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9 Employee Engagement Tactics That Actually Work
Inside: Tesla offers $1 trillion pay package to Musk
The HR Takeaways
September 09, 2025
Hello HR Pros,
As we dive into another pivotal week in the world of work, this edition is packed with forward-looking insights—from OpenAI’s surprising leap into recruitment to Korn Ferry’s tactical breakdown of pay transparency.
We also decode what CPOs are really thinking heading into 2026 and offer hands-on ways to keep your team engaged, energized, and evolving. Let’s dive in ✨
📰 Upcoming in This Issue
🔍 Chief People Officers Outlook – September 2025
🔥 9 Employee Engagement Tactics That Actually Move the Needle
🛠 A Guide to Fair Pay: Attract Top Talent with Pay Transparency
🤖 OpenAI Enters the Job Market Amid a Weak Hiring Landscape
✨ Helpful Links
🎁 Handpicked HR tools & deals for The HR Takeaways readers (over 1,205 HR pros found these helpful last week)
🌍 Don’t miss: The definitive Employer of Record (EOR) guide for HR
📣 Trending HR News
AI disruption, fragile geopolitics, and burnout-weary workforces: welcome to the CPO’s new reality.
This timely report from the World Economic Forum captures insights from 130+ global Chief People Officers, many of whom are stuck in short-term hiring freezes while racing to overhaul workforce strategy.
From AI-enabled job redesigns to flex-first cultures, CPOs are balancing the demand for speed with the need for purpose. While only 26% plan major labor investments in the next year, 100% say they’re gearing up for transformation.
And yes—strategic thinking is now non-negotiable.
Key Takeaways:
🧠 AI is Now a CPO Mandate: Redesigning jobs, enabling upskilling, and mapping AI’s impact are top priorities—but 1 in 3 worry about talent readiness.
📉 Short-Term Freeze, Long-Term Fire: Only 26% of CPOs expect headcount growth in 2025, yet 74% are rethinking org design and leadership development.
🌍 Flexibility Isn’t Optional Anymore: CPOs are embedding purpose, hybrid norms, and mental well-being as default expectations—not perks—for a changing workforce.
📈 Strategic Thinking Tops the Skills List: 100% of CPOs surveyed say strategic acumen is the #1 must-have capability for HR leaders navigating this next era.
Engaged employees aren’t just happier—they make companies richer.
Firms with strong engagement see profits grow 3x faster, but most still don’t get it right.
This article breaks down nine tried-and-tested best practices to boost engagement, retention, and business outcomes—without fluff or gimmicks. It’s a roadmap for HR teams that want to drive real change, not just collect survey data.
From defining engagement correctly to acting quickly on feedback, it’s time to rethink the way we connect with our people.
Key Takeaways:
📊 Ditch vague surveys: Define engagement clearly and tie it to business outcomes like retention, revenue, or performance.
🔍 Use proven tools: Stick with validated surveys like Gallup or UWES to ensure reliable, actionable insights.
💬 Don’t ghost feedback: Act fast after surveys—quick wins like better comms or workload tweaks build lasting trust.
🧠 Make it a team sport: HR can’t do it alone—managers must own and act on engagement data with their teams.
Boost Employee Engagement with Fair, Flexible Schedules
Engagement isn’t built in surveys—it shows up in daily experiences. Scheduling is one of the easiest places to make an impact. With the right scheduling tools, HR leaders can:
Build fair schedules that reduce burnout and favoritism
Empower staff to swap or claim shifts right from their phones
Improve communication with instant team updates
Smarter scheduling leads to happier, more engaged employees.
Scheduling tools like When I Work make it simple and drives stronger engagement.
Pay transparency is no longer optional—it’s a strategic advantage. Companies embracing open compensation practices report higher retention, stronger trust, and greater employee morale.
This Korn Ferry guide unpacks how clearly communicating pay structures, raise criteria, and promotion paths can attract top talent and boost productivity. From tackling employee reactions to staying ahead of global compliance trends, the article outlines how to build a culture of fairness.
With 3 pivotal moments of trust—recruitment, performance reviews, and promotions—and 10 actionable practices, it’s a blueprint for HR teams ready to lead with clarity and impact.
Key Takeaways:
💬 Be Transparent from Day One: Include realistic salary ranges in job posts and share compensation details during interviews. Transparency at the recruitment stage sets the tone for long-term trust and alignment.
📊 Back Pay with Data: Regularly conduct pay analyses using internal and external benchmarks to spot inequities early and guide fair compensation adjustments.
🧠 Train Managers to Talk Pay: Develop programs that equip managers to lead unbiased, confident compensation conversations—especially during performance reviews.
🚀 Pay Transparency = Retention Strategy: Employees who feel respected and fairly compensated are more motivated. In fact, pay transparency improves morale and reduces attrition, giving your EVP a competitive edge.
OpenAI is stepping into job placement with a bold gambit: the OpenAI Jobs Platform, pairing AI-powered matching with embedded certification—all within ChatGPT’s Study Mode.
Set against a backdrop of near-stagnant job growth (just 22,000 net new jobs in August—the lowest since the pandemic), this platform may reshape how economic opportunity is distributed.
While forward-thinking in design, this push also faces steep operational and competitive hurdles—including building vast candidate data, avoiding bias, and rivaling incumbents like LinkedIn, Indeed, and Workday.
Key Takeaways:
🚀 All-in-One Job Match + Learn: OpenAI is building a unified job platform and certification system—trained entirely within ChatGPT, enabling AI literacy and placement.
💼 Hiring Freeze Meets Reinvention: Job growth has stagnated—only ~0.1%—as companies freeze roles amid AI-driven productivity bets and tariff-driven uncertainty.
🌾 Superworker Rising: AI is reshaping roles—analytics and task work get automated; humans must upskill to become adaptable “Superworkers.”
⚔️ Big Challenges Ahead: OpenAI’s entry into recruitment means contending with complex workflows, high-quality benchmarking, and entrenched platforms like LinkedIn and ATS giants.
The bottomline
That’s a wrap on this edition’s takeaways 💡
As economic shifts, talent trends, and AI adoption continue to reshape the workplace, one thing’s clear: HR isn’t just responding to change—it’s driving it. If any of these pieces sparked an idea, challenged your thinking, or inspired action, we’d love to hear from you.
We’ve also pulled together some HR tools and resources that might be useful—curated just for The HR Takeaways readers.
Until next time, stay curious, stay strategic, and keep leading from the front ✨
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