Keeping employees engaged when there’s so much going on in the world, the workplace, and the wider job market feels like a task that only gets harder.
Now, layer in the everyday realities of remote and hybrid working:
Some are thriving. Others are feeling overlooked. Many are building their own rhythms to make it work.
Remote workers don’t just miss out on watercooler moments. They often miss recognition, growth conversations, or quick clarifications that happen more naturally in an office.
Hybrid workers switch contexts constantly, trying to balance two very different environments without letting anything slip. It takes effort. And it requires support.
At the same time, expectations have shifted. People want to work in ways that respect their time and energy. They expect clear communication, tools that actually help them get things done, and systems that understand who they are and what they need.
This report delves into the dynamic intersection of AI and HR Service Delivery, unveiling five compelling use cases where AI technologies can catalyze significant improvements. Read Now.
When those expectations aren’t met, they don’t stick around.
Your people look elsewhere. And when they leave, the cost to replace them can be up to twice their annual salary, according to Gallup.
The good news? Flexibility works. Teamcamp reports that organizations offering remote and hybrid options are seeing reductions in employee turnover between 25 and 50 percent.
But flexibility alone isn’t what drives engagement and long-term retention. It’s flexibility paired with seamless support, powered by modern HR Service Delivery. This includes unified self-service, robust knowledge, and clear, automated processes for key transitions.
When done right, these systems reduce friction, build trust, and support engagement, without needing to be engagement tools themselves.
Employees today want good pay, seamless support, flexible tools shaped around their needs, and meaningful recognition, especially when they’re working outside the office.
To meet those expectations, HR must create connected, human-centered experiences across every channel.
To do that sustainably, especially in leaner times when you're expected to do more with less, your service delivery foundation needs to be strong, scalable, and flexible.
How to engage employees has never been more important. We now have a deeper understanding of who they are and what they carry with them into the workday.
Employees manage demanding roles while facing personal responsibilities that often go unnoticed. They continue to show up, give their best, and carry the weight of both worlds without asking for praise or recognition.
They:
HR teams like yours are responsible for supporting both sides of that experience. That means helping employees stay productive at work while making it easier to navigate the many challenges beyond it.
In hybrid and remote environments, information in-person moments have become rarer or no longer happen at all.
Without hallway conversations or quick check-ins, it can be harder for employees to feel connected.
Without daily in-person contact, a sense of belonging can quickly fade. According to Gallup, only 30% of remote workers feel strongly connected to their company’s mission.
HR service delivery helps close that gap. With the right systems in place, support becomes consistent, accessible, and responsive across every location, shift pattern, and timezone.
When casual interactions disappear, HR technology must step in with practical solutions. This includes self-service support, easy access to accurate information, timely communication, and thoughtful recognition that reaches every team.
According to Phase 3, organizations that prioritise this kind of engagement and recognition see up to 202% higher revenue growth and experience 87% lower turnover.
Engagement grows when employees feel supported in the moments that matter.
By nature, remote employees think differently. They have to.
To really understand the mindset of a remote worker, you probably need to try it for a considerable amount of time to immerse yourself in the experience.
But, if that’s not possible, it’s important to understand the key characteristics:
🔍 The Author's Perspective - I'm a remote worker:
Somehow, I won a few rounds. That was unexpected because I used to skip rugby practice just to hide in the school library with my copy of Of Mice and Men, so sport has never been my strength.
The point is, those rare in-person moments matter when your rhythm looks and feels nothing like someone who commutes.
At home, I live with a Jug—a Jack Russell and Pug cross—with separation anxiety. She expects me to be nearby as often as possible. I’m also about to become a first-time parent. Working remotely means I can skip the commute and fit in small tasks during lunch. It helps me stay productive and avoid burnout.
That’s why smart workplace tech, a strong culture, and the right systems matter. They keep us connected and supported, wherever we are."
My experience probably isn’t that unique. Remote workers everywhere are navigating similar complexities that push traditional working styles further out of reach—from juggling personal demands to maintaining a high level of motivation without the rhythm of an office.
That’s why organizations who offer remote work need strategies designed for remote work. That means building support systems around the realities of how we think, feel, and behave.
Here are some key areas where the remote mindset reveals what’s needed to drive engagement and satisfaction:
Remote engagement takes work.
Good design, supported by the right HR service delivery suite, meaningful leadership, and a strong cultural foundation, helps employees feel connected, empowered, and ready to succeed from wherever they work.
When organizations lean into the realities of remote work and build strategies around them employees stay engaged.
Hybrid work is a challenging feat that requires a spectrum of adaptable capabilities from your employees. These employees are your company chameleons.
They move between environments, switching context, tone, and routines depending on where they are and who they’re with.
Medium reports people lose between 20% and 40% of productivity due to context-switching, and each switch can cost over 20 minutes of recovery time.
Without the right HR technology in place to create consistency, support transitions, and reduce noise, hybrid employees feel that cost more than most.
It takes awareness, discipline, and emotional intelligence to balance the demands of both home and office life while staying focused, committed, and productive. Here are the key characteristics:
Hybrid workers move between two very different work settings, often within the same week. That brings with it a mental load: managing visibility, shifting routines, and staying connected to colleagues who may never all be in the same room at the same time.
Support needs to reflect that complexity. It should reduce friction, create clarity, and provide space for people to reset and re-engage across environments.
Here’s where strategy makes a real difference:
Hybrid is a distinct working style. It brings its own mix of demands and potential. When organizations recognize what hybrid workers need to thrive, they can create working experiences that feel more balanced, inclusive, and sustainable.
When employees feel seen, supported, and equipped to do their jobs, engagement follows.
For many organizations, dedicated employee engagement software helps shape culture by surfacing feedback and sentiment. But that only tells part of the story. Tools like this don’t operate in isolation.
Engagement is sustained by the everyday experiences employees have with the systems that do support them: systems that remove barriers, reduce friction, and make it easier to stay connected and confident at work.
Flexible workers in particular need HR technology that understands their reality. That means self-service tools that help them solve problems fast, support systems that adapt to their lives, and access to information that doesn’t waste time or effort.
Workplace technology should empower your people in practical, meaningful ways, including:
Benefits access and awareness
As an employer, you’ve spent time and budget creating a valuable benefits package. If employees can’t easily access what they’re entitled to, that value is lost.
Employees shouldn’t need to dig through multiple systems just to understand what’s available to them. Offerings like mental health support, dental reimbursement plans, and gym memberships are underutilized when they’re hard to find or activate.
Service delivery platforms can improve this experience by helping employees:
Communication That Reaches Everyone
Culture isn’t defined in a day, it’s an environment you’ve worked hard to build, with the right people, your employees, as your ambassadors. As a HR leader, you can’t let poor communication chip away at that.
If your employees can’t access the information that brings your mission, values, or goals to life, especially across different time zones, roles, and working patterns, they’ll miss the moments that connect them to the organization.
Communication that empowers employees includes:
Tech That Actually Works for Your People
Scattered systems, multiple logins, outdated interfaces, and poor mobile experiences make simple tasks feel like a chore, and they waste everyone’s time.
Technology should remove friction. It should adapt to the way your employees work:
Empowering and Engaging Self-Service Support
As your organization grows and scales, your teams might be spread across the globe. When your employees are spread across locations and time zones, your HR team needs to remain responsive and become proactive for all your employees.
Support should be instant, accurate, and accessible from anywhere, at all times. Employees want tools that empower them to solve simple queries quickly and raise complex issues with confidence:
Ongoing Recognition and Career Growth Support
When your most important customers, your employees, are dispersed away from the office environment, working from cafes or home offices, recognition can’t wait for a quarterly review:
Engaging and retaining remote and hybrid employees is all about understanding how their needs and experiences differ and how you can support them. The right strategies acknowledge those differences and thoughtfully guide them at every step.
When you’re looking at how to reduce employee turnover and keep your employees satisfied, consider these strategies:
For remote and hybrid employees, connection should never depend on location.
A digital home brings your people into the fold by giving them one reliable place to access everything they need. That includes pay, time off, benefits, and support, all available from any device.
When work takes place across screens, time zones, and changing routines, this kind of access is not just convenient. It is essential.
A people-first digital home reduces isolation, builds clarity, and creates a sense of belonging. Whether someone is working from their kitchen table or moving between home and office, their experience should feel seamless, supported, and part of a connected workplace.
Bring hybrid and remote employees fully into your culture with digital support that feels personal and thoughtful.
Whether someone is starting a new role or returning from leave, timely guidance helps them feel prepared, welcomed, and connected. Clear steps and gentle prompts create a smooth, human-centered experience that builds belonging at every important milestone.
Use AI to tailor information to each employee’s role, location, and context so remote and hybrid workers can easily find exactly what they need when they need it.
By delivering relevant and timely knowledge, this approach helps prevent confusion and frustration before it arises. It ensures everyone feels confident and supported no matter where they work or how their routines change.
Personalization creates a seamless experience that keeps employees connected and empowered to do their best.
Subtle shifts in how employees interact with HR systems can reveal early signs of frustration, confusion, or disconnection.
Light-touch sentiment signals and usage patterns help HR teams understand where support may be falling short or where employees need more guidance.
This is not a replacement for formal engagement measurement. Instead, it enhances HR service delivery by showing where improvements can make everyday experiences feel more personal, responsive, and effective.
By acting on these insights with care, organizations can increase employee trust and create a stronger sense of support, even when employees are dispersed.
Today, with employees naturally working to different rhythms, we’ve undergone a cultural transformation. A transformation that demands fundamental rethinking of how we lead, connect, and recognize our people.
Former CEO of Xerox, Anne M. Mulcahy said “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.”
The “whole person” perspective needs to be the bedrock upon which successful remote and hybrid strategies are built.
Whether navigating the joyful chaos of a first-time parenthood or the dedicated schedule of a selfless caregiver, an employee's personal circumstances are inherently intertwined with their professional capacity when signing in from their home office.
When your employees are dispersed, and their lives are more visibility complex than employers previously would accept, flexibility, transparency, and connectivity become the driving force of any HR technology you have in place.
As a HR Service Delivery platform, Applaud helps you to meet your employees where they are, any time, giving them the tools to excel out of the office, on-the-go, and beyond. It:
While we’re not a survey vendor or an employee engagement tool, our vendor-agnostic product suite integrates seamlessly with leading tools in those spaces, like CultureAmp, Qualtrics, and Peakon.
There’s a lot of overlap in how “employee experience” is defined today. It’s a space shared by engagement tools, learning providers, and HR service delivery systems like ours. Applaud’s focus is on the everyday moments, making support feel seamless and personal.
Our people-first digital HR support systems reduce noise, build trust, and help HR teams meet employees where they are. We help you to deliver experiences that contribute to retention by making every interaction feel easier, faster, and more human.
Scott Oakes is a Senior Technical Communications Specialist with a background in advertising, communication, creative writing, and video production. He plays a key role in shaping Applaud's YouTube channel, combining creativity and clarity to make technical how-to videos more engaging, ensuring that complex concepts are easy to understand.