10 Essential Insights Your Employee Engagement Survey Tools Are Missing

Employee Engagement Survey Tools Often Miss What Matters Most To Your People

Many leaders are armed with employee engagement charts and reports, but we all know what can happen – the engagement strategies built off last year’s surveys fail to move the needle in a meaningful way. Sound familiar?

That’s because your employees don’t care about your engagement scores. They care about what it feels like to go to work everyday – their lived experience. So how do you enhance your employee engagement strategy to bring more of what your employees really need?

Improving or sustaining team and organizational performance requires that leaders foster an environment where people can deploy their strengths. Leveraging the 5 Driving Needs Framework, our latest data & insights report provides insights into how you can create a culture where people can skillfully get their driving needs met, and generate the energy needed to fuel sustainable performance and transform employee engagement.

Transform the way leaders and teams understand and drive employee engagement by focusing on the energy that fuels performance.

1. Engagement Isn’t Energy

Your engagement survey might capture metrics like job satisfaction, relationship to manager and peers or alignment to values, but it often misses the heartbeat of performance: energy. According to our data, the average employee is only 71% energized, leaving nearly a third of their potential untapped. Energy drives creativity, buy-in, and innovation—key factors in high-performing teams.

2. When What Matters Most Goes Unmet, It Creates a Drain on Energy

When employees’ most important needs—what truly matters to them—go unmet, the impact is significant. Our report highlights how Dealbreakers, or non-negotiable needs, can cause a rapid energy drain when ignored. This depletion doesn’t just hinder performance; it often leads to burnout and disengagement. Identifying and addressing these critical needs is key to maintaining energy and unlocking high performance.

3. Significance & Meaning Are the Secret Sauce

“Feeling valued and respected” and “making a difference” are the top-ranked needs, chosen by nearly 70% of employees. These needs are directly tied to the Need for Significance and Meaning. Leaders who ignore these needs put individual and team performance at risk.

4. Belonging Is Your Energy Buffer

The Need for Belonging—through trusted relationships and quality connections—is the most energy-resilient of all needs. Employees with strong connections experience less energy depletion, even in high-stress environments. Building belonging is not optional; it’s essential for maintaining team morale and productivity.

5. Surveys Should Measure Emotion, Not Just Logic

Employee engagement isn’t a rational calculation; it’s an emotional reality. Emotional engagement unlocks four times the discretionary effort compared to rational engagement. Understanding what matters most and engaging in regular conversations about people’s energy level can help tap into this emotional layer.

6. One Size Doesn’t Fit All

Context matters. Needs are dynamic and unique to every person and team. A static engagement survey can’t capture the fluidity of what drives or drains energy. Leaders must adopt tools, like regular energy check conversations, to create ongoing, meaningful touchpoints tailored for their people.

7. Unmet Needs = Unskilled Behaviors

When core needs are unmet, even top performers exhibit unhelpful behaviors like resistance to change or lack of collaboration. This is the Engagement Paradox: traditional engagement strategies often miss the underlying causes of disengagement.

8. Don’t Underestimate Quality Connections

Often overlooked in traditional surveys, Quality Connections proved to be a standout energy booster. When this need is met, employees experience only 2.6% energy depletion, significantly lower than the average of 18% for all Dealbreakers. This finding underscores the importance of fostering authentic, mutual relationships within teams. Leaders should prioritize creating opportunities for connection—whether through team-building, collaborative projects, or one-on-one interactions—to sustain energy and drive performance.

9. Leaders Must Address Depletion Head-On

On average, 20–25% of employees report energy depletion associated with any given need. Depletion leads to reduced productivity and performance, a lowered sense of resilience and creativity, and sometimes, burnout. Regular check-ins that focus on people’s energy, what matters most to them, and that addresses unmet needs can shift people and teams from being depleted to energized.

10. Energy Shifts Can Happen Quickly

Energy is highly circumstantial and can change rapidly based on the environment, interactions, or challenges employees face. Regular, meaningful conversations between leaders and their teams can create pivotal moments that either replenish or drain energy. By staying attuned to shifting needs and engaging in ongoing dialogue, leaders can turn potential energy drains into opportunities to energize their people, fostering resilience and sustained performance.

Download the Full 2025 Report

Your employee engagement survey can reveal what’s happening within your organization at a macro level – but it’s often hard to decipher why leaders’ good intentions are not turning into engagement results.

Imagine you had insights that explained to your fellow executives why technological implementations are mired, hard-sought talent doesn’t stick around, superstars are burning out, and NPS scores are flagging.

This report bridges this gap by focusing on what matters most to employees, and how understanding and addressing what matters most to your people can transform organizational performance.