It’s no secret that employee engagement levels remain low. Gallup found that the number of employees engaged in the U.S. remained at around 32% in 2015 (13% worldwide). Furthermore, over the last five years, employee engagement levels have remained relatively consistent, floating between 29% and 32%.

While there are many reasons why employees are disengaged, organizations need to be proactive and creative to increase morale and engagement levels. Ceridian is an example of a company who made employee engagement a priority in 2013 and has seen increasing levels of engagement on Glassdoor and through internal surveys.

Ceridian’s most recent move to help other companies with their HCM strategy includes forming a joint venture with WorkAngel, a mobile employee engagement and retention platform, to create a new wellness and engagement company, LifeWorks, that leverages Ceridian’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP) offering.

Historically, utilization rates of EAP services have been low, typically in single digits, mainly because of a lack of communication, as employees only tend to be reminded about EAP during annual open enrollment.

The new LifeWorks company focuses directly on the heart of the problem, poor communication, by incorporating recognition and perks with EAP. The new platform has been piloted in the U.K. for the last year, with ~85% of employees logging into the platform on a regular basis, and one pilot client reported a ~20% improvement in employee retention, demonstrating that the “life, works, and perks” theme is effective.

The mobile platform allows employees to customize choices and content when they first sign on, but the system will continue to modify and improve choices based on each user’s behavior and recent selections.

One of the more powerful features of the new platform that’s important for driving engagement and connectedness is that it incorporates a private social network that includes company feeds such as news, service awards, badge recognitions, birthdays, new joiners, etc. along with each user’s personal content.

Even though Ceridian’s EAP business has been spun off, the cloud HCM company is driving other innovative initiatives that address employee engagement, such as incorporating TeamRelate into Dayforce. This enables employees to rate their personal engagement levels, among other features, which provides managers with valuable information to improve communication and collaboration within groups. Ceridian is not just talking the talk either, they are walking the walk through their newly appointed chief people officer, Lisa Sterling.

Implementing a HCM strategy that focuses on increasing engagement is important to driving greater productivity, which will subsequently improve the bottom line.