Blue-collar and white-collar: Who can move, and who feels stuck?

Our research with 10,181 workers across 15 countries reveals that the lines between blue- and white-collar work are blurring. For employers, this raises a broader question: what helps employees feel equipped to adapt as work changes, and what holds them back? 

The findings challenge familiar assumptions: 

  • Only 18% of white-collar workers say finding an equally good job elsewhere within three months would be extremely easy, compared with 28% of blue-collar workers, despite reporting lower intent to leave. 
  • 70% of blue-collar workers say staffing shortages have increased over the past year, and 58% have considered leaving because of increased shortages. 
  • Access to development drops sharply from age 45 among blue-collar workers, raising questions about whose future employers continue investing in. 

Beyond collar colours: Building more mobile, secure and resilient workforces brings together workers’ own stories, Top Employers’ best practices and our own analysis to examine what these experiences mean for a more agile approach to HR. 

Five profiles. Different needs. Practical responses. 

Meet the Switchers, the Stuck White-Collar Professionals, the Stretched Blue-Collar Workers, the Experienced Blue-Collar Workers and the Entrants. These are overlapping experiences, rather than fixed employee categories, with practical guidance for each.

Download the report to explore how to: 

  • Make mobility a leadership responsibility, recognising managers who develop talent for the wider organisation. 
  • Create late-career pathways, combining continued development with redesigned roles and two-way learning. 
  • Give stretched employees capacity to adapt, addressing workloads alongside protected time for learning and participation in change. 

Whether you employ mainly blue-collar workers, white-collar workers or both, discover approaches to supporting career security alongside job security, with implications for retention, redeployment and future skills.

Download the full report by filling out the form below.

How To Make Menopause Part of Your Wellbeing Strategy

We know taking care of employee health is good for people, good for culture—and good for business, too.

In fact, in 2026, organisations worldwide are placing more emphasis on employee wellbeing than ever before: 78% of Top Employers currently have a wellbeing strategy in place—up ten percentage points since 2020—and those who do are more likely to have seen increased revenue growth and higher customer satisfaction over the last year.

For around half of the workforce, however, one of the most common wellbeing challenges—and one which drastically impacts their ability to work—is being swept under the rug: menopause.

How does menopause impact employees?

Almost every woman will experience menopause, with up to 90% enduring symptoms ranging from hot flushes and insomnia to low mood, anxiety, and impaired memory and concentration. These symptoms can last for around seven years, with an average onset age of 52—often coinciding with the most senior stages of a woman’s career.

It’s a surprise to nobody, then, that the effects of menopause follow women into the workplace: almost 30% of women say menopause has had a negative effect on their career progression, and one in six have considered leaving work entirely.

Despite this, meaningful support is rare—and for a predicament which half of the workforce will face at some stage of their career, the current landscape is cause for concern:

  • 80% of women say their workplace offers no basic menopause support
  • 30% say menopause has damaged their career progression
  • Only a quarter of women who take time off for menopause feel able to tell their manager the real reason
  • 81% say absence policies don’t adequately cover menopause-related leave
  • More than 40% have seen menopause treated as a joke at work

From a commercial perspective, the cost of menopause is substantial: in the US alone, $5.4 billion is spent each year covering missed workdays, reduced hours, and layoffs—before factoring in the cost of senior talent departures and subsequent rehiring.

In 2026, intentionality has become the blueprint for leading organisations—and for HR, it’s imperative that deliberate decision-making remains a priority when protecting the wellbeing of female employees.

A policy built on inclusion

In 2025, Top Employer BCX became one of the first major employers in South Africa to introduce Feminine Health Leave: 12 days of paid leave, renewed annually, for employees to attend to menstruation, menopause, and other hormone-related or reproductive health challenges.

Leave can be taken in full- or half-day increments as needed, and no medical certificate is needed for absences of three consecutive working days or less. Employees are never required to disclose the specific nature of their health needs, and line managers are asked to respect individuals’ privacy.

“Feminine Health Leave is more than a policy – it’s a statement of values,” said Hope Lukoto, Chief Human Resources Officer at BCX at the time. “It says we believe our employees should not have to choose between their health and their work. It’s time we normalise care and recognise that inclusion is not passive; it must be practiced.”

The Feminine Health Leave policy has been positively received by employees, and since its implementation has emerged as a key differentiator in attracting female talent in the competitive technology sector. In conjunction with broader female talent initiatives, BCX has seen female leadership representation post-implementation increase by 1.4% year-on-year.

Top Employers can find out more about BCX’s female leadership initiative—and access over 300 more best practices from leading employers—in the Top Employers portal.

Recommended steps for HR

Not every organisation has the capacity to roll out an initiative on BCX’s scale, but there’s still plenty HR can do to ease the burden for employees going through menopause.  

  • Reference menopause explicitly in your policies

Employees can’t access help that they don’t know exists. 81% of women say that their organisation’s absence policies don’t adequately cover menopause, and only a quarter feel that they’re able to share with their manager the real reason for time taken off.

Review your leave, sickness and flexible working policies, and consider how clearly menopause is referenced as a use case. Clear wording removes the guesswork for employees when requesting accommodations or time off, and makes it simpler for managers to approve requests when they arrive.

If your organisation offers accommodations beyond paid leave, consider how clear your current process is for requesting support: specifying who to contact, which information to provide, and when a decision will be made can remove barriers for people looking to request an adjustment.

  • Introduce training and encourage understanding

Consider how managers in your organisation could be better equipped to handle check-ins and accommodation requests sensitively: understanding how symptoms affect wellbeing, responding without embarrassment, and respecting employee privacy all make conversations around menopause easier, more comfortable, and less taboo.

Dedicated training sessions for management, and resources made available through your staff learning hub or portal, ensure managers and employees have a shared reference for expected behaviour and language surrounding menopause.

  • Understand local legal requirements

Organisational support also needs to keep pace with regulation. In March, for instance, the UK government announced that employers with 250 or more employees would be encouraged to publish the steps they are taking to support employees through menopause.

For multi-regional organisations in particular, it’s important to understand how requirements might vary from country to country—and to cater policies and adjustments to fulfil your respective legal duties.

Final thoughts

Menopause is not a niche issue: almost every working woman will experience it at some stage, and for forward-facing organisations, dedicated support initiatives should be a core pillar of any diversity and inclusivity strategy.

Whether your organisation introduces an initiative as comprehensive as BCX’s, or begins by refining a single policy, the most important step is the first. Employees who feel supported are more likely to stay, contribute, and progress, and that benefits the whole organisation—not just the individual.

The Stability Paradox: Why Relevance Is Becoming the New Measure of Workforce Strength

For years, retention has been one of the most reassuring numbers on the HR dashboard. When people stay, leaders tend to assume something is working: employees are engaged, committed and confident in their future with the organisation.

That assumption is becoming harder to make.

Economic uncertainty, geopolitical instability and technological disruption are changing how employees think about their careers. In a less predictable labour market, staying can feel safer than moving. The result is an uncomfortable possibility for employers: retention can improve even as engagement weakens.

This is the Stability Paradox, one of the trends identified in the Top Employers Institute World of Work Trends Report 2026. Employees are seeking greater security and clarity at precisely the moment organisations need their workforces to become more adaptable, mobile and open to change.

A recent conversation between Sachin Khurana, Chief People Officer at Happiest Minds Technologies, a Certified Top Employer, and Manavi Baraya of Top Employers Institute brought this tension into sharper focus. Operating in a sector being rapidly reshaped by technology, Happiest Minds faces a question that is increasingly relevant across industries: what does workforce stability actually mean when the skills an organisation needs are changing so quickly?

Khurana’s answer offers a useful way to reframe the problem. Rather than thinking about stability primarily in terms of continuity or tenure, organisations should pay more attention to relevance — whether people continue to have the skills, curiosity and capacity to create value as the business changes.

That distinction matters because a workforce can be stable and still be falling behind.

Retention can conceal as much as it reveals

There is nothing inherently wrong with high retention. Losing valuable people is expensive and disruptive, and continuity matters. The problem arises when retention becomes shorthand for workforce health.

Consider two employees who have both decided to stay with their employer. One sees opportunities to develop, is doing interesting work and believes the organisation can offer a meaningful next step. The other is disengaged but has watched layoffs spread across the market and concluded that changing jobs carries too much risk.

A retention metric records precisely the same outcome for both employees.

Their relationship with the organisation, however, could hardly be more different.

The World of Work Trends Report 2026 points to evidence of this more defensive form of retention. Employees have been opting out of cross-organisational moves, while research among UK employees found that 55% prioritise job security over ambition, rising to approximately 65% among those aged 18 to 34. The term “job hugging” has emerged to describe employees holding tightly to existing roles amid uncertainty.

The phenomenon is not entirely new. Recessions and previous waves of technological disruption have produced similar behaviour. But the current environment combines several sources of uncertainty at once. Economic pressure sits alongside geopolitical instability, changing business models and widespread questions about how technology will reshape jobs.

The practical implication is that leaders should be cautious about treating falling attrition as evidence that the employee proposition is strengthening.

Retention is an outcome. Increasingly, it also requires a diagnosis.

Stability without movement creates a different kind of risk

The traditional logic of retention assumes that keeping talent preserves capability. That is true only when the capability being preserved remains valuable.

In a slowly changing environment, the distinction may not matter much. In a rapidly changing one, it becomes critical. An organisation can successfully retain its workforce while accumulating a skills gap. Employees can build long tenure while their expertise becomes progressively less aligned with emerging customer needs. Low attrition can coexist with low mobility, limited experimentation and declining relevance.

This is why the distinction between stability and relevance is useful.

At Happiest Minds, the shift is visible in how workforce questions are being framed. Attrition remains important, but the more consequential question is whether employees’ skills remain relevant to changing technologies, domains and customer needs.

This logic extends well beyond the technology sector. Organisations across industries are reconsidering processes and business models as technology changes what can be automated, accelerated or redesigned.

The workforce challenge is therefore not simply to retain knowledge. It is to ensure that knowledge continues to evolve.

A better question for leaders may be: Are we retaining people, or are we retaining and renewing capability at the same time?

Stability should give employees somewhere to go

The data on Employee Value Propositions reveals an important dimension of this problem.

According to Top Employers Institute data, 17% of Top Employers rank stability and job security among their top three EVP priorities. These organisations generally experience lower voluntary turnover. Yet stability alone does not appear to encourage internal movement.

By contrast, 67% of Top Employers rank opportunities for career advancement and personal growth among their top three EVP priorities — the most widely prioritised element in the data.

This points to a more productive interpretation of stability. Employees do not necessarily need an assurance that their role will remain unchanged. They need confidence that there will be opportunities for them as it changes.

That distinction alters the role of the EVP. A strong employee proposition should give people compelling reasons to stay, but it should also give them somewhere to go — into a different role, towards a new capability, across organisational boundaries or into work that did not previously exist.

Stability and mobility are therefore not competing objectives. Internal mobility can itself become a source of stability because employees can imagine a future inside the organisation even when their current role is changing.

The organisations that manage the Stability Paradox well will not eliminate movement. They will make movement feel safer.

Relevance depends on learning — and unlearning

This is one reason learning and development is moving higher up the organisational agenda.

Top Employers Institute data shows that the proportion of Top Employers ranking learning and development among their top three people-strategy priorities rose from 15% in 2024 to 27% in 2025.

Employees appear to recognise the connection between development and staying as well. Research highlighted in the World of Work Trends Report 2026 found learning opportunities to be an important reason employees remain with an organisation across multiple markets: 92% of respondents in Brazil, 87% in India, 78% in the United States and 74% in the United Kingdom.

But learning is only part of the challenge.

In his discussion with Top Employers Institute, Khurana made an equally important point about unlearning. As the pace of change increases, leaders and employees must become faster not only at acquiring new knowledge but at letting go of assumptions that have stopped being useful.

This is harder than conventional upskilling.

Learning adds something to an existing mental model. Unlearning requires questioning the model itself.

Experience, after all, is valuable because it gives people patterns: an understanding of what has worked before, which risks to avoid and how problems are usually solved. But when an environment changes fundamentally, those same patterns can constrain adaptation.

The challenge is not simply to know more. It is to recognise when what you already know is preventing you from seeing the problem differently.

Hear the conversation behind the insights

This article draws on a conversation between Sachin Khurana, Chief People Officer at Happiest Minds Technologies, and Manavi Baraya of Top Employers Institute on the Top Employers Podcast. They explore the Stability Paradox, why relevance is becoming as important as retention, and what it takes to keep people learning, engaged and adaptable through change.

Listen to the Full Podcast

The questions employees ask may reveal more than we think

If retention is becoming a less reliable proxy for engagement, leaders need to pay attention to other signals.

One of the most interesting observations from Happiest Minds concerns something organisations rarely measure systematically: the nature of the questions employees ask.

In a workforce that is engaged with the future of the business, questions tend to be exploratory. People want to know what comes next, what could be done differently and whether existing ways of working still make sense. They challenge assumptions and propose alternatives.

When the relationship with work becomes more transactional, the questions change. Attention shifts towards policies, individual tasks, deadlines and the boundaries of responsibility.

Neither category of question is inherently good or bad. Employees need clarity about policies and responsibilities. But when transactional questions begin to dominate, they can reveal something that an annual engagement score may struggle to capture.

Curiosity is itself a form of organisational engagement.

At Happiest Minds, pulse surveys, check-ins and manager conversations are used alongside these more informal signals to understand how employees are engaging with the organisation. The willingness to question the status quo — and to do so without feeling threatened — is viewed as evidence of an environment in which people can contribute rather than simply comply.

This suggests a useful addition to the way leaders interpret employee listening. Beyond asking whether people are satisfied, organisations should examine whether employees feel sufficiently invested in the business to challenge it.

A workforce that never questions anything may appear stable. It is unlikely to remain adaptable for long.

Adaptability cannot be a one-way expectation

There is a further problem with much of the current discussion about workforce agility. It places the burden of adaptation overwhelmingly on employees.

Employees are told to acquire new skills, adopt new technology, become more agile and develop a growth mindset. These expectations may be reasonable, but they raise a corresponding question: How much is the organisation itself changing?

Long-standing processes often survive transformation programmes. Policies designed for an earlier workforce remain in place. Learning programmes teach new capabilities while performance systems continue to reward old behaviours. Leaders encourage experimentation but maintain approval structures that make experimentation difficult.

This creates an organisational contradiction: people are asked to reinvent themselves inside systems that have not been reinvented.

One alternative is to make organisational adaptation itself more visible. Khurana suggests looking at how many things an organisation has started doing differently over recent quarters. Have programmes been redesigned? Have processes been challenged? Have teams been given room to experiment and fail?

This is a more demanding interpretation of agility because it makes adaptation reciprocal.

Employees must evolve, but the environment around them must evolve as well.

What an adaptive organisation looks like in practice

The experience of Happiest Minds illustrates how this can work when development, innovation and employee experience are treated as parts of the same system rather than separate HR initiatives.

Its Bliss 2026 technology festival generated 38 tangible innovations rather than conceptual presentations, with some already progressing towards customer-facing platforms. An AI-first builder programme creates another route for employees to develop domain-led solutions. And its Mentor Up reverse-mentoring programme reverses the conventional direction of organisational learning by enabling Gen Z employees to share knowledge and experiences with more senior colleagues.

The individual programmes are less important than the management principle connecting them.

Learning creates greater capacity to experiment. Experimentation creates opportunities to contribute. Contribution deepens engagement. And greater engagement encourages people to continue learning and questioning.

Seen this way, adaptability is not a programme that HR delivers. It is a system of reinforcing behaviours.

That is particularly important when organisations are trying to create stability. Stability cannot become synonymous with preserving existing roles and structures. It needs to provide employees with enough confidence to participate in changing them.

The real paradox: stability is what makes movement possible

The Stability Paradox can sound like an argument that organisations need less stability.

The opposite may be true.

During periods of uncertainty, employees need clarity about where the organisation is heading. They need confidence in leadership, trust in the culture and a reasonable degree of psychological safety. Without these things, asking people to experiment, move internally or rethink their roles becomes considerably harder.

What needs to change is the source of that stability.

Organisations cannot promise that jobs will remain unchanged. They cannot guarantee that today’s skills will retain the same value indefinitely. Nor can they preserve every process simply to create a sense of continuity.

They can, however, create stability around purpose, trust, culture and direction.

That kind of stability does not prevent movement. It enables it.

This is ultimately why relevance offers a useful complement to retention as a measure of workforce strength. The question is not simply whether an organisation can persuade people to remain. It is whether people continue to develop, move, question and contribute while they are there.

Retention still matters. Engagement still matters. But neither should be interpreted without considering what is happening to the capabilities underneath them.

A low attrition rate can hide stagnation. A highly tenured workforce can still face a relevance problem. And an organisation can appear stable while becoming progressively less prepared for what comes next.

The organisations that navigate the Stability Paradox successfully will not be those that eliminate change in order to make people feel secure.

They will be those that create enough security for people to keep changing.

Employee Experience Starts Before Day One: An HR Best Practice from Infinite Computer Solutions

By Archita Kapoor, HR Auditor, Top Employers Institute

As part of Top Employer Infinite Computer Solutions commitment to creating a world-class employee experience—one where every candidate feels valued and confident in their decision to join the organisation—the India team introduced an innovative pre-onboarding initiative: the HOPE Team.

At the heart of the HOPE Team’s mission is a commitment to delivering a seamless, engaging, and supportive candidate experience. From the moment an offer is accepted through to an employee’s first day, the team ensures candidates remain informed, connected, and excited as they transition into their new role.

This specialized core team at Infinite Computer Solutions plays a vital role in the hiring process by ensuring candidates stay informed, engaged, and supported throughout their notice period.

This is just a snapshot of Infinite Computer Solutions innovative best practice; you can find the entire practice in our HR Best Practices database, which is exclusively available to Top Employers. Get inspiration and insight into the approach, challenges and learnings experienced by certified Top Employers. Access it now via the Top Employers Programme if you are Certified or learn more about it by reaching out to us!

Why the HOPE team was needed

HOPE stands for HR, operations, prerequisite, and engagement. In the fast-paced and competitive IT industry where candidates typically have a 90-day notice period, it’s crucial to keep them engaged and committed to their new opportunity. The HOPE team was created to maintain constant communication with prospective new hires/ candidates, addressing their concerns, and providing timely follow-ups.

Their team’s dedicated focus on consistent engagement, query resolution, and proactive communication makes all the difference in ensuring that top talent is retained and successfully onboarded.

How the HOPE team came together

The HOPE team consists of five full-time employees, including a team lead, who all have a background in talent acquisition, so they truly understand the recruitment process involved. Infinite Computer Solutions smartly allocated the team members according to business units, so that the team can support onboarding for 250-300 candidates per month.

From the moment the candidate successfully clears the HR interview, the team steps in to build a strong relationship with each candidate. They initiate discussions about the offer, answer all candidate questions, and provide the necessary guidance to help candidates decide and accept the offer.

Once the offer is accepted, their role does not end. They continue to assist candidates by guiding them through the onboarding documentation process and ensuring they are fully prepared to start their new journey at Infinite Computer Solutions

Key touch points for the HOPE Team:

  1. Candidate Engagement from the start. The Hope Team gets involved with candidates right from the moment they clear the HR interview establishing a strong, ensuring that every candidate feels valued and informed.
  2. Offer to Acceptance. The HOPE team offers guidance once an offer is extended; they immediately step in to guide candidates through the offer- acceptance process ensuring that all candidate concerns are addressed.
  3. Regular Follow-ups. During the candidates’ notice period, the scope of the team’s work lies in keeping candidates engaged during this 30 to 90 day period by ensuring timely follow ups, Hiring manager check ins, instant query resolution.
  4. Onboarding Process. The HOPE team offers support after the offer is accepted and continues to play an active role in helping candidates through the onboarding documentation process, guiding them and preparing for their first day within the organization.
  5. Ensuring High Offer-to-Join Conversion. One of the primary KPIs for the HOPE team is ensuring a monthly conversion rate of at least 70% from offer to joining by proactively supporting and nurturing candidates to make sure they follow through on their commitment.

What HOPE team achieved

Post implementation, the HOPE team got credibility not just as a follow-up team but as trusted advisors who ensure that every candidate’s experience is smooth, transparent, and enjoyable during the crucial pre-joining phase. Key results were candidate excitement while joining the company, high offer to joining conversion rates, and reduced offer drop-off rates.

Quintessential Take-Away

For organizations recruiting in markets or countries with a long notice period, bulk hirings and high candidate dropouts, this is a great example to keep candidates engaged and building candidate trust while continuing to focus on Employee delight.

If you’re in HR, the HOPE Team is an inspiring best practice that demonstrates how a thoughtful pre-onboarding experience can strengthen candidate engagement, reduce the risk of offer drop-offs, and create a lasting first impression. It’s a reminder that the employee experience begins the moment a candidate says “yes”—not on their first day.

Rethinking the Blue-Collar Employee Experience: Lessons from South Africa’s Leading Employers

The world of work is changing at an unprecedented pace. Across industries, HR leaders are rethinking how to engage and support employees in a way that goes beyond pay and job security. Nowhere is this more evident than in the experiences of blue-collar employees – often the backbone of operations, yet historically overlooked in organisational transformation strategies.

At Top Employers Institute, our Blue Collar Employee Experience Report highlights the urgent need to create more meaningful, connected, and future-ready workplaces for frontline employees. To bring these findings to life, we recently sat down with HR leaders from Sanlam and Tsebo Solutions Group in a podcast series that explores practical strategies for building purpose, engagement, and growth opportunities across the workforce.

You can watch the full podcast episodes on our YouTube channel and dive deeper into the research by downloading the Blue Collar Employee Experience Report here.

Why the Blue-Collar Experience Matters

Blue-collar employees represent a critical portion of the workforce. From frontline service staff to operational teams in manufacturing, logistics, and facilities management, they directly impact customer experience, business resilience, and brand reputation.

Our research shows that:

  • Only 55% of blue-collar employees feel that their pay reflects their value.
  • Yet engagement and retention rise dramatically when work feels meaningful and connected.
  • Employees increasingly look for flexibility, growth opportunities, and recognition, alongside fair compensation.

The implications are clear: organisations that fail to address the unique needs of blue-collar employees risk losing talent, productivity, and competitiveness. Those that get it right, however, can unlock higher engagement, stronger loyalty, and future-ready capabilities.

First episode with Sanlam – Bridging Blue and White Collar Workforces

In our conversation with Ayesha Davids-Bassadien, Organisational Effectiveness Manager at Sanlam, the focus was on creating a unified employee experience across diverse workforce segments.

Key Takeaways from Sanlam:

  • Connection & Engagement: Sanlam is actively creating structured opportunities for employees at all levels to build meaningful workplace relationships. These initiatives go beyond formal meetings and foster authentic collaboration across blue- and white-collar teams.
  • Purpose at Work: Employees are motivated not only by pay but also by the sense that their work contributes to something greater. Sanlam ensures that staff at every level understand how their roles impact both the organisation and wider society.
  • Safety & Communication: Operational resilience depends on clear, consistent communication. Sanlam invests in communication structures that promote both employee wellbeing and business continuity.
  • Preparing for the Future: As AI and digital transformation reshape industries, Sanlam is investing in skills training and career pathways that equip employees for long-term success.

Ayesha emphasised that flexibility is emerging as a powerful driver of engagement, often rivalling financial incentives. By balancing operational demands with employee needs, Sanlam is building a more resilient and motivated workforce.

Episode 2 with Tsebo Solutions Group – Empowering the Frontline

Our discussion with Elanie Kruger, Group CHRO at Tsebo Solutions Group, highlighted how blue-collar employees can thrive when given purpose, community, and growth opportunities.

Key Takeaways from Tsebo:

  • Purpose Beyond Pay: While compensation remains important, Tsebo recognises that engagement increases dramatically when employees feel their work is meaningful. Initiatives that highlight impact and contribution play a crucial role.
  • Community & Belonging: For many blue-collar employees, the workplace is their primary social environment. Tsebo fosters connection through team-building, recognition, and initiatives that build community on the frontline.
  • Flexibility & Retention: Providing greater control over schedules and work-life balance, while meeting operational needs, has proven to be a critical retention tool.
  • Future Skills: As frontline roles evolve, Tsebo is redesigning the employee experience to ensure staff remain motivated, skilled, and ready for the future of work.

Elanie also underscored the importance of sharing practical HR lessons. By focusing on connection, purpose, and development, HR leaders can unlock higher engagement and reduce turnover in blue-collar segments.

The Bigger Picture: Building a Better World of Work

The stories from Sanlam and Tsebo align strongly with the findings of our Blue Collar Employee Experience Report. Together, they paint a clear picture:

  • Engagement is no longer about pay alone—it’s about connection, flexibility, and growth.
  • Organisations that empower frontline employees with skills, purpose, and community will be best positioned to thrive in the future of work.
  • HR leaders must actively design experiences that are inclusive of all employee groups, recognising that blue-collar employees are critical drivers of business performance and resilience.

At Top Employers Institute, we believe that certification, benchmarking, and shared best practices provide organisations with the insights they need to continuously improve the employee experience. Through our global community of certified Top Employers, we see how forward-thinking HR strategies can drive both organisational success and employee fulfilment.

The challenge for HR leaders today is not just to retain talent but to create environments where employees—blue-collar and white-collar alike—feel connected, valued, and prepared for the future. As Sanlam and Tsebo Solutions Group demonstrate, organisations that prioritise purpose, engagement, and development can transform the blue-collar experience into a powerful source of resilience and growth.

👉 Watch the full podcast series on our YouTube channel
👉 Download the full Blue Collar Employee Experience Report here: Rethinking Blue-Collar Employee Experience At Top Employers Institute, our mission is to help organisations grow as recognised employers of choice -because when people thrive at work, businesses thrive too.

Top trends in employee engagement for 2025

Employee engagement strategies are changing rapidly as organisations navigate shifting workforce expectations, hybrid models, global political changes and purpose-driven cultures. While the employee engagement definition once centred on satisfaction and productivity, today’s organisations recognise that engagement is deeply intertwined with wellbeing, belonging, and growth.

Employee engagement is, according to Gallup, ‘the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in both their work and workplace.’ It is this enthusiasm and involvement in their work that enable highly engaged employees to outperform less engaged employees in businesses that are critical to an organisation’s success. Gallup found that in 2024, 21% of employees across the globe were described as engaged, down from an all-time high of 23% in 2023. That only highlights the continued importance of prioritising and implementing practices and policies that for

In our World of Work Trends 2025 report, we found that transforming the employee experience is crucial for blue-collar workers in a way that had previously been underestimated, highlighting that employee experience is more important than ever.

In this article, we explore the top employee engagement trends shaping the future of work and how leading companies are utilising more holistic employee engagement models to drive performance and maintain employee retention.

What is employee engagement

Understanding the definition of employee engagement is essential before exploring the trends that impact this critical metric. Employee engagement is when employees feel a strong, emotional connection to their work and the company. It is more than just being happy or content in their work; employee engagement relates more to how deeply an employee feels invested in contributing to an organisation’s overall business success. It is with this deeper connection that we see an employee’s emotional commitment, cognitive focus and behavioural dedication to their workplace.

Purpose and meaning are at the core of it all

The desire to work for an organisation with a clear commitment to creating a ‘positive impact’ on the world is not new. In our 2023 World of Work Trends report, we found that employees are no longer driven solely by financial rewards, but rather by a sense of purpose. Harvard Business Corporate Learning also found that 52% of job seekers would not accept a job offer if they did not agree with a company’s values or purpose.

High employee engagement is increasingly linked to a strong sense of purpose, and organisations have taken this information to help them rebuild how they communicate their values to potential and current employees. Employees who believe their role makes a positive impact are significantly more likely to be committed and motivated. Organisations are embedding purpose into everyday work through values-driven leadership, transparent communication, and societal impact initiatives.

Aligning purpose with performance is a key differentiator in today’s employee experience and engagement strategies.

Flexibility is no longer negotiable

The last five years of work have been marked by disruption, with many organisations rethinking how they allow their people to structure their time. The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a new era of flexibility that employees readily adopted, as evidenced by their increased employee engagement scores. When employees have more flexibility in their schedules, they tend to be more engaged.

Employees who feel they have control over when and how they work report higher employee engagement, improved wellbeing, and stronger performance. Yet, poor employee engagement often correlates with rigid scheduling and a lack of autonomy. In response, many companies are reimagining roles, workflows, and expectations to increase adaptability.

While flexibility may have seemed like a pandemic-era trend, its impact on employee wellbeing proves that it is untrue. It is no longer a perk but a necessity. Flexibility is not just about remote work; it’s about trust, choice, and designing roles around people, not just processes.

Wellbeing as a strategic pillar

The impact of wellbeing extends beyond how people feel, encompassing the number of sick days a person takes, their performance at work, burnout, and the likelihood of leaving the organisation. Wellbeing is interlinked with employee engagement in a way that should not be underestimated.

When comparing employees who are engaged but not thriving with those who are engaged and thriving, Gallup found that those who aren’t thriving report the following risks:

  • 61% had a higher likelihood of burnout often or always;
  • 48% higher probability of daily stress;
  • 66% higher likelihood of daily worry;  
  • Double the rate of daily sadness and anger.

Research like this shows that burnout, stress, and mental health challenges continue to be critical issues affecting employee engagement. Companies that integrate wellbeing into their culture, not as a separate initiative but as a strategic driver, are seeing measurable improvements in retention and performance.

Organisations that aim to enhance their employee wellbeing efforts will adopt a holistic approach by examining career wellbeing, social wellbeing, financial wellbeing, physical wellbeing, and community wellbeing. This can be achieved through the offering of mental health resources, financial health resources, and more.

Wellbeing is being redefined as a business-critical investment, and organisations that are working towards improving their offerings are looking at it holistically, from psychological safety and manageable workloads to access to mental health resources.

Skills development and career progression

Career stagnation is a leading cause of poor employee engagement. A 2022 study found that 74% of employees feel they aren’t reaching their full potential at work due to a lack of available development opportunities, indicating that organisations that do not invest in skills development for their people may be losing out.

In contrast, companies that foster continuous learning, transparent growth paths, and internal mobility report stronger loyalty and discretionary effort, leading to enhanced employee engagement scores.

Organisations that want to integrate skills development into their workplace can consider microlearning platforms, coaching cultures, and cross-functional development experiences, as these have been shown to help employees see a future within the business, rather than outside it, thereby improving their employee engagement.

Final thoughts

Employee engagement trends are in constant evolution, and for forward-thinking organisations, this evolution occurs alongside the workforce. Successful organisations are investing in people-first, data-driven and purpose-led strategies rather than relying on outdated practices and policies. These companies are focusing on what matters most – their people, and this drives them to constantly improve their policies to build a work culture that is successful and sustainable.