25 Inspirational employee engagement quotes

Have your employee engagement efforts hit a brick wall? It happens. We all need a little bit of inspiration from time to time. We’re here to help you out. If you’re looking for a little motivation, we’ve compiled a handy list of 25 employee engagement quotes from experts, authors and business leaders. Each quote can teach us about employee engagement and how it impacts performance, productivity, morale and business success.

We have divided the engagement quotes into five sections, in accordance with our Pearl™ employee experience model. Our model has been created by combining business experience, occupational psychology, extensive literature reviews and statistical analysis of over 20 million data points. Take some time to consider Purpose, Enablement, Autonomy, Reward and Leadership and you will notice a marked improvement in employee engagement and employee experience.

Related: Check out these 50 employee engagement statistics

Engagement quotes relating to Purpose (Integrity and Alignment)

1. “Connect the dots between individual roles and the goals of the organisation. When people see that connection, they get a lot of energy out of work. They feel the importance, dignity and meaning in their job.” — Ken Blanchard
2. “If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.”  — Simon Sinek
3. “There are only three measurements that tell you nearly everything you need to know about your organisation’s overall performance: employee engagement, customer satisfaction and cash flow. It goes without saying that no company, small or large, can win over the long run without energised employees who believe in the mission and understand how to achieve it.” — Jack Welch.
4. “When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute.” — Simon Sinek
5. “Employee engagement is the art and science of engaging people in authentic and recognised connections to strategy, roles, performance, organisation, community, relationship, customers, development, energy and happiness to leverage, sustain and transform work into results.” — David Zinger.

Engagement quotes relating to Enablement (Resources and Community)

6. “Instead of giving managers all the power, the best customer experience companies arm all employees with the tools to fix customer problems and empower them to make decisions.” — Blake Morgan
7. “Create caring and robust connections between every employee and their work, customers, leaders, managers and the organisation to achieve results that matter to everyone in this sentence.” — David Zinger
8. “For most of them, it can be summed up by one of four things: They love what they do (their JOB), they love the Disney brand (their ORGANISATION), they love their manager (their BOSS) or they love the people they work with (their SQUAD).” — Pete Blank
9. “Individual commitment to a group effort–that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilisation work.” —Vince Lombardi
10. “Humans, because of necessity, evolved into social beings. Dependence on and cooperation with each other enhanced our ability to survive under harsh environmental circumstances. Although the survival threats of these circumstances have lessened in today’s world, people continue to have a need to affiliate with others. Indeed, the lack of such connections can lead to many problems, including loneliness.” — Shoba Sreenivasan

Engagement quotes relating to Autonomy (Mastery and Wellbeing)

11. “Everyone enjoys doing the kind of work for which he is best suited.” — Napoleon Hill
12. “The key element of engagement is trust; building trust requires companies to provide workers with as much autonomy and flexibility as possible.” – Matt Charney
13. “You must immerse yourself in your work. You have to fall in love with your work … You must dedicate your life to mastering your skill. That’s the secret of success.” ― Chef Jiro
14. “Healthy and engaged employees, in concert with a strong workplace culture, are the secret sauce for business success.” — Naz Beheshti
15. “An effective workplace well-being programme can deliver mutual benefit to people, organisations, economies and communities. When people are happy and well, businesses can thrive and societies flourish.” — CIPD

Engagement quotes relating to Reward (Growth and Recognition)

16. “People want to know they matter and they want to be treated as people. That’s the new talent contract.” — Pamela Stroko
17. “The way your employees feel is the way your customers will feel. And if your employees don’t feel valued, neither will your customers.” — Sybil F. Stershic
18. “Everyone wants to be appreciated, so if you appreciate someone, don’t keep it a secret.” — Mary Kay Ash
19. “What if you train your people and they leave? Worse is not training them and they stay.” —  Henry Ford
20. “Research indicates that workers have three prime needs: Interesting work, recognition for doing a good job and being let in on things that are going on in the company.” — Zig Ziglar

Engagement quotes relating to Leadership (Senior Leaders and Line Managers)

21. “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.” — Max DePree
22. “Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.” — Stephen Covey
23. “Employees who believe that management is concerned about them as a whole person – not just an employee — are more productive, more satisfied, more fulfilled. Satisfied employees mean satisfied customers, which leads to profitability.” — Anne Mulcahy
24. “The real damper on employee engagement is the soggy, cold blanket of centralised authority. In most companies, power cascades downwards from the CEO. Not only are employees disenfranchised from most policy decisions, they lack even the power to rebel against egocentric and tyrannical supervisors.” — Gary Hamel
25. “You manage things; you lead people.” — Grace Hopper

We hope you’ve been inspired and motivated to bring about some real positive change within your organisation. We help companies navigate organisational change successfully every day, while improving levels of employee engagement, morale and belonging. To find out how improved levels of employee engagement can make a marked impact on your bottom line and company performance, contact us now.

Get in touch today to find out how our employee engagement surveys can turn your organisation around and create an inspirational employee experience.