Kristina Singleton
30-09-2025
Employee engagement is steadily becoming a plus for many organisations across the world. The Harvard Business Review even describes it as “the holy grail of today’s workplace.”
In modern workspaces, employee engagement has a genuine impact on business success. Highly engaged employees are much more likely to be consistently productive and motivated to stay with their current organisation. On the other side, disengaged employees can directly affect your bottom line, with research suggesting that it costs the UK economy a whopping £340bn annually.
With such a powerful impact on business performance, it's surprising that many HR and benefits professionals find it tough to execute successful and valuable employee engagement techniques.
There are a number of barriers that can contribute to lower employee engagement. A lack of clear targets, omission of recognition, insufficient resources for achieving – understanding how to improve employee engagement begins with identifying these barriers and putting the things in place to combat them, but this isn’t always easy.
Employee Benefits' 2019 Benefits Research report found that some of the biggest barriers HR and benefits professionals face when boosting employee engagement are limited budgets and low time/resource availability. Half of respondents (51%) cited their budget, and almost a third (32%) stated time or resources as primary obstacles.
These stats aren't surprising, as employee engagement opportunities can be quite costly, time-consuming, and resource-reliant.
With these powerful obstacles to employee engagement, many HR and benefits pros are searching for a low-cost, easy-to-implement lifestyle benefit that can rocket workplace motivation and production.
When it comes to learning how to overcome barriers to employee engagement, this is Ello Group’s field of expertise. We know what it takes to forge connections between employees and employers, and here are some popular ideas to consider:
Recognition and reward: Encourage consistent and determined engagement by highlighting examples of it. By establishing a routine of drawing attention to and validating the hard work of employees, you nurture a culture of positive association with engagement.
Open communication: By establishing clear, non-judgemental channels for employees to express their ideas about how to improve the workplace and its processes, you provide them with agency in shaping their day-to-day, encouraging engagement.
Opportunity and growth: Engagement ought to be a means to an end, so provide employees with targets and a structure of development that they can achieve through consistent effort.
Work-life balance: Everything is about balance. To encourage engagement, effort, and long-term commitment, offer employees the means also to relax and enjoy time away from work via work-from-home opportunities and flexible hours.
Breaking through the barriers to employee engagement is a matter of communicating that you care about their needs and happiness. Establishing a connection that makes employees feel seen and valued is crucial, and we find that few options achieve this better than employee benefits.
Our dining and lifestyle memberships – tastecard, Gourmet Society, Coffee Club, and MyGym – are designed to put a smile on your employees' faces by making their salary go that little bit further. Whether they value that extra cup of warm coffee or cinema rewards free of charge, it’s the small things that build bonds and sow the seeds for long-term engagement.
Here's the best bit: our salary deduction scheme means that introducing our benefit can be completely cost-free to your business. With little administrative burden and simple rollout, if you're looking for a low-cost and easy-to-implement way to engage your employees, look no further than Ello Group.
Identifying and learning how to overcome barriers to employee engagement are important steps for growing a functional and sustainable business. Making employees feel valued and appreciated is core to supporting long-term employee retention, and at Ello Group we offer everything from exciting experience days to dining benefits to help you value your employees the right way! For more information on the employee benefits we can help you provide, get in touch with Ello Group today!
