand how they’re putting the resources to use and where they’re getting stuck.
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• Make adjustments based on early responses by removing blockers and adding or removing resources. For example, if you discover that team members need more opportunities to voice ad hoc concerns outside of designated engagement surveys, you may want to offer them anonymous suggestion boxes and instant feedback channels.
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• Once the creases are ironed out, launch your employee engagement toolkit for the whole company with your communication plan.
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8. Measure & adjust your strategy

Tracking your toolkit’s success over time will show you what to adapt to keep it relevant and useful to your team. 

Measure employee engagement before and after rolling out your engagement initiatives so you can investigate the return on investment (ROI). Combine detailed employee surveys with regular pulse checks for real-time insights. Track metrics like employee satisfaction score, Employee Net Promoter Score, and turnover rate. You can also incorporate engagement-related questions into performance reviews and exit interviews for a more well-rounded picture. 

You can also measure the extent to which employees are adopting engagement initiatives. For example, you might check the proportion of team members that attend social and team-building events or record enrolment and completion rates for learning and development programs. 

Once you measure those key engagement indicators, compile the information into a comprehensive report that you can use to understand and present your toolkit’s impact. To do this, you’ll need to dig deep into your data to spot trends and understand the employee sentiment behind the numbers. Ideally, you should transform your data into compelling visualizations so you can decide which adjustments to prioritize and share your ROI with stakeholders.

The right tool can automate this process so you can quickly and simply understand engagement metrics, survey responses, and employee sentiment. Leapsome uses cutting-edge Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology to turn raw data into interesting, easy-to-understand visualizations so you can take well-informed action on your discoveries. 

Once you’re clear on the feedback, you can make targeted updates to your engagement initiatives and programs. Make sure to also celebrate what’s working well — you could share your overall successes in terms of increasing engagement with the whole company or acknowledge teams who have shown strong participation in the engagement initiatives. 
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Leapsome: A full-spectrum toolkit for engaged employees

‍Employee engagement is the fuel that keeps organizations thriving. However, all too often, busy human resources departments find themselves resorting to ad hoc initiatives and metrics that may not get the results they need. In fact, our 2023 Workforce Trends Report showed that only one in three HR leaders utilize dedicated, comprehensive company-wide surveys to measure motivation and morale. Many end up juggling different tools and using piecemeal approaches to gauging — and improving — employee engagement. 

That may work for very small teams, but larger organizations need to take a more intentional approach.

Leapsome is a holistic people enablement platform that helps HR leaders build and implement strategic, streamlined toolkits that target every aspect of engagement. For instance:

• The Surveys module helps you to run effective employee engagement surveys and quickly analyze and visualize the results to better understand what’s going on.

• Our Compensation module can be leveraged to centralize and optimize compensation, promotion, and rewards processes so teams feel recognized and satisfied.

• The Learning module makes it easy to offer employees personalized upskilling and professional development opportunities that they’ll want to engage with — and track enrollment numbers, progress status, and completion rates. 

Overall, Leapsome’s integrated yet flexible platform is your one-stop solution to energizing and engaging the people that make up your organization.
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💪 Empower and engage your team

Stop improvising and start strategizing. Use Leapsome to build a thoughtful, meaningful employee engagement toolkit.

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