Employee Engagement Is Dead: Why Fulfillment Is the New Metric for Workplace Success

We’re past the point of asking whether employees are “engaged.” As I stated in a recent SHRM webcast, Employee Engagement is Dead. It’s an idea that served us in the past but no longer meets the needs of today’s workforce or business landscape. The real question is: if employee engagement is dead, what’s next?

The answer lies in a radical shift from engagement to fulfillment. This transition is essential to not only support employees but also to build resilient, high-performing organizations.

The Problem with Engagement 

Think back to the evolution of the business environment. Thirty years ago, companies managed physical assets. Today, most companies’ value lies in intangibles—intellectual property, brand reputation, and innovation. We operate in a knowledge economy that requires a different management approach. Yet, for decades, organizations have focused on employee engagement—an idea based on “productivity obsession.” While productivity is important, pushing engagement to the point of obsession has led to burnout, stress, and quiet quitting.

The Transition from Engagement to Fulfillment 

If engagement is dead, what replaces it? The new metric is fulfillment, defined as the extent to which employees feel they are developing in meaningful, goal-oriented ways. Fulfillment connects employees to the impact they make, allowing them to grow personally and professionally while achieving organizational goals. For the business, organizational fulfillment means hitting key performance targets and sustaining growth.

At Culture Partners, we partnered with Stanford University to analyze data from 243 companies over three years. Our research showed that organizations with a strong, fulfilling culture achieved four times the revenue growth of companies with weaker cultures. The data speaks: fulfilled employees drive results.

The Path to Fulfillment: It Starts with Beliefs 

Engagement often focuses on action—doing specific tasks to stay productive. However, fulfillment goes deeper. It requires alignment in beliefs, which in turn influence actions and drive results. By focusing on beliefs, leaders can create a culture where employees genuinely want to contribute to the organization’s purpose.

Here’s how this can work in practice. A healthcare leader I worked with was struggling to get her team to consistently complete critical “next-of-kin” forms in the emergency room. Traditional engagement tactics like training sessions and system improvements didn’t move the needle. But when she shared real stories showing how this form directly impacted patient outcomes, the team’s beliefs changed, and compliance skyrocketed to 97%. This wasn’t about doing more—it was about seeing the purpose behind their actions.

Key Steps to Shift from Engagement to Fulfillment 

Align on New Results: Define what success looks like beyond profit. At Culture Partners, our goal is to impact 5 million lives by 2025. For your organization, identify meaningful, measurable, and memorable outcomes that resonate with your team.

Activate Beliefs with Experiences: Create experiences that build new, positive beliefs. Storytelling, recognition, and feedback are powerful, cost-effective ways to shape a fulfilling culture. These experiences shift perspectives, leading to actions that support the organization’s goals.

Use Positive Accountability: Accountability should be empowering, not punitive. It’s about focusing on what can be controlled to drive desired outcomes. This approach transforms accountability from a burden into a tool for growth and development.

Assess and Optimize Continuously: Measure culture by looking at fulfillment indicators, like retention, job satisfaction, and alignment between individual and organizational goals.

Moving Forward: The Era of Fulfillment 

If we want both people and profit to thrive, it’s time to graduate from employee engagement. In a workplace where fulfillment is prioritized, employees are intrinsically motivated, invested in the organization’s mission, and poised to make meaningful impacts. By focusing on beliefs, not just actions, we unlock a higher level of performance and satisfaction, benefiting everyone involved.

To achieve lasting success, we must build workplace cultures that prioritize fulfillment. For more on this transformative approach, visit Culture Partners or learn more from my insights at Jessica Kriegel.

Written by Jessica Kriegel.
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