Source: hcamag.com
What are the top drivers? Study of 20 million employee responses shows belonging, feeling valued no longer biggest priorities
For the first time in a decade, employees are prioritizing organizational stability over feeling valued at work, according to a recent study.
The Perceptyx study analyzed more than 20 million global employee survey responses from 2016 to 2025 and found that the top driver of employee engagement in 2025 was effective change management, followed by confidence in senior leadership. These drivers displaced feelings of belonging and feeling valued which had ranked as the top two drivers from 2016 through 2024 but fell to fourth and fifth, respectively, in 2025.
The report characterizes the idea of engagement now as the “anticipation of success,” which Parbudyal Singh, professor of human resource management at York University, agrees with.“Employee engagement as the anticipation of success captures key dimensions of the concept, such as a fulfilment of the psychological contract between the employee and the organization, as well as the potential for the employee to achieve satisfaction with their jobs and career growth,” says Singh. “If the employee anticipates success, then they’re likely to be engaged.”
Trusting leadership to steer through uncertainty
The Perceptyx data shows that employees now care most about whether change is handled effectively and whether senior leaders can be trusted to steer through uncertainty. Employees are weighing whether their organization will keep its side of the deal and whether they can still see a future worth investing in, and that means many HR leaders will need to reconsider their employee engagement strategies, according to Singh.
“An HR strategy needs to go beyond just ‘growing here’ and navigating uncertainty,” Singh says. “Following COVID-19, employees started to reassess what they give and what they get from organizations, and when this assessment leads to perceived inequities, they’re inclined to become less engaged and even quit.”
That reassessment might not jibe with organizations that assume a strong brand and decent benefits are enough. Singh believes that many large organizations offer clear career paths and internal mobility, yet they struggle to match that with credible work-life balance, modern total rewards, or visible supports when negative things arise in the workplace, such as restructuring — and that imbalance can be a quiet killer of engagement.
For Singh, this shift pushes more weight onto senior leadership than frontline managers, which goes back to the new top drivers revealed in the study.
“Effective change management and confidence in senior leadership have always been important,” he says. “However, in the current economic, political, and technological environment — with tariffs, economic uncertainty, and job insecurity through AI dominating the news — employees are more concerned about their future and look to top leadership for more assurances that their value to the organization would be appreciated.”
It’s also reinforced in another global workforce survey by Korn Ferry, which found job security was the second-highest priority for workers in choosing a new job, behind only compensation. The same survey found that eight in 10 workers would stay in a job because they trust management.
Effective change management boosts engagement
That isn’t a communication plan organizations can outsource. The Perceptyx study shows that when employees believe change is handled well, they report higher commitment, pride, motivation and willingness to recommend their company as a great place to work.
This is where HR’s skills and role with the business should come to the forefront, according to Singh. “HR leaders must assert themselves in the boardrooms, as they’re probably closest to the employees’ pulse,” he says. “They should also have the training and knowledge about managing effective change in turbulent times, including effective communication strategies, protecting that sense of belonging, and psychological safety.”
This could be more of a problem in organizations where HR is still on the sidelines, stuck implementing decisions they don’t have a part in shaping. “[HR] needs to work with top leadership on programs and strategies that include the employees’ voice and involvement, which sets the stage for acceptance and success of change,” says Singh.
Avoiding environment of mistrust
Singh believes that the biggest potential gap for engagement isn’t just around decisions. It’s about the difference between what an organization says and what its people feel: “The biggest mismatch, in my opinion, is the disconnect with what employers say they do and what employees perceive and experience.”
That disconnect can show up when leadership launches a new employee value proposition while line managers scramble to cover vacancies and justify training budgets. Singh sees two culprits to this type of situation.
“Many employers have excellent policies and strategies on paper, sometimes resulting from good organizational assessments. However, employees’ perceptions of these strategies may not be the same as the organization, and this comes from two things — ineffective communication and low levels of trust,” he says.
When trust is weak, HR playbooks that once seemed safe start to backfire, initiatives like town halls sound like spin, and engagement surveys feel like boxticking. “If there’s a culture of distrust, almost everything the organization does will be interpreted negatively, which exacerbates the disconnect between the organization’s actions and the employees’ perceptions of those actions,” says Singh.
Failing to adjust strategy has financial consequences
When there’s budget or other pressures, HR needs to stress the cost of ignoring the changing reality of what drives engagement in business terms, says Singh. “The single most strategic shift in terms of the changing engagement drivers is to highlight the financial consequences of not changing strategy,” he says.
That means moving beyond generic business cases and putting hard numbers on the table. The Perceptyx report connects improvements in intent to stay with reductions in attrition and turnover costs.
Singh believes that in order to fully address the shift in drivers of employee engagement, organizations need to stop treating engagement as a soft HR metric and start framing it as a financial risk.
“Employee disengagement and turnover are costly, especially when this involves top talent. They need to understand the academic and other research on this issue, and [HR leaders need to effectively communicate that change is in the best short- and long-term financial interests of the organization,” he says.