A Strategic Guide to Boost Morale and Increase Employee Engagement
In 2025, just 584,000 jobs were created, far below the more than 2 million added in each of the prior two years. With this slowdown in hiring, people seeking work in 2026 are finding roles harder to come by; those voluntarily looking for new roles will also likely face a challenge to land a new job.
At face value, this may seem like a job market that is poised for talent retention. Even so, according to LinkedIn’s 2025 Labor Market Report, 52% of workers plan to job hunt in 2026, with 70% considering switching jobs within the next two years. Despite the less-than-ideal job market, many individuals still aren’t satisfied with the current role and desire to leave or find a new position.
The job market and hiring slowdown has created an environment in which employees are weary of leaving their current role. Employers who don’t recognize this and take strategic measures to increase employee engagement, enrich their culture and keep employees happy may see a decrease in productivity, a general sense of employee apathy and the rise of job hugging.
What Is Job Hugging?
Job hugging is what it sounds like: holding on to – or staying put in – a role out of security rather than engagement. A cooling labor market coupled with uncertain economy means an ideal environment for job hugging — why would an employee leave the financial stability of a position they hold when the likelihood of a new role elsewhere is low and the future of the economy is uncertain?
If employees are staying put and job hugging (at least until 2027 per a survey from Monster), how can employers re-engage their employees?
Creating an Elevated Employee Experience
Today’s employees want an elevated experience beyond just compensation. They want to feel valued holistically, have the opportunity to learn and grow and utilize their talent to bring meaning and purpose to their work.
Here’s a strategic guide to workforce planning that can enhance your company culture, improve workplace morale and stabilize your talent retention.
Offering In-House Career Growth Opportunities
The benefits associated with employee development programs are numerous. In many successful initiatives, employees can unleash their creativity, often becoming more goal-oriented and inspired by their team. Ultimately, this leads to greater job satisfaction, performance improvements and better retention — all of which can benefit both employees and the organization at large.
Employee development programs require:
- Performance management and enhancement, career path mapping and position-specific training.
- Executive coaching and leadership development to retain high-potential and top-performing employees.
- Anti-harassment and respectful workplace training for safe and ethical workplaces.
- Workshops on resilience, wellbeing and adaptation to change to provide employee’s adversity skills.
Taking a Total Rewards Approach
Total reward strategies provide a compelling value proposition for your employees.
Employers who appropriately reward their talent for bringing their skills, expertise and optimal performance build a valuable employer brand and enjoy minimal attrition and maximum retention. When it all comes together, your organization's business goals and objectives are driven forward with the skills, expertise and commitment of a workforce that feels valued.
Effective total rewards programs include:
- Customized creation based on strategic planning, market and industry-specific benchmarking.
- Executive compensation packages that utilize market salary data and long-term incentives tailored to organizational budget and compensation philosophy.
- Establishing compensation program design that aligns with organizational goals and adapts to the changing market with structured incentive plans for both short- and long-term.
- Compensation benchmarking to identify gaps and priorities in executive and general employee salary structure.
- Conducting pay equity audits, pay for performance modeling and compensation reasonability studies (for nonprofits).
Standing Out with Effective Leave Management
In NFP’s 2026 Leave Management Report, we found some striking data. Of those surveyed, only 10% of employers offer accommodation for menopause, one of the most significant but overlooked equity gaps in the workplace. 59% of respondents offered parental leave, but 27% still distinguish between primary and secondary caregivers, creating legal risk and inequity. Only 30% of employers offer caregiver leave — likely far too few to meet the sandwich generation’s needs.
This means there’s a critical window for employers to stand out if they can:
- Address communication gaps — employees often misunderstand leave policies.
- Quantify the hidden cost of inefficient manual leave administration and compliance risks.
- Treat leave vendors as strategic partners, not just providers. Modernize leave equity – parental, caregiver, menopause and bereavement programs – to reduce risk and strengthen retention.
- View leave as both a compliance obligation and cultural investment for engagement and talent retention
A Partner in Talent Solutions and Talent Retention
NFP can be a strategic partner that helps you enrich your company culture, increase your employee engagement and avoid workforce burnout and job-hugging. While employees may not be actively leaving your workplace for a variety of reasons, we can help you make sure they’re not limited by their role, workplace morale is increased, employees know they’re backed and supported by their employer, and their desire to stay is not solely because they can’t find a role elsewhere.
We take a personalized approach to help you achieve such positive outcomes. NFP gets to know your business, its pain points, and goals first. With these things motivating the core of our approach, we offer tailored solutions, critical benchmarking data and tools to help you with your workforce planning and improve your overall company culture.
Ready to get started with any of these strategies to enhance your workplace culture? Need help figuring out what approach to take or where to start?
Contact our Talent Solutions practice leader today:
Maria Trapenasso, SVP, National Practice Leader, Talent Solutions
E: Maria.trapenasso@nfp.com
LI: Maria M. Trapenasso, SHRM-SCP, CLMS | LinkedIn
212.457.6121
For Brokers:
- Support underwriting negotiations with data-driven insights
- Tailor risk control programs to client loss drivers
- Benchmark client performance
- Quantify ROI of risk mitigation efforts
For Contractors:
- Identify operational vulnerabilities
- Improve workforce safety and continuity
- Potential reduction of Experience Modification Rate
- Strengthen competitive bids with strong safety documentation
- Prevent cost overruns related to incidents
- Reduce insurance costs and improve risk profile
2. Key Data Sources
Key data sources in the construction industry include a blend of claims information, operational safety data and project-specific details, each offering a different lens into organizational risk. Claims data — such as workers’ compensation, general liability, auto and property losses — provides insight into injury types, cost drivers and recurring patterns. Operational data, including near misses, safety observations, JHAs and pre-task plans, helps identify hazards before they result in claims. Project data, such as labor hours, subcontractor performance, project type and environmental conditions, adds essential context that links losses to specific operational or project characteristics.
When combined, these sources create a comprehensive view of exposure and performance, enabling more accurate analysis and more effective risk mitigation-task plans, helps identify hazards before they result in claims. Project data, such as labor hours, subcontractor performance, project type, and environmental conditions, adds essential context that links losses to specific operational or project characteristics. When combined, these sources create a comprehensive view of exposure and performance, enabling more accurate analysis and more effective risk mitigation.
Successful programs integrate multiple data streams:
- Claims data (workers’ compensation, general liability, auto, property)
- Operational safety data (near misses, audits, JHAs, PTPs)
- Project data (type, schedule, labor hours, subcontractor mix)
Blending these data sets creates a holistic view of risk.
3. Turning Data into Action
Turning data into action means transforming raw claims, incident trends and operational observations into targeted strategies that meaningfully reduce risk. By analyzing the patterns behind recurring loss drivers — such as specific tasks, project phases or subcontractor behaviors — organizations can pinpoint where controls, training or supervision will deliver the greatest impact.
This insight enables the development of focused safety and risk initiatives, proactive interventions and continuous improvement cycles that directly align with the realities of field operations. Rather than simply documenting what has happened, data-driven action equips contractors and brokers to prevent future incidents and strengthen overall risk performance for contractors.
Using loss data strategically facilitates effective:
- Root cause and process failure analysis
- Frequency and severity trending to identify loss drivers
- Leading indicator programs to predict risk
- Focused risk prevention strategies aligned with actual exposures
4. Contractor Applications
Contractors use loss data to strengthen safety performance, improve operational planning and reduce project-level risk. By analyzing trends in claims and incidents, contractors can identify which tasks, project phases or trades present the highest exposures and focus their resources where they will have the greatest impact. This insight supports more accurate site-specific safety plans, targeted training for high-risk activities and stronger subcontractor prequalification based on historical performance.
Loss data also enhances return-to-work programs and claims management by revealing the factors that drive severity and claim duration. Ultimately, contractors leverage these insights to create safer jobsites, increase productivity and protect project margins.
5. Collaboration Between Contractors and Brokers
Collaboration between contractors and insurance brokers creates a unified approach to risk management, allowing both parties to leverage their expertise and shared loss data for better outcomes. By working together through regular loss review meetings, jointly developed safety strategies and consistent communication with carrier partners, contractors gain clearer insight into emerging risks while brokers can tailor risk control and advocacy efforts more effectively.
This partnership ensures that data-driven insights translate into practical field-level improvements, leading to fewer incidents, lower claim costs and a more resilient overall risk profile.
When contractors and brokers work together, they can:
- Conduct regular loss reviews to identify trends and solutions
- Build shared dashboards to monitor performance
- Align safety programs to loss drivers and key strategic goals
- Address subcontractor performance
- This collaboration reduces total cost of risk and improves jobsite safety.
Conclusion
Data is one of the most accessible and transformative tools in construction risk management. By jointly leveraging insights, contractors and brokers transition from reactive to predictive risk mitigation — reducing injuries, improving financial outcomes and delivering more resilient project execution.
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