September 8, 2026
New Terryberry research highlights a need to improve engagement program connection for remote employees
According to Terryberry’s 2026 Employee Engagement Impact Report, remote employees are nearly 20% less likely than hybrid and in-office employees to say their organization's engagement programs work well together. What does that mean for HR leaders?
Over the last five years, flexible and remote work have gone from exception to expectation. According to Gallup, one-third of employees with remote-capable jobs now prefer fully remote work, and six in 10 want a hybrid work arrangement.
In turn, employers are under new pressure to engage employees from home offices to corporate conference rooms.
Employee engagement programs, such as recognition, rewards, wellness, and employee feedback, are often central to that effort. But these initiatives may not always feel cohesive, especially for remote employees.
With fewer opportunities for informal, in-person recognition and feedback, remote employees often rely more on structured programs to feel part of the workplace. To ensure this group finds value in engagement initiatives, employers need to design programs with their needs in mind.
Read on for strategies to build connected engagement programs that support remote employees and drive key outcomes like retention, motivation, and performance for your organization.
Key Takeaways
- Remote employees are nearly 20% less likely than hybrid and in-office employees to say their organization's engagement programs work well together.
- HR leaders can improve program connection by tracking employee achievements, using feedback to guide engagement efforts, and centralizing engagement data.
- By connecting recognition, rewards, wellness, and employee feedback, organizations can build engagement programs that deliver greater value for remote employees and their workforce at large.
Why do employee engagement programs matter for remote employees?
Remote employee engagement is often difficult to track. While employers can measure outputs like meeting attendance and completed deadlines, those metrics don’t tell the full story. A remote employee can appear productive even as their connection to the work or organization starts to fade.
Another challenge is that remote employees have fewer opportunities for informal recognition. In person, an employee might feel appreciated through a quick conversation with a colleague or an impromptu celebration of a recent team win.
In remote environments, however, more responsibility for recognizing employees falls to managers. Without the spontaneous interactions of a physical workplace, remote employees may go longer without feeling acknowledged or valued.
To help employees feel recognized, supported, and heard in the workplace, many employers implement structured employee engagement programs. And our research shows these programs have a clear impact: More than four in five employees (83%) say engagement programs have at least somewhat influenced their decision to stay at their current job.
However, not all engagement programs account for the specific needs of remote employees. By focusing on what makes an engagement experience effective for remote employees, HR leaders can start to refine their approach.
Why do remote employees experience engagement programs as less connected?
One way employers can improve their engagement efforts is by connecting individual engagement programs. For example, this might look like:
- Offering incentives such as additional PTO for participating in wellness programs (connecting wellness and rewards programs)
- Asking employees for annual feedback on how to improve recognition programs (connecting feedback and recognition programs)
Our findings show that connected employee engagement programs can amplify the impact on retention: 70% of employees who say their organization's engagement programs are well connected also say those programs have significantly influenced them to stay at their job. Among employees who don't see that level of connection, just 22% say the same.
Cohesion across engagement efforts is often missing for remote employees, who are 20% less likely than hybrid and in-office employees to say their organization's engagement programs work well together.
Consider where connection between engagement programs can break down for remote employees:
- While an in-office employee might join colleagues for a team lunch to celebrate completing a wellness challenge, a remote employee might only receive a congratulatory message, with no follow-up or additional reward.
- Hybrid employees may have an opportunity to share feedback about engagement programs during an in-person discussion with HR leaders, while remote employees aren’t asked for their feedback.
Even if engagement programs seem connected in theory, the connection may not translate for remote employees. When HR leaders focus on improving program continuity and visibility, they can create more cohesive engagement experiences for employees across all work environments.
How to build a connected engagement program for remote employees
To close gaps in the remote employee experience, HR leaders can start by considering how engagement programs connect and reinforce one another.
The following three strategies can help build stronger connections across programs:
1. Track employee achievements to strengthen recognition
Remote employee milestones can easily go overlooked without the visibility of an in-person workplace. This can lead to remote employees completing a major project with little recognition or passing a work anniversary without acknowledgment.
Automated tracking helps prevent these moments from slipping through the cracks. For example, a system might notify a manager when their direct report closes a project, prompting them to recognize the achievement and send a timely reward.
To further connect engagement efforts, a platform might also track participation in workplace wellness challenges, enabling employers to automatically award recognition points when a remote employee reaches a wellness goal.
When employee achievements are visible through automated workflows, employers can take coordinated action across engagement programs to recognize remote employees.
2. Use continuous listening to inform other engagement efforts
Managers lose critical visibility when employees work remotely. Without everyday conversations and interactions, it can be harder to gather feedback informally and gauge how employees feel.
Continuous employee listening, such as weekly, monthly, and quarterly surveys, can help fill those gaps. Remote employees can use structured feedback opportunities to share their experiences, giving employers insight to respond.
For example, if survey results show that remote employees are disproportionately struggling with burnout and work-life balance, employers could introduce a targeted wellness challenge or incentive program. Or an employer might compare survey feedback with recognition activity to assess whether remote employees are being recognized consistently.
By using employee feedback programs as a data source, HR leaders can better adjust engagement efforts and show remote employees their input leads to action.
3. Centralize engagement programs and data
Many organizations collect employee feedback through one platform, disseminate recognition and rewards through another, and deliver wellness programs through a third. But when program data is spread across multiple systems, it's difficult to track the true results of engagement efforts.
By unifying engagement programs in a single system, HR leaders can connect employee sentiment, recognition data, and wellness program activity to gain a more complete picture of the remote employee experience.
For example, program analytics might show that remote employees who report higher burnout levels also utilize wellness programs less frequently. In turn, HR leaders can focus on offering clear, accessible incentives that encourage remote employees to participate.
A centralized engagement platform is a win-win: It streamlines access to engagement programs for remote employees while helping program administrators make targeted improvements using connected data.
Build a connected engagement experience for remote employees
Remote employees have fewer opportunities for the informal recognition, feedback, and connection that happen naturally in person. But by designing engagement programs to work together, HR leaders can create consistent opportunities for remote employees to feel recognized, supported, and heard.
Whether your workforce is fully remote, entirely on-site, or somewhere in between, designing connected engagement experiences can help maximize the impact of every initiative.
To learn more about how employees view workplace engagement programs and how HR leaders can improve program effectiveness, explore the entire 2026 Employee Engagement Impact Report.
Methodology
Terryberry surveyed 1,000 full-time U.S. employees aged 18 years or older, working at companies with 500-2,000 employees. Respondents spanned organizational levels from individual contributors to executives, including desk and deskless workers across the construction, healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, and retail industries.
