As boards delve deeper into human capital oversight, employee engagement data is becoming more pertinent to directors and other senior leaders, sources say. Frequent surveys on specific engagement problem areas have replaced long, drawn-out annual employee surveys, and human resources leaders are reporting the findings up to the board as they monitor issues such as corporate culture and employee mental health.

“Employee engagement is front and center for companies right now,” says Rebecca Ray, executive vice president of human capital at The Conference Board. “I think a lot of senior leaders are rightfully concerned about how to preserve the best parts of their culture. As they look at whatever life-changing event might be now thrown at you, there may need to be conversations about what is the best part of our culture, and one of the ways you can gauge that is by having a lot of conversations at the grass root [employee] level.”

Indeed, there were 200 mentions of employee engagement in SEC filings from S&P 500 companies between April 30, 2020, and April 30, 2021, according to data provided to Agenda from public company intelligence provider MyLogIQ.