Clarico Reacts: The Five Cs of Employee Engagement

Clarico Reacts is a series where we publish our thoughts on new publications and content relevant to our favourite topic, People at Work. This post looks at a recent Irish Times Future of Work special report on “the five Cs of employee engagement”, featuring insights from CIPD Ireland, PwC Ireland and Woodview HRM. You can read the full article here.

This article caught our eye for a fun reason before we even got into the content. Clarico’s coaching is built around our own 5 Cs, Change, Challenge, Creativity, Compassion and Confidence. Seeing HR’s own version of the five Cs, communication, connection, culture, contribution and career development, felt very serendipitous. Beyond this coincidence, the substance of this piece is genuinely important and worth unpacking.

The core argument is that HR has shifted from a transactional, process driven function into something closer to an “experience architect”, shaping not just what work gets done but how people feel while doing it. We could not agree more. Here is what struck us most.

From Policy Owner to Experience Architect

One line really stood out: the idea that framing HR’s role around these five dimensions elevates it from process owner to experience architect. That shift in language matters. For years, HR was seen as the function that handled onboarding paperwork, leave requests and disciplinary processes. Important, but reactive. What this report describes is something far more proactive, a function actively designing the conditions under which people choose to stay, grow and contribute.

This is exactly the conversation we have with employers every day. The organisations that get ahead of retention issues are the ones that stop treating engagement as an HR checkbox and start treating it as a strategic design problem, one that touches leadership behaviour, communication structures and culture just as much as it touches policy.

Communication Cannot Be One Way

The report makes a point we see constantly in our work with employers, that most employees either feel they do not get enough information, or do not feel their employer is being transparent with them. The line that stuck with us was the observation that HR too often communicates at employees rather than with them.

This is such a simple distinction but such a hard one to actually live by. A genuinely two way culture requires employers to build structures where employees can speak and be heard, not just receive updates. It also requires managers to be equipped and confident enough to have those conversations well, which is rarely something that happens by accident.

The Patience Required for Real Contribution

We loved the example given of building a staff forum, where representatives initially showed up but barely spoke and how it took eighteen months of consistent effort before people trusted the space enough to actually drive the agenda themselves. That is such an honest and useful insight. Culture change is not a single workshop or a single town hall. It is consistent, repeated effort that earns trust slowly, and can be undone quickly if that consistency lapses.

This is something we always flag to employers we work with. A single, well delivered initiative can spark momentum, but only sustained follow through builds the kind of culture where people genuinely feel able to contribute.

The Business Case Is Not Soft

Perhaps the most important point in the whole piece, for any employer still treating engagement as a “nice to have”, is the data. Stronger engagement is linked to measurable improvements in profitability, productivity, customer loyalty, retention, safety, wellbeing and absenteeism. Organisations with a strong sense of purpose and higher engagement can see productivity and innovation increase by as much as 30 per cent.

Gallup’s 2026 research shows engagement levels in Europe, including Ireland, sitting at just 12 per cent, behind a global average of 20 per cent. That gap is the opportunity. Very few business investments offer that scale of return, and the organisations willing to commit to it, even without seeing immediate results, are the ones who will pull ahead.

What Next?

So what does this actually mean in practice for employers reading this and wondering where to start?

The five Cs framework is a useful lens, but frameworks only create change when they are translated into practical, lived behaviour across an organisation, not left as a slide in a strategy deck. That translation, from concept to practice, is exactly where Clarico comes in.

Our Workshops are designed to help employers build the practical and legal know how to support engagement, communication and culture in a way that is tailored to their own organisation, not generic. Whether it is equipping managers to have genuinely two way conversations, building structures that give employees a real voice, or understanding the legal landscape around the policies that underpin a supportive culture, we help translate good intentions into practice that actually lands.

We also work with employers through Corporate Partnerships and Coaching for Employers, supporting organisations to build the conditions where people choose to stay and grow, rather than quietly disengage or leave.

If this report has you thinking about where your own organisation sits on communication, connection, culture, contribution or career development, we would love to talk. Get in touch with us at hello@claricocoaching.com or through our contact page to find out how we can help you build genuine engagement, not just measure its absence.

Read the full Irish Times article here.