What IC can learn from NASA about engagement

Amid a challenging global news week, it was a genuine bright spot to see NASA’s Artemis II mission carry four astronauts around the Moon. I’ll admit, I even shed a tear when they proposed naming a crater “Carroll”, a tribute to Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman’s late wife.

For as long as I can remember, stories from NASA have been used to illustrate employee engagement. I’ve heard many leaders recount the (possibly apocryphal) story of John F. Kennedy visiting NASA in 1962. During the tour, he asks a janitor what he does.

“I’m helping put a man on the moon.”

It’s a nice story. And I’ve heard leaders recount it multiple times to describe what an engaged employee looks like — someone who understands how their role connects to the organisational purpose and is motivated to do their best as a result.

Global engagement has fallen again!

This week, Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2026 report landed in my inbox. It’s again a sobering read. Global engagement has fallen for the second consecutive year, now sitting at 20%. In the UK, just 10% of employees are engaged. The estimated cost? Around $10 trillion in lost productivity we’re told.

We have seen little movement on these numbers over recent years despite action plans, and campaigns, which begs the questions – "why bother"?  My business partner Howard goes even further and says that it’s time for us to move on from engagement altogether.

Also, if 20% isn’t the right number, what is? And what would it feel like to work in a firm with 100% engagement?

What is engagement anyway?

"Employee engagement” has become a widely used term, but with no consistent definition or ways of measuring it. Increasingly it’s been used as a proxy for how great an organisation is to work for, and how their employees feel. In fact, it probably tells us very little about what’s actually going on.

Let’s take the recent case at Co-Op, where senior managers complained of a toxic culture, with senior managers scared to raise concerns. The response included the phrase: “colleague engagement remains high…”

High engagement scores don’t necessarily mean a healthy culture. And low scores don’t always tell you what needs to change.

Internal Comms does not own employee engagement

Internal communications teams can’t fix poor leadership, broken systems or toxic cultures, but we can influence a great deal of what employees experience. We help create the conditions for dialogue, bring clarity to organisational purpose, and show people where they fit. But that’s only one part of a much bigger picture.

Five ways IC can help to build a great place to work

1. You can’t survey your way to a great place to work

Instead of asking, “How do we increase the engagement score ?”, a better question is: what’s getting in the way of people doing their best work, and how can Internal Communications help?

2. Make dialogue part of the operating model

Putting people at the heart is not about asking for feedback once a year. It means creating regular, credible opportunities for employees to ask questions, raise concerns and influence what happens next. Almost more importantly, people need to see that leaders respond to what they hear. Listening without visible action quickly becomes performative. And IC can play a critical role in creating and delivering on the feedback loop.

3. Support leaders to communicate authentically

Employees do not need leaders to sound perfect. They need them to sound clear, human and credible. Internal communicators have an important role in helping leaders explain what is happening, what is not yet known, and what it means for people.

4. Focus on the conditions for trust and contribution

If people are to do their best work, they need clarity, manageable workloads, good line management and confidence that speaking up is safe. Internal communication can support these conditions, but we should not pretend that on our own we can fix them.

5. Measure what people experience, not just how they score

Internal communicators should look beyond headline scores and pay attention to whether people understand priorities, feel informed, know where to go for support, trust leaders and believe their voices matters. These are often more useful signs of whether an organisation is truly putting people at the heart.

The NASA janitor didn’t need an engagement survey to feel connected to his purpose. So, perhaps it’s time to stop chasing engagement scores, and start building the conditions for people to thrive instead.