# employee engagement
43 moments across 36 episodes. Click any moment to jump straight to that part of the episode.
40:58Workplace Surgery: Where has all the energy gone?Al Elliott: It is. It's time for the World Famous Weekly Episode where we wrap up your questions to Leanne. Yes, this is where we take some questions and we put them to Leanne and she answers them effortlessly. Apart froEP 316 · 7 Jul 2026·workplace surgery· 40:58–45:5122:00News Roundup: Microsoft's Leaked Employee Engagement SurveyLeanne Elliott: Yes. Would you like a sneak peek at their employee engagement results? Al Elliott: Love one Leanne Elliott: This one was from Ashley Stewart at Business Insider, who got hold of— didn't say how, but I'm sEP 310 · 16 Jun 2026·news roundup· 22:00–28:3943:19Workplace Surgery — Quiet quitting after a return-to-office mandateAl Elliott: I've checked out, but I'm doing the hiding. My company mandated a full return to the office about 8 months ago. At the time, I pushed back internally and found it frustrating, but now I've just stopped. I turEP 296 · 28 Apr 2026·workplace surgery· 43:19–46:5142:12Workplace Surgery: engagement surveysLeanne Elliott: Yeah Al Elliott: Be interested. Okay, so I think it's on to our world-famous weekly workplace surgery where I put your questions to Leanne. Leanne, I have 3 questions, as would be my wont. Question numberEP 294 · 21 Apr 2026·workplace surgery· 42:12–45:0521:42Engagement vs. relations — two separate problemsJeffrey Fermin: Going back to that example, because I know it's my third time, employee engagement, employee relations, 2 separate kind of deals. I would say more culture and, uh, you know, dare I say serious shit on theEP 285 · 19 Mar 2026·interview· 21:42–27:000:00Intro: Bill Yost, Googlegeist and the 90% response rateLeanne Elliott: Our guest today, Bill Yost, spent almost 4 years running Google's flagship employee engagement survey, the Googlegeist, which hit a 90% response rate year after year. Now he does the same at Netflix, and EP 283 · 12 Mar 2026·intro· 0:00–1:0012:03How Googlegeist actually workedBill Yost: Yeah, I was on the employee engagement team at Google for almost 4 years. I, in that time, launched, I think, 7 of our annual employee engagement surveys called Googlegeist. Which is, uh, it's a fun name on liEP 283 · 12 Mar 2026·interview· 12:03–16:5453:34Top 3 takeawaysLeanne Elliott: And third, confidential beats anonymous. Nearly every well-run survey is confidential, not truly anonymous. And that's a feature, not a flaw. It's the only way to find out that, say, your new hires hate tEP 283 · 12 Mar 2026·interview· 53:34–54:2545:12Workplace Surgery: The vanishing sparkAl Elliott: Yeah, agreed. Okay. Question number 2, where did their spark go? I manage a team of 12, and until recently, a few of them were absolute superstars. Proactive, full of ideas, always one step ahead. Now they'reEP 280 · 3 Mar 2026·workplace surgery· 45:12–49:182:26Story 1: The rise of silent disengagementLeanne Elliott: Thank you, Natalie Al Elliott: So I've got to tell you, right? So this morning, you know some of this story, you don't know all of it. We, if you don't know, listener, we live in Bosnia and Herzegovina, sEP 278 · 24 Feb 2026·news roundup· 2:26–13:553:45Why difficult people aren't born—they're createdAoife O'Brien: So, my name is Aoife O'Brien. I work with global organizations on helping them to create thriving organizations. That's all based on my own personal experiences at work and my quest to uncover what those tEP 255 · 4 Dec 2025·interview· 3:45–5:4647:09Workplace Surgery: re-engaging a switched-off top performerAl Elliott: Excellent advice. Go and check out smartclinic.com. For more of that. Okay, question number 2. How do I talk to a top— sorry, this is question number 3. How do I talk to a top performer who's completely switcEP 250 · 18 Nov 2025·workplace surgery· 47:09–52:163:54Meet Danny Wareham — happy bees make tasty honeyDanny Wareham: My name's Danny Wareham. I'm an organisational psychologist who believes that happy bees make tasty honey. If we have the right environment, the right support, right leadership, right culture, then actuallEP 243 · 23 Oct 2025·interview· 3:54–4:093:49The physics of culture breakdownAl Elliott: Let's talk about someone who's maybe going and they've got the 15th employee and they're looking to grow maybe to 100 employees over the next few years. Talk me through what they should be thinking about, whaEP 239 · 9 Oct 2025·interview· 3:49–9:5746:56Workplace Surgery: Keeping great people when you can't compete on payLeanne Elliott: No, no, you go first Al Elliott: We've got an interview this Thursday coming out with Josh Levine, and he talked exactly about this. And in fact, he interviewed someone called Gary Ridge, who was the CEO EP 238 · 7 Oct 2025·workplace surgery· 46:56–52:0318:27How managers appeal to younger workersIsabel Berwick: I think that people, I think you're right. People will go the extra mile once they've bought into the culture of the company. So, if you're in a professional, you know, knowledge worker type of job, the kEP 235 · 25 Sept 2025·interview· 18:27–19:4144:55Workplace Surgery — am I building a great place to work?Al Elliott: Okay, question number 2. Am I doing enough to make this a great place to work? Oh, oh, lovely. I run a business in the UK with 30+ employees, and I've been trying to build a workplace people actually enjoy beEP 204 · 10 Jun 2025·workplace surgery· 44:55–51:4546:18Workplace Surgery: Question 2 - Motivating a disengaged teamLeanne Elliott: What a great question Al Elliott: Brilliant question. These are great. Do you know what? I'm loving the questions at the moment Leanne Elliott: Yeah, we're getting some really good ones in. My first thougEP 202 · 3 Jun 2025·workplace surgery· 46:18–51:450:02Happy staff = better business (Best Places to Work 2025)Al Elliott: Coming up in This Week in Work. Leanne Elliott: When it comes to leaders, do we actually prefer rebels or rule followers? This week we're looking at the psychology of trust and why some people earn it by workEP 200 · 27 May 2025·news roundup· 0:02–8:4537:00Workplace Surgery: How to run a wellness challenge people actually wantLeanne Elliott: Well done Al Elliott: I know, it only took me like 2 years to get it right. So if you've not listened before, we have questions from listeners. I put them to Leanne, she solves them, we all go home. That'EP 194 · 6 May 2025·workplace surgery· 37:00–42:1816:27What "fun" actually means in the workplaceSteve Carse: Yeah, it is a difficult line. So, I mean, a couple of things we've tried that I think are just worth stating and probably kind of interesting. First, we tried to not be seasonal and we've kind of achieved thEP 181 · 20 Mar 2025·interview· 16:27–22:257:52News: Why 42% of employees are turning down promotionsAl Elliott: Well, Le, I have been reading this week in Forbes— not quite as highbrow as some of the publications you've been reading, love— but I've been reading in Forbes, um, an article about nearly half of employees aEP 180 · 18 Mar 2025·news roundup· 7:52–13:2351:20Workplace Surgery: Why Do My Manager's Resolutions Die by February?Leanne Elliott: I think there's an element of smiling and nodding until it blows over if this is the behavior pattern that your manager is into. It's how, how much it's worth your time and effort. I think what I'd say isEP 168 · 4 Feb 2025·workplace surgery· 51:20–56:092:35Soft quitting: a new term for an old problemAl Elliott: I got full named there. That's been a long time since I've been full named Leanne Elliott: That'll get cut Al Elliott: No, I'm leaving it in. Leanne, what have you got?EP 164 · 21 Jan 2025·news roundup· 2:35–10:0946:34Workplace Surgery: The anonymous suggestion box shenanigansLeanne Elliott: I think you should address it head-on with some humor. Here's what I'd do, right? I would get a small ball pit and put it in the break room. I would get a couple of space hoppers and put it at the desk thEP 150 · 3 Dec 2024·workplace surgery· 46:34–52:0541:33Workplace Surgery: Employee engagement vs. satisfactionAl Elliott: Question number 2, Lee. I'm a product manager at a software development company, and I really do like my job and I love my team. However, our CEO has been talking a lot about improving employee engagement. ThEP 136 · 15 Oct 2024·workplace surgery· 41:33–45:328:14Choice is the key to changeLeanne Elliott: Choice, it really is the key to change. Very few people actively like change at work, but as Hilary said, when they feel like they have some control over the change, then it much more likely to work betteEP 116 · 20 Jul 2024·interview· 8:14–14:2134:38The 80/20 of employer brandingDavid Thompson: Advocacy. Getting your own people, absolutely. That's, you know, if you can get your own people sharing your open vacancies, sharing some stories that you've produced about, here we are, this is what we dEP 115 · 15 Jul 2024·interview· 34:38–40:0625:22What employees are really looking forAl Elliott: So, Leigh, let's just talk about this for a second. Why is it that teams change? The original people Start to feel a little bit like everything's going wrong. What is the actual psychology behind this?EP 104 · 6 Jun 2024·interview· 25:22–25:3426:43Workplace Surgery: What employee engagement actually meansLeanne Elliott: Yeah, it's a bit corporate speak, I guess. Employee engagement is actually a psychological term rather than a corporate term. It basically means how, how much people give a monkey's about your business anEP 99 · 21 May 2024·workplace surgery· 26:43–32:0310:54What employees really want: purpose over paycheckDave Kline: They want to know the work they're doing has impact. They typically want to grow and develop really fast. They want to contribute meaningfully. They want to be super efficient, right? If they can get their haEP 87 · 4 Apr 2024·interview· 10:54–13:5542:19The critical role of purposeLeanne Elliott: So as we've said before, values are words on a wall. Purpose is where your people will live and breathe those values in everyday working life. Purpose is what happens when values are embedded in operationEP 59 · 5 Oct 2023·panel interview· 42:19–45:1631:07Trend 2: Employee engagement and connectionAl Elliott: So our second future trend is employee engagement and connection. Employee engagement, oh, Lianne's favorite word. Employee engagement, without a doubt, is the focus of the future in terms of wellbeing. EmploEP 49 · 27 Jul 2023·panel interview· 31:07–38:480:33Intro — the £160BN, 350,000-employee roomKate: Nice Kate: It's about listening and it's helping people to feel heard because arguably that's one of our biggest challenges. People don't feel that they don't have time, they're not paid attention to, they don't knEP 47 · 13 Jul 2023·intro· 0:33–2:1426:54Top 10 ways to get employees backLeanne Elliott: We would be doing team office a disservice if we tried to put together a list of arguments as to why the office, as it was pre-pandemic, is making a comeback. It's not. And what we're seeing from tech firEP 43 · 14 Jun 2023·other· 26:54–35:0512:48The problem: leaders assume people care (they don't — yet)Al Elliott: So let's just start with the problem. Okay? So the biggest problem with being a leader is you almost certainly have to spin lots and lots of different plates. And I'm talking business owner, leader, whatever EP 39 · 17 May 2023·other· 12:48–14:5817:58Why employees are silently editing your presentationAl Elliott: As a leader in your organization, your people are getting bombarded with information all the time, whether it's emails, whether it's just the, the details in their office, whether it's commercial messages thaEP 39 · 17 May 2023·other· 17:58–19:5940:03Employees don't come for ping pong tablesAl Elliott: We actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioral science to help people do better at work Al Elliott: It can Leanne Elliott: But come backEP 39 · 17 May 2023·other· 40:03–42:015:00The 'F word' (and why engagement matters more than ever)Al Elliott: So, one of the things that Leanne said in a previous podcast or a previous episode was that she hates the F word, and it's not the one you're thinking of Leanne Elliott: It's the— I love that word Al Elliott:EP 02 · 12 Jul 2022·other· 5:00–6:237:17The 4 pillars of employee engagement (the overview)Leanne Elliott: Yes, just to give a little context before I dive into number 1, the reality is there is no one-fit model of assessing employee engagement within your organisation, and particularly if you're a small organEP 02 · 12 Jul 2022·other· 7:17–11:412:47What employee engagement actually meansLeanne Elliott: Yes, it does. As a business psychologist, I'm sure any, any technical person out there that has a real passion can, can fall down a rabbit hole of explaining things that really don't matter. It's the nutsEP 01 · 6 Jul 2022·other· 2:47–5:105:10Engagement vs. satisfaction — the 'happy but lazy' trapAl Elliott: So I think from what I'm understanding from what you're saying there, and of course this, this is a little bit contrived in that I do understand it, but for the listener's point of view, then what we're sayinEP 01 · 6 Jul 2022·other· 5:10–8:2514:24The leaky bucket of talentLeanne Elliott: I mean, I think there's a number of very clear performance indicators, first of all, from a business perspective. The first and most obvious one perhaps is going to be a high turnover rate. If you've got EP 01 · 6 Jul 2022·other· 14:24–16:23
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