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The modern workplace is undergoing undeniable transformation.
Hybrid working is now the norm. The gig economy continues to thrive. And AI is rapidly altering business operations. In this environment, HR leaders face significant challenges in their ability to engage and retain workers. Traditional strategies – like rigid career ladders, training and development, a ‘positive company culture’, and generic benefits packages – are no longer sufficient.
In this article, we explore how HR and business leaders can redefine talent engagement and retention, to pave the way for a thriving, successful organisation. And we offer actionable insights tailored to the complexities of today’s blended, global workforces.
Understanding employee engagement and retention today
What is employee engagement and retention?
In 2025, employee engagement means more than the typical measure of ‘job satisfaction’. Rather, there’s a more complex meaning to what it takes for workers to be engaged and want to stay with their employer.
Today, employee engagement takes on a new mantle: one of real connection to the organisation. Things like:
- The emotional and cognitive feeling workers have towards their colleagues, their boss and the mission of their organisation
- Feeling genuinely valued
- Being integral contributors to the company’s goals
In terms of retention, the stand-alone metric of ‘tenure’ doesn’t cut it. Instead, it’s the ability of the organisation to foster loyalty in ways that resonate with the modern worker; a tricky scenario in an environment where more contingent workers prioritise flexibility and diversity of working experiences, over long-term contracts.
Why traditional engagement tools no longer suffice
There’s an obvious reason traditional engagement tools aren’t cutting it in 2025: the nature of working and the composition of workforces has vastly changed but most organisations’ approach to engagement hasn’t.
When teams are distributed across various locations and timezones, and when these teams include any number of contingent workers, traditional engagement strategies – such as standardised learning and development programs and annual performance reviews – fail to tap into worker psyche and motivational needs.
The data on this issue is telling:
- Studies show that 53% of remote workers feel less connected to their co-workers and only 23% of employees feel actively engaged at work
- 45% of managers admit lacking visibility into the day-to-day of their hybrid teams
- Legacy technologies tend to over-generalise worker’s mindset and mood: 72% of contingent talent want recognition, feedback and growth opportunities, based on their career trajectories. Not based on an outdated model that’s not fit-for-purpose
The issues to consider to engage remote/hybrid workers include:
- A change to communications strategies to prevent workforce silos based on location
- Streamlining of communications tech. Project incidents can be avoided through minimal communications tech
- Involving workers in decision-making boosts engagement and fosters project ownership
- Performance based metrics over hours worked. By focusing on results and deliverables, flexible working is better supported
Core drivers of engagement in a flexible work environment
The power of purpose and meaningful work
One of the most powerful reasons contingent workers like their professional life is so they can pursue work that aligns with their values. But this isn’t just the mindset of contingent talent. Employees – especially younger employees – feel the same. They want work that is meaningful.
By providing meaningful work, and a supportive environment all categories will become engaged.
Supporting wellbeing as a business priority
Workforce wellbeing is key to a thriving business. But burnout, pressure, or a lean operational set-up will cause workers to exit. Some job categories – like IT project management – are particularly susceptible to burnout, and disengagement.
With the healthcare cost of burnout estimated at $190billion annually, the price of poorly resourced teams can be devastating.
Therefore, establishing wellbeing and support programs for all workers is key. Examples of progressive organisations taking worker wellbeing seriously, include:
- Operational tech that assists workers with balancing workloads, through algorithmic analyses and fair distribution of work
- A positive culture where workers feel psychologically safe
- Running merit-based rewards and recognition as a foundation of the company ethos
Supporting worker wellbeing has multiple, positive effects on productivity, and happiness of workers. It’s a genuine win-win.
Recognition and growth: undervalued engagement levers
While financial rewards are important, they are often limited by budgets especially in challenging economic times. Recognition, on the other hand, is a practical and powerful tool that organisations can use every day to boost engagement and motivation, regardless of financial constraints.
Reward vs. Recognition
- Reward:
- Typically financial (bonus, pay increase, equity, gifts)
- Linked to performance and/or business outcomes
- Mostly dictated by company budgets
- Recognition:
- Non-financial (feedback/praise (publicly/privately), improved worker visibility across the business, access to more and better professional opportunities)
- Focuses on acknowledging effort and achievement, and is well-placed as a cultural foundation of the business
- Accessible to and impactful for all workers (contingent and permanent)
Non-Financial Incentives
- Public and peer-to-peer recognition:
- Regularly highlight the achievements of talent in meetings, across company digital platforms, and more formally via company recognition programs
- Continuous feedback:
- Create consistent, open, two-way communications between workers, managers and their peers
- Skill-based development:
- Offer workers more prominent, prestigious, higher-tier projects as their skills are proven
Key challenges facing HR and business leaders
Turnover in a fiercely competitive talent market
In a fiercely competitive talent market, where specialist talent are sought after, the cost of losing workers goes beyond the obvious:
- The financial cost of hiring permanent or contingent talent can be up to 150% of their annual salary or project fee
- The cost of productivity loss
- The risk and associated costs of IP loss
- The culture affect: the net negative impact of seeing colleagues exit
Employees seek clear career pathways, ongoing and relevant professional development, and a supportive culture; all of which goes way beyond the ‘benefit’ of job security. Proactive engagement to sustain a stable and motivated workforce is the foundation of a low-turnover business.
And for contingent talent, considering the huge financial burden of replacing talent specialists, it’s staggering to consider that only 42% of organisations have dedicated retention and rehiring strategies in place to keep them.
Lack of sentiment visibility in distributed teams
Tracking and acting on the sentiment of workers, is a potent strategy for workforce engagement and retention.
While traditional engagement surveys can be useful for permanent staff they frequently tend to fail in capturing the full spectrum of sentiment, when it comes to a blended workforce.
Anecdotally, contingent workers are less comfortable sharing real sentiment, for fear of being too candid. For employees, although more likely to respond, they can also feel overlooked if pulse surveys aren’t part of a regular engagement schedule or if surveys lack anonymity.
Culture fragmentation across global or blended teams
When an organisation manages a blended workforce, a cultural misalignment can emerge. This is often due to communications challenges, decision-making transparency, project inclusion (or exclusion) or unmet expectations on behalf of the worker and/or manager.
Cultural fragmentation tends to arise when silos are formed across workforce groups (be they by location or worker type). Remote or globally dispersed workers can be a particular sore point for companies if an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mentality prevails.
Burnout from blurred work-life boundaries
As much as ‘work/life balance’ has become a catch-cry of organisations aiming to attract workers, the reality continues to remain different.
Burnout is a growing concern for all categories of workers. For contingent talent, six to seven hours per week are estimated to be unpaid, often due to the pressure felt to attain contract renewals. For permanent workers, there is mounting pressure to be ‘always on’: which leads to negative outcomes for both worker and employer due to exhaustion and decreased productivity.
Actionable strategies to boost engagement and retention
Human-centered leadership and transparent communication
’Human-centred leadership’, when executed properly, is powerful and effective for worker engagement and retention. Coupled with transparent communications, business leaders performing at this level are an absolute stand-out.
The critical issue is establishing trust with workers; a process we believe needs to start at the point the offer is accepted (no matter what category of worker is hired). From that moment, the worker will either feel excited and ready to dive in, or they’ll feel hesitant and uncertain about their decision. The outcome lies in the hands of the individual leader.
Here are a couple of solutions to consider:
- Pre-onboarding: offering new workers live or virtual office tours, and introductions prior to starting. This helps everyone feel welcome and prepared from day one
- Regular ‘lay of the land’ updates: where leadership acknowledges the contributions of different teams and individuals. This culture of recognition helps to foster a sense of belonging and purpose.
Personalised recognition and development plans
As we’ve mentioned, the need for personalised engagement and retention strategies is the key to success here. And perhaps nothing is more important to workers than personalised recognition and development plans.
With the rapid development of HR AI tools, companies can track the preferred recognition styles and career development plans for both contingent and permanent workers. When integrated with learning and development systems, these tools can boost retention and satisfaction amongst workers.
Building connection in remote and hybrid teams
Building a real and lasting connection between remote and hybrid teams is the ultimate panacea for worker engagement and retention. But for most companies it remains elusive.
Of the many strategies available today, we particularly like:
- Virtual co-working spaces: where breakout rooms are available for collaboration across teams or functions, giving workers a sense of ‘being together’
- Innovation challenges: bringing contingent, permanent, onsite and off-site workers together to help solve real problems in the business. Extending this to interdisciplinary workers is where things get really interesting and cross-functional teams end up working closely together
Measuring engagement with the right tools
Measuring engagement of workers is no longer about ‘gut feel’ for people managers. Employers can now make observations and decisions based on actual talent data, gathered by advanced analytics and AI tools.
From project management tools and communications platforms to biometric wearables and real-time worker engagement platforms, the amount and quality of data available to boost worker motivation and curb attrition, is incredible.
Leveraging AI and automation for engagement
Another solution to help worker engagement are advanced tools using AI and automation for early predictions on worker sentiment, motivation and intent.
Two of these solutions we found particularly impressive are:
- Predictive attrition models: these tools help to flag worker disengagement risks up to eight weeks earlier than traditional methods. This means, organisations can flag workers at risk of burnout, exhaustion or disenfranchisement, and curb their likelihood of leaving. Examples include:
- Workday Peakon Employee Voice
- KNIME
- Visier
- IBM Watson Talent (now part of IBM Talent Insights)
- Automated compliance guardians: These are software tools that use automation, AI and machine learning, to monitor, manage, and enforce compliance in a workforce setting. Examples provided below:
Embedding culture across all workforce types
The role of diversity, equity and inclusion
We’ve documented many times on this blog, about the power and value of diversity, equity and inclusion policies. Not only do they help to broaden insights and perspectives within the business, they’re a proven strategy to boost organisational performance.
The problem arises when workers from underrepresented or minority groups become disengaged or a flight risk, if they perceive inequities.
The goal is to provide an inclusive workplace for all workers. Organisation who are getting it right are typically undertaking the following:
- Offering employee resource group (ERG) membership to contingent workers
- Using blind resume screening, for conversion of contingent workers, to permanent hires
- Providing DEI training to all managers overseeing blended teams
Creating shared rituals and recognition moments
Establishing opportunities for workers to engage in a less formal context is a great way to bring a workforce together. And using these gatherings to recognise workers, only enhances worker’s perception of their colleagues, managers and leaders.
Examples of shared rituals and recognition moments include:
- Hosting monthly ‘town hall’ meetings, with a rotating schedule of speakers from across the business, including permanent and contingent workers.
- A culture rewards points system. A unified recognition system where all workers can earn redeemable points towards a relevant end-goal
The ROI of engagement: business case and impact
Engagement’s link to productivity, profit and retention
The ROI of an engaged workforce is well-documented. At a minimum they include:
- Improved productivity
- Higher profits
- Faster project completion rates
- Happier workers mean a greater willingness for them to go above and beyond
- Workforce retention and increased talent referrals, lower the cost of hiring
So in fact, if you can build an irresistible workplace, where flexibility, transparency, recognition, and professional development are at the core, you’ll create a business environment that will outshine the competition.
Conclusion: rethinking retention for the new world of work
The future belongs to organisations willing to recognise their workers as strategic partners. Hence, the age-old belief that a company is only as good as its workers, remains true. By combining human-centric leadership with AI-driven tools, businesses can build an engaging working environment that benefits all parties to the relationship.
You can leverage CXC’s workforce management platform to boost your workforce engagement and retention. Our system will allow you to:
- Streamline and automate talent compliance checks
- Centralise skills tracking
- Offering actionable insights for better workforce engagement
- Optimise your blended talent strategy via experts with 30+ years’ experience
- Contingent talent compliance
Our mission is to help our clients stay ahead in the rapidly changing world of work.
Contact CXC today to discover how our tailored solutions can transform your contingent workforce strategy, turning engagement challenges into competitive advantages.
