Employee Engagement Activities: 25 Ideas by Driver
Key takeaway
25 employee engagement activities grouped by the driver they improve, with time, cost and remote versions, plus how to tell if they work.
Employee engagement activities are regular, structured things a team does to make work clearer, fairer and more connected. Examples are weekly one-on-ones with a standing agenda, peer recognition in team meetings, stretch assignments and "fix one annoying thing" sessions. Parties and games help people get to know each other, but they seldom change engagement much. Below are 25 activities grouped by the engagement driver each one improves, with the time and budget each takes, remote versions, and how to tell whether they're working.
Start with the driver, not the activity
Gallup found that 31% of US employees were engaged in 2025, the same as in 2024 and down from 36% in 2020. The biggest drops since 2020 were in role clarity (down 9 points) and feeling cared about at work (down 8 points). Employees who know what excellent performance looks like in their job are nearly four times as likely to be engaged (Gallup, January 2026).
So pick activities by what your survey says is weak. A team that scores low on clarity won't be fixed by a trivia night. Run a short engagement survey or pulse survey first, find the two lowest-scoring areas, and choose from the matching section below.
1. Clarity: people know what's expected
| Activity | How it works | Time | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| "What great looks like" session | Manager and team write down 3-5 examples of excellent work for each role, using real past work | 90 minutes, once a quarter | None |
| Weekly priorities post | Each person posts their top 3 priorities on Monday; the manager flags conflicts | 10 minutes a week | None |
| Role charter refresh | Each person rewrites their role in one paragraph; the manager reviews for gaps and overlaps | 1 hour, twice a year | None |
| Decision log | A shared doc of decisions made, by whom and why, so people stop re-arguing them | 5 minutes per decision | None |
2. Recognition: good work gets noticed
| Activity | How it works | Time | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Specific shout-outs in team meetings | Two minutes at the start of each meeting; the recognition must name the work and its effect | 2 minutes a meeting | None |
| Peer recognition channel | A Slack or Teams channel where anyone can thank anyone; managers read it weekly | Ongoing | None, or a recognition tool |
| Manager thank-you notes | Each manager writes one handwritten or specific written note a week | 15 minutes a week | Minimal |
| Customer feedback relay | Forward compliments from customers to the person and their team, with the manager copied | Ongoing | None |
Recognition works when it is specific and timely. "Great job everyone" at an all-hands does little. See employee recognition programs for building a formal program and positive feedback examples for wording.
3. Growth: people are learning and moving forward
| Activity | How it works | Time | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stretch assignment | One project a year slightly beyond the person's current level, with a named sponsor | Varies | None |
| Lunch-and-learn led by employees | Staff teach something they know well to colleagues | 45 minutes, monthly | Lunch |
| Job shadowing | Spend half a day with another team to see how the work connects | Half a day, twice a year | None |
| Mentoring pairs | Six-month pairings with a set goal and monthly meetings | 1 hour a month | None to low |
| Career conversation | A separate meeting (not the performance review) about where the person wants to go | 45 minutes, twice a year | None |
See mentorship programs for a setup guide.
4. Voice: opinions get heard and acted on
| Activity | How it works | Time | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Fix one annoying thing" | Each month the team votes on one process irritation and the manager commits to fixing it by a date | 30 minutes a month | None |
| Survey results workshop | Share the team's results within two weeks, agree on one or two actions, report progress | 60 minutes after each survey | None |
| Skip-level meetings | Employees meet their manager's manager in small groups | 45 minutes, quarterly | None |
| Retrospectives | After each project: what worked, what didn't, what to change | 45 minutes a project | None |
Voice activities fail when nothing changes afterwards. Closing the loop ("You said X, we did Y") matters more than the activity itself. See our guide to skip-level meetings.
5. Care: the manager knows people as people
| Activity | How it works | Time | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly one-on-ones | A standing 30-minute meeting that the employee sets the agenda for; don't cancel it | 30 minutes a week | None |
| Workload check | A monthly question: "What should you stop doing?" | 5 minutes | None |
| Stay interviews | Ask long-tenured people what keeps them and what might make them leave | 30 minutes, yearly | None |
| Flexible scheduling experiment | Trial a change people ask for (core hours, a no-meeting day) for 6 weeks | Setup only | None |
Our one-on-one meeting guide has agendas and questions. See stay interviews for a question list.
6. Connection: people know and trust their teammates
| Activity | How it works | Time | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paired working sessions | Two people from different teams solve a real problem together for an afternoon | Half a day | None |
| New-hire buddy | Every new hire gets a peer buddy for 90 days | 1 hour a week at first | None |
| Team lunch or coffee | Unstructured time together, during work hours | 1 hour a month | Low |
| Volunteer day | The team picks a cause and volunteers together | 1 day a year | Low |
For games and icebreakers, see team building activities and icebreaker questions for work.
Remote and hybrid versions
- Run priorities posts, decision logs and recognition channels in the tools people already use. They work the same remotely.
- Put cameras on for one-on-ones and career conversations, and keep them optional for larger meetings
- Replace team lunch with a paid-for delivery lunch on a call once a month, or meet in person quarterly if budget allows
- Rotate meeting times across time zones so the same people aren't always joining at 7 a.m.
- Skip-level and "fix one annoying thing" sessions work well as short video calls with an async form beforehand
How to tell if it's working
- 1Pick the one or two survey items the activity is meant to move, such as "I know what is expected of me at work".
- 2Run the activity for at least one full quarter before judging it.
- 3Re-measure with a short pulse survey and compare with the baseline for that team.
- 4Watch the behaviour data too: voluntary turnover, absenteeism and internal moves. Our guides to the employee turnover rate formula and absenteeism rate show how to calculate them.
- 5Drop activities that don't move anything after two quarters.
An eNPS question is a quick check, but it doesn't tell you which driver is weak. See employee engagement metrics that matter, and compare employee engagement software if you need surveys, recognition and action tracking in one place.
Frequently asked questions
What are employee engagement activities?
Regular, structured practices that improve the conditions for engagement: clear expectations, recognition, growth, having a say, a manager who cares, and connection with coworkers. Examples include weekly one-on-ones, peer recognition and stretch assignments.
What is the difference between engagement activities and team building?
Team building builds relationships between coworkers, one of several engagement drivers. Engagement activities also cover clarity, recognition, growth and voice, which usually matter more for how people feel about their work.
Which engagement activities work best?
The ones that fix the driver your survey shows is weakest. Gallup's 2025 data shows role clarity and feeling cared about had the biggest declines since 2020, so clarity sessions and consistent one-on-ones are a good starting point for many teams.
How often should we run engagement activities?
Build most of them into normal routines: weekly one-on-ones, recognition in every team meeting, monthly process fixes. Save bigger events for once or twice a year.
Do engagement activities need a budget?
Most of the effective ones cost nothing but manager time. Budget mainly goes to learning, team events and software for surveys and recognition.
Who should run engagement activities, HR or managers?
Managers run most of them, because the manager relationship drives most engagement. HR picks which drivers to focus on from survey data, gives managers templates, and tracks results.
About the author
Editorial Lead, Software Evaluation
Rajat leads software evaluation at PeopleOpsClub and does the primary hands-on review work behind its software profiles, pricing breakdowns and head-to-head comparisons. He previously built and ran SpotSaaS (spotsaas.com) and Revoyant (revoyant.com), two software research and review platforms, and has spent that time working through HR and people operations products directly — signing up for trials, configuring admin settings, mapping how pricing actually scales and testing how support behaves — rather than relying on vendor collateral or aggregated review scores.
Fact-checked by Chandrasmita, Fact Checker.
Free templates for this
- Free survey
Employee Engagement Survey Template
A ready-to-run employee engagement survey with validated questions across the drivers that move engagement, plus a 5-point scale and open comments.
- Free plan
Employee Engagement Action Plan Template
Turn engagement survey results into 2–3 focus areas and a dated action plan: priority grid, worked example, 'you said, we did' notes, 30/60/90 reviews.
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