How to Make People Give a Darn: Tips for Building Genuine Engagement

Elizabeth Eldridge
8 hours ago
8 min read

Have you ever worked in an environment where people did their jobs but nobody seemed invested? They showed up, completed their tasks, attended meetings and answered emails, but rarely volunteered ideas or took initiative. Problems were met with a shrug and “Not my problem.” People watched the clock, and if you asked how work was going, you heard, “It’s a paycheque.”

Now picture a workplace where people genuinely care. They share ideas, notice and solve problems, celebrate wins and understand how their contributions connect to something bigger.

That’s engagement. Although organizations have discussed employee engagement for decades, it’s more than a productivity metric.

If you’ve been following my 'How to Eat an Elephant' series, you know the premise: psychological health and safety can feel enormous when viewed all at once, so we’re breaking it into manageable bites by exploring each psychosocial factor in Canada’s National Standard on Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace individually. Today we’re looking at what engagement means (that's factor #10 if you're keeping track!), why people lose it and what organizations can do to strengthen it.

Engagement Is More Than Job Satisfaction

We often use terms like engagement, motivation and job satisfaction interchangeably, but they aren’t the same. An employee can be motivated by external factors and/or satisfied without being engaged: the pay is good, the schedule works, coworkers are pleasant and the job is tolerable. That matters, but engagement goes further.

Engagement is about connection and investment. Engaged employees care about their work and its outcomes. They feel connected to their team and organization and see themselves as contributors, not simply people completing assigned tasks. Put simply, “I don’t mind my job” is satisfaction; “I care about what happens here” is engagement.

That distinction matters because engagement isn’t about making everyone happier or adding more fun. It’s about giving people reasons to really invest in what they do.

You Can’t Demand Engagement

Organizations sometimes get engagement backwards. We look at disengaged employees and ask why they don’t care more, take initiative or contribute beyond the bare minimum. Those questions place responsibility almost entirely on the employee.

Imagine planting a garden and becoming frustrated that nothing grows. You could yell, “Come on! Grow!” but enthusiasm won’t help if the plants lack sunlight, water or decent soil, right? And would it be the plant's "fault" that it failed to grow? Engagement works similarly.

People are more likely to invest themselves in workplaces where they feel respected and supported, have appropriate autonomy, see opportunities for development and believe their contributions matter. Organizations can’t manufacture enthusiasm, but they strongly influence the environment in which engagement grows or withers.

So instead of asking, “How do we make our employees more engaged?” let's ask, “What kind of workplace are we asking them to engage with?” In other words, how can we improve the conditions so the plant has a better chance of growing?

Disengagement Usually Has a Story

We should be careful about labelling disengaged employees lazy, negative or unmotivated. Rather than a personality trait, disengagement is a state that usually develops over time.

Consider the employee who once brought ideas to every meeting. They made suggestions, nothing happened, tried again and still saw no follow-up. Eventually, they stopped offering ideas because experience taught them there was little point.

Or consider the high performer who consistently took initiative. Because they were dependable, more work kept landing on their desk. Their performance led not to recognition, development or greater autonomy, but simply to more work. Eventually, they learned that doing more meant being given more, so they pulled back.

What looks like an attitude problem can be adaptation. Employees notice what happens when they contribute, speak up, volunteer and put in extra effort. Those experiences shape how much of themselves they’re willing to invest next time.

When someone who was engaged begins to withdraw, get curious about what changed. The story behind disengagement will tell you about a lot more than the behaviour alone.

Engagement Doesn’t Exist in Isolation

The psychosocial factors are interconnected, and engagement is a great example. Psychological support, clear leadership and expectations, civility and respect, growth and development, recognition and reward, involvement and influence and workload management all affect how connected people feel to their work. (These are factors I've explored in previous posts, so be sure to give them a read for more context!)

If employees don’t know what’s expected, feel disrespected, receive no recognition, have little say and are chronically overloaded, declining engagement shouldn’t be surprising. If engagement is slipping, look beneath the surface before launching another engagement initiative. Like a warning light illuminating on your car's dashboard, disengagement is often a signal that something else in the work environment needs attention.

Help People See Why Their Work Matters

Purpose is a strong foundation for engagement, but it doesn’t have to mean saving lives or changing the world. Meaning can exist in ordinary work when people understand how their contribution affects others.

Someone processing invoices may not feel connected to a grand mission, but accurate, timely processing means suppliers get paid, vendor relationships remain strong and operations keep moving. Other employees have what they need, and customers ultimately receive better service. The task hasn’t changed, but the employee’s understanding of where it fits has. An employee who feels like "just another cog in the wheel" is often a disengaged employee.

Leaders can make those connections more visible, connecting the dots where employees might not be seeing how their work serves the broader mission. Instead of discussing purpose only during orientation or an annual town hall, connect everyday work to the bigger picture. Share outcomes, explain what happened because of employees’ efforts and let teams see who benefits.

Ask whether employees can explain not only what they do, but why it matters. If they can’t, that’s an opportunity!

Give People a Voice, Then Close the Loop

People feel more invested in things they can influence. That doesn’t mean every decision must be made by committee, but there are many opportunities to involve people in decisions affecting their work. There's a fancy term for this: psychological ownership.

Psychological ownership is the feeling that something is “mine” or “ours”. At work, employees may develop psychological ownership of their role, projects, processes, team or organization when they have meaningful influence, understand their contribution and feel connected to the outcome. It is not the same as simply being assigned responsibility. It reflects a sense of personal investment: “I have a stake in this, and what I do can make a difference.”

Ask team members what would make a process easier, where time is wasted, what customers are saying or what employees would change. People closest to the work often know exactly where the friction points are because they experience them every day.

The danger is asking for input and then doing nothing with it. Few things create cynicism faster than a survey, focus group or brainstorming session disappearing into a black hole.

You don’t have to implement every suggestion. What matters is closing the loop: tell people what you heard, what you’re doing with it and, when appropriate, why something isn’t moving forward. Being heard doesn’t mean always getting your way. It means knowing your perspective was genuinely considered.

Don’t Accidentally Punish People for Caring

One of the fastest ways to erode engagement is to inadvertently punish the employees who demonstrate the most of it.

A dependable employee is always asked to cover. An efficient employee gets more work. A helpful employee becomes everyone’s support person. A volunteer is asked to volunteer again and again. A problem-solver eventually receives every problem.

At first, they may accept this because they want to contribute. Over time, willingness can become resentment and exhaustion when the reward for good work is simply more work.

Pay attention to who carries the "invisible extras". Who mentors the new employee, handles the difficult client, fixes projects when they go sideways or gets asked to take on yet another tasks because everyone knows they’ll say yes? High engagement shouldn’t make someone the workplace catch-all. To keep invested employees invested, make their contribution sustainable.

Perks Are Nice... But They’re Not an Engagement Strategy

Pizza, holiday parties, fancy coffee machines, branded swag and occasional afternoons off can add fun to the employee experience. There’s nothing wrong with any of them.

The problem is using perks instead of addressing the experience of doing the work. You can’t pizza-party your way out of poor leadership, unreasonable workloads, inadequate recognition or a culture where people feel disrespected.

A workplace can have excellent perks and deeply disengaged employees because engagement is shaped by daily experiences. Are expectations clear and reasonable? Is good work noticed? Are there development opportunities? Do people trust their leaders? Does the work feel worthwhile?

By all means, have the barbecue. Just don’t mistake it for the strategy!

What Can Leaders Actually Do to Facilitate Engagement?

Improving engagement doesn’t necessarily require another major program. Some of the best opportunities are built into ordinary leadership practices.

Make purpose visible: Help employees understand who benefits from their work and how their role contributes to team and organizational goals.

Invite meaningful input: Give people genuine opportunities to help shape decisions and processes where their expertise is relevant.

Recognize effort and impact: Be specific about what someone did well and why it mattered. Timely, genuine recognition reinforces that contributions are noticed.

Create room for development: Training, mentoring, new experiences and skill-building can help employees see a future in the organization.

Pay attention to withdrawal: If someone who used to participate stops contributing, a conversation about what changed may reveal a problem you can address.

Protect sustainable contribution: Make sure engagement isn’t quietly becoming overload. Strong contributors need boundaries too.

These strategies aren’t flashy… and that’s kind of the point! Engagement is built through the cumulative experience of working in an organization, not through one initiative designed to improve an engagement score.

Don’t Confuse Engagement With Compliance

An engaged employee isn’t necessarily cheerful, agreeable and enthusiastic all the time. Someone can be highly engaged and still become frustrated, disagree with leadership, challenge decisions and point out problems.

In fact, someone raising a concern may be doing so precisely because they care and want the organization to improve. When disagreement is voiced respectfully and all parties remain solution-focused, that's often a sign of strong psychological safety. Someone who has checked out completely may be much quieter because they no longer believe speaking up will accomplish anything.

A room full of people nodding along isn’t necessarily evidence of engagement, just as respectful disagreement isn’t evidence of disengagement. Sometimes “I think we can do better” is one of the clearest signs that someone still cares about what happens next.

Give Them a Reason to Give a Darn

Engagement isn’t about convincing employees to give more and more of themselves to their jobs. It isn’t creating a workforce willing to answer emails at 10 PM, skip lunch or constantly go above and beyond. That isn’t sustainable engagement.

Genuine engagement happens when people can invest in their work without being consumed by it. They understand why their contribution matters, feel connected to what they do and believe their effort is worthwhile.

Engagement is a joint responsibility. If engagement isn’t where you want it to be, don’t immediately ask, “How do we get our employees to care more?” Instead, examine the work environment and ask: Have we given them good reasons to care?

Enjoying the 'How to Eat an Elephant' series? Well, don't go away! In my next instalment we’ll take on the 11th psychosocial factor: Balance. We’ll look at what work-life balance really means, why it matters to psychological health and safety, and how workplaces can support people in meeting the demands of work and life without expecting them to be endlessly available. If engagement is about giving people a reason to care, balance is about making sure they still have enough time, energy and capacity to care about the rest of their lives, too.

See you next time!

Elizabeth Eldridge is a Psychological Health & Safety Consultant based in southern New Brunswick, Canada. In addition to keynote speaking, event emceeing, consulting services and corporate training on mental health in the workplace, she supports organizations across the country on the adoption of Canada’s best practice guidelines on psychological health and safety management. She is also the Founder & President of Arpeggio Health Services which provides standardized education programs like Mental Health First Aid, The Working Mind, QPR Suicide Prevention and more.