Pigeonhole Live Blog: Insights on Audience Engagement

The Ultimate Employee Engagement Reading Guide: 50+ Useful Resources [Updated 2025]

Written by Annie Teh | March 27, 2025

Employers are more aware of employee engagement than ever before. According to Gallup, employee engagement has declined over the year 2024 in the USA from 36% to 31% over the last 5 years. 

How do we move that needle closer to 100%? Luckily, there are tons of great resources out there to help leaders and HR teams learn more about employee engagement, and how to make it a reality in their own workplaces. We’ve compiled an ultimate list of articles, books, videos, and podcasts for anyone wanting to learn how to start engaging their teams, or simply to deepen their understanding of the subject. 

Let’s get started!

This Guide Covers

Books

 

1. Strengths Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow Hardcover by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie 

2. Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action Paperback by Simon Sinek

3. Build an A-Team: Play to Their Strengths and Lead Them Up the Learning Curve by Whitney Johnson 

4. Building a Magnetic Culture: How to Attract and Retain Top Talent to Create an Engaged, Productive Workforce by Kevin Sheridan

5. Build It: The Rebel Playbook for World-Class Employee Engagement by Glenn Elliott and Debra Corey

6. Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs by John Doerr

7. Louder Than Words: Ten Practical Employee Engagement Steps That Drive Results by Bob Kelleher

8. Road to Flourishing: Eight Keys to Boost Employee Engagement and Well-Being by Al Lopus

9. HR's Greatest Challenge: Driving the C-Suite to Improve Employee Engagement and Retention by Richard P. Finnegan

Studies and Reports

 

10. Defining the World’s Best Workplaces by Great Place to Work

11. Effective Employee Engagement and Organizational Success: A Case Study by Maniam Kaliannan and Samuel Narh Adjovu 

12. Employee Engagement: Maximizing Employee Potential by Gallup

13. 2019 Workforce Purpose Index by Imperative

14. The chemistry of enthusiasm: How engaged employees create loyal customers by Domenico Azzarello, Frédéric Debruyne and Ludovica Mottura

15. The State of Employee Engagement in 2019 by Glint

16. Manager-Led Group Meetings: A Context for Promoting Employee Engagement by Joseph A. Allen and Steven G. Rogelberg

17. At a tipping point? Workplace mental health and wellbeing by Deloitte

Articles 

 

Understanding Employee Engagement

 

18. How Engaged Is Your Team, Really? by Amy Bradley and Sharon Olivier

19. If Your Managers Aren’t Engaged, Your Employees Won’t Be Either by James Harter

20. Why you should be thinking about employee engagement by Aytekin Tank

21. The Two Sides of Employee Engagement by Sean Graber

22. Applying Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to Engagement and Growth by Engagement Multiplier

23. Why Tenure Matters For Employee Engagement by H.V. MacArthur

24. If Your Employees Aren’t Speaking Up, Blame Company Culture by Hemant Kakkar and Subra Tangirala

25. Are Engaged Employees A Driver Of Business Success Or A Consequence Of It? by Jon Picoult

26. How Companies Can Improve Employee Engagement Right Now by Daniel et al.

Making Engagement a Reality

 

27. How To Establish A Culture Of Employee Engagement by Mike Kappel

28. How to Keep Employees Engaged in the Midst of Organisational Change by Annie Teh

29. 7 Tips to Prepare Your Company for the Era of Remote Work by Ashkvina Rajendran

30. 8 Ways to Make Your Town Hall Meeting an Engaging Company Event by Annie Teh

31. Top 60 Employee Engagement Ideas from the Experts by Page Up

32. If You Want To Improve Employee Engagement, Benefits Need To Have Value—And Reflect Values by Naz Beheshti

33. Why the Millions We Spend on Employee Engagement Buy Us So Little by Jacob Morgan

Empathy and Recognition

 

34. The Importance of Employee Recognition by Annie Teh

35. The Secret to Leading Organizational Change Is Empathy by Patti Sanchez

36. How to Lead a Team with Empathy & Kindness by Gary Vaynerchuk

37. Here's Why Recognition Is the Key to Employee Engagement by Gordon Tredgold

Factoring in Mental Health

 

38. Psychological Safety At Work: what do psychologically safe work teams look like? By Harri Kaloudis

39. How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Petersen

40. 5 Steps to Promote Positive Mental Health in the Workplace by Ashkvina Rajendran

41. How to Include Mental Health in Your Employee Engagement Strategy by Engagement Multiplier 

42. How to Cultivate Psychological Safety for Your Team, According to Harvard Professor Amy Edmondson by Caroline Forsey

How They Did It

 

43. How Leading Companies Engage Top Talent by Salesforce

44. How Airbnb and Salesforce Are Leading the Way When It Comes to Employee Engagement by Adam Robinson

45. At Patagonia, exit interviews are rare—but they go deep By Lila MacLellan

46. How Do Ben & Jerry’s, Google And Facebook Boost Employee Engagement And Happiness? They Know Why by Stan Phelps

Videos

 

47. 9 Employee Engagement Archetypes by Sean Graber and HBR

48. Employee Engagement - Who's Sinking Your Boat? And Employee Engagement - Why Is Your Boat Still Sinking? By Bob Kelleher

49. Why aren't more of us engaged at work? by Jeff Havens

50. Stop Trying to Motivate Your Employees by Kerry Goyette

51. Employee Engagement Strategy by Kevin Kruse

Podcasts

 

52. How Deloitte Consulting LLP and Salesforce Are Using Technology to Transform the Employee Experience by the HBR Analytic Services Quick Take

53. Why Meetings Go Wrong (And How to Fix Them) by HBR IdeaCast

54. Starbucks: Howard Schultz by How I Built This with Guy Raz

55. Put Storytelling to Work with Soledad O'Brien and Dr. David Rock by Your Brain at Work