UK businesses have long had a problem in engaging and motivating their people, with British employees among the least engaged and most emotionally stressed in Europe.
According to Gallup’s 2025 State of the Global Workforce survey, just 10% of UK employees feel engaged at work – below the European average of 13% – and more than a quarter (26%) report feeling sadness ‘a lot of the day’ while working.
Such low engagement costs the global economy nearly $9tn a year. So how can businesses build more meaning and better levels of connection for their employees?
“The pandemic obviously brought a big shift in how we all work, and while many organisations have gone back to working in person, the disconnect that grew during that period is still there. There are also bigger societal shifts like the rise of social media and even AI, where we go to our phone for advice rather than a person. This has led to an erosion in skills like relating to people and building rapport,” says Dr Mary-Clare Race, CEO at coaching consultancy Talking Talent.
These societal changes mean employees are increasingly looking for purpose and connection at work – particularly among younger generations. A 2024 Deloitte survey found that 86% of Gen Zers and 89% of millennials say that having a sense of purpose is very or somewhat important to their overall job satisfaction. Race agrees that businesses need to recognise this desire for connection – but also understand the wider benefits it can bring.
“If you can create an environment and a culture where people can come together and feel they belong, connect and achieve good work, then these are the ingredients for a productive, high-performance environment,” she says.
Leaders as culture creators
Building this working environment starts with an organisation’s leadership and management structures. An earlier Gallup State of the Workplace survey found that 70% of the variance in a team’s engagement is related to management, with leaders creating the conditions for an engaged (or not) workforce.
As the report says: “The manager is either an engagement-creating coach or an engagement-destroying boss, but both relationships affect employee behaviour.”
Consequently, building a connected culture requires leaders and managers who have empathy, curiosity and the ability to relate to different people. Yet too often, businesses fail to provide the necessary coaching and training for leaders to develop these skills.
Race acknowledges that the past decade has been a challenging one for leaders, with crisis after crisis mounting up, but says there is “a huge gap between how we need our leaders to show up and how we’re equipping them to do so”.
“The ultimate goal of a leader is to harness the potential of every single person in their team. That starts with connection. Am I connected to this person? Do they feel like they can bring their best here? Can they ask questions and raise challenges? Our aim is to support leaders to be effective communicators and relationship builders,” she adds.
Talking Talent’s coaching philosophy is about helping organisations, leaders and individuals become more connected by changing behaviours. The consultancy uses a four-step model to embed behavioural change in its coachees, starting with preparing individuals to make adjustments to their behaviour and try new things.
“We know it’s not enough to coach or train someone – first you have to get them into the learning state so they are ready to try something new,” says Race.
The second stage is the learning process, where individuals learn about the new skill or mindset shift they are training to embed. Next comes learning amplification, where new skills are pushed deeper so that they become a natural way of behaving, rather than something at a surface-level. Finally, coaches work with coachees on converting learning into new habits and ways of working in their job or leadership role.
Ripple effect
Targeting personalised coaching towards deeper, systemic behavioural change means that interventions often have a wider consequence beyond the individual. The ripple effect of improving a leader’s ability to connect with their employees means that not only do their teams perform better and their organisations retain talent for longer, but team members often develop better management skills and behaviours too. This is how organisations embed lasting cultural change.
Additionally, as individuals build more effective interpersonal behaviours at work, these new abilities often bleed into their personal lives. Many report stronger relationships with family members and friends as a result of their coaching, something that is ‘very rewarding’ for Race and her team.
Race acknowledges that some leaders remain sceptical of the effectiveness of coaching, but argues that it should be seen as an investment in a leader’s personal development.
“I think there is a recognition that working with coaches is a solid business leadership strategy. There used to be a tendency to think coaching was for remedial purposes – that if you needed a coach, something was wrong or broken. Now, it’s about developing new skills and making sure your leadership style is effective,” she says.
“I often use the analogy of professional sports. The best players wouldn’t expect to play without having a coach to guide and motivate them, and business leadership shouldn’t be any different,” she adds.
The world of work continues to face rapid transformation, with new working models, the impact of technology and a future where five different generations will work together. Dealing with these myriad challenges requires leaders to build a connected, inclusive culture, where employees feel a sense of belonging and engagement.
However, the first step to achieving this is acknowledging that leaders themselves require support and coaching to grow and build new skills. After all, effective coaching doesn’t just support individual leaders – it shapes the entire organisational culture they create.
UK businesses have long had a problem in engaging and motivating their people, with British employees among the least engaged and most emotionally stressed in Europe.
According to Gallup’s 2025 State of the Global Workforce survey, just 10% of UK employees feel engaged at work - below the European average of 13% - and more than a quarter (26%) report feeling sadness ‘a lot of the day’ while working.
Such low engagement costs the global economy nearly $9tn a year. So how can businesses build more meaning and better levels of connection for their employees?
