I gave a keynote on 2015-06-17 at the Employee Engagement and Awards conference in NYC. This is a loose version of my notes from that talk.

This will be included in the compilation of Paradoxes of Engagement essays that I will be publishing in the next month or so. Paid subscribers will get immediate and free access to that ebook.

As you read, reflect on the fact that these issues were fairly well understood in 2015, and today, in 2022, we really haven’t made much progress on engagement. Alas.

My topic today is The Future of Engagement, but I start with the present, where employee engagement is pretty horrible. How horrible? Very horrible. And why? One big reason: bad bosses.

• Only 21% feel appreciated at work, and 49% are not satisfied with their direct supervisor 1