Open forums and highlighting all generations: The keys to buoying employee engagement

It seems that every day we’re seeing more data that shows the workplace is more stressful and uncertain than ever. The 2025 Qualtrics Global Employee Experience Trends Report showed that in a study of 35,000 employees, there are notable pain points in employee experience. These include generational divides that impact employee unity and more pressure being put on employees. However, the good news is that there are steps communicators can take to help guide employees through challenges and preserve their experience at work.

By keeping people at the forefront of messaging, internal communicators can reinforce a positive company culture and ensure that trust is at the root of both employee and leadership communication. This might not alleviate every pressure an employee is feeling, but it can go a long way toward showing that their companies support them.

Communications as a grounding force when pressure hits

According to the report, 38% of employees surveyed reported feeling increased pressure from their employers to increase productivity. Productivity pressure is sometimes part of any job, but the impacts it has on employee engagement when unchecked are notable.

Troy P. Thompson, career consultant and workforce development program lead at Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business, told Ragan that while an organization’s communications department might not be able to combat the roots of the pressure employees feel, they can create messaging that reassures them to alleviate pressure. He added that leaders and communicators should work together to develop templates and standards for people-first messaging.

“These kinds of living tools ensure that key announcements are standardized,” he said.

Leaders and communicators collaborate to build trust  

The data also found that there’s a direct link between trust in leadership and a positive employee experience.

While these statistics aren’t worth ringing an alarm bell over, they perk up ears in comms departments. While comms pros can’t change these feelings overnight, building a content and leadership comms strategy that humanizes leadership is a great start toward shoring up a work culture hedged in trust.

Thompson said that communicators should work with leaders to ensure that some opportunities allow for a two-way dialogue between leaders and the employee base.

“When onboarding new employees, internal comms and HR can collaborate with leaders to organize ‘ask me anything’ forums with the goal of providing employees with an early example of how much their voices and opinions are valued,” he said.

He added that these types of early interactions can have positive trust implications with both current and prospective employees, suggesting that filming leaders interacting with employees can humanize people in leadership roles and break down barriers.

Roberto Munoz, CEO and founder of Munoz Communications, told Ragan that communicators and leaders need to work in lockstep to reach employees from the very first moment they come aboard at a company, adding that one-off messages with buzzy words to build morale won’t work long-term.

​​”Trust isn’t built through a single message,” he said. “It’s built through actions that consistently match our words. Onboarding is the first real proof point of a company’s values in action.”

He went on to say that comms pros should approach employee experience comms — particularly that of new employees — like any other messaging push.

“Treat it like a campaign,” he said. “Map the journey, clarify expectations and humanize the experience. Your messaging should go beyond logistics to demonstrate your purpose.”

Leveraging the enthusiasm of younger employees to raise engagement 

The report also found that employees in the 18-24 age group are engaged with their jobs at a rate of 77%. That outpaces the general employee population, which the study found was 70% engaged. That engagement is important for culture, and communicators should use that enthusiasm to show the value that younger generations bring to the table alongside more experienced employees.

“Younger employees bring ideas and a sense of possibility,” Munoz said. “That’s gold dust for culture building.”

But Munoz cautioned that you can’t just rely upon younger employees’ optimism to float an engagement comms strategy — it needs to be intentional in its approach. That means creating campaigns that show off the multigenerational nature of a company. For instance, that could mean a video series highlighting experienced employees and their journeys at the company, or an intranet blog series highlight mentorship between employees of different seniority levels. These types of storytelling can help create connection and drive engagement for employees across demographics and age groups.

“Empower cross-generational storytelling and show early-career employees they’re part of something bigger,” he said.

Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications. In his spare time he enjoys Philly sports and hosting trivia.