Engaged manufacturing workers are 70% more productive, 78% safer, 44% more profitable, and turn out higher quality work than unengaged workers.  While in practice, the manufacturing sector has chronically low engagement. If organizations want to remain competitive, it's time to act and implement the right employee engagement platform

“Enthusiastic”. “Energized.” “Dedicated”. “Responsible”. “On-time”. “Enterprising”. “Attentive.” “Involved.”

Ask a manufacturer to describe their dream employee and those are some of the terms you're likely to get. Traits like this can be summed up with one word: engagement.

Employee engagement in manufacturing might sound somewhat vague, but it encompasses measurements of employee satisfaction, how passionate they feel about work and the organization as a whole, amongst other aspects.

Understanding the challenges for employee engagement in manufacturing

In a PWC study, only 48% of manufacturing leaders reported having engaged frontline workers. Related metrics also indicate a major problem. Around 34% of manufacturers name absenteeism as a serious problem. And in 2023's Q3, around 36% of manufacturers reported frontline worker attrition rates of over 10% within the last six months.

Similar to finding the cure, which starts by mapping out the symptoms, understanding why engagement levels in manufacturing are declining requires a comprehensive examination of the underlying factors.

A growing communication gap between managers and frontline employees

Communication gaps between manufacturing leaders and frontline workers are almost endemic. That shouldn't be surprising, since there are different work locations, schedules, and cultural dynamics to maneuver around. Not to mention the challenges of reaching deskless team members who aren't working on personal computers.

Traditional on-site methods like bulletin boards, posters, handouts, and even digital kiosks don't facilitate smooth communication or open dialogue. And even in-person connection opportunities aren't cutting it anymore.

According to research from McKinsey, the majority of frontline workers engage in available internal communications events fewer than once a month. Around 55% participated in town halls less than once a month while 60% participated in employee resource groups less than once a month.

No matter what the reason is, top-down communication barriers inhibit leaders from effectively connecting with and engaging their employees. And great manufacturing companies are ones where senior leaders actively inform, inspire, encourage, motivate, and engage their core frontline workforce.

Insufficient employee feedback

Remember the PWC findings where less than half of manufacturing leaders reported frontline worker engagement? Turns out, another quarter wasn't even getting enough feedback to be able to tell.

This appears to be a prevalent issue within manufacturing, at least when it comes to production workers.

One study from The Workforce Institute found that 87% of manufacturing workers are asked for feedback. However, 48% of those workers further qualified their response as being only “somewhat” asked, while only 39% said “very much”.

Other research into the general workforce population found that 75% of employees don't feel heard on important topics like benefits, safety, and timesheets. And 40% of those who do feel heard don't believe their feedback has led to actionable change.

Feeling heard at work is a core engagement drive. In fact, it makes workers feel 4.6 times more empowered to perform their best. And 92% of highly engaged workers feel heard versus only 30% of non-engaged workers.

Manufacturing workers often don't feel recognized, valued, or important

Only 1 in 10 of frontline manufacturing employees report recognition as being an important and valued part of their company culture. This puts the sector far behind other industries, like education, healthcare, and finance. Workplace recognition is critical for building engagement, community, and motivation. And it's an aspect that employees are willing to resign over. Check these employee recognition quotes to get inspired. 

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9 Strategies for creating more engaged frontline workers in manufacturing

Financial compensation is an important factor in retaining, motivating, and engaging employees. However, compensation alone doesn't outweigh an environment where employees don't feel connected, rewarded, or fulfilled.

1. Provide a smooth onboarding process

A bare-bones onboarding process integrates new hires into the organization's legal structure. An exceptional one also integrates them into its culture, values, norms, dynamics, and lived experience.

And this kickstarts engagement.

If you want frontline team members to be invested and involved throughout their tenure, encourage this behavior from the beginning.

Fill them in on all the hows and whys of being an excellent employee. Share best practice work scenarios, spotlight coworkers to model, and make the corporate mission come alive with leadership profiles and end-user impact stories.

Make this more efficient by uploading onboarding resources into your internal communications solution.

2. Give your employees a voice and listen to them

Remember. Frontline team members need to feel and be heard. This is a driving factor between engaged and non-engaged employees.

So, give them a voice. Then listen and let them know they're heard.

Discover what your frontline workers think about big things, like safety concerns, benefits, and scheduling. Find out how they feel about commonly overlooked issues, like getting along with co-workers or mentorship opportunities. It's even helpful to get opinions on minor things, like break room options or get-togethers.

Solicit feedback on an ongoing basis and provide ways for employees to share on their own initiative. Some tools to use include surveys, polls, and internal social networks.

One final point is to make sure the feedback accurately reflects the workforce, being representative and inclusive of all demographics. This is important because feedback can easily be skewed if certain groups are more responsive than others.

3. Modernize your communication tools

Bulletin boards, physical handouts, and company town halls are fine to use as long as your primary communication method is digital and modern.

Frontline manufacturing team members value working in tech-friendly facilities. And digitizing their communications, HR materials, and training solutions is a fairly easy upgrade.

4. Streamline your employee communication channels

Streamline employee communications through a single source of information, such as an employee experience platform.

Using a digital communication hub is the most effective way to engage deskless workers and ensure engagement. It consolidates scattered material, facilitates real-time updates, and enables user tracking and analytics.

Plus, it's practical and convenient for both leadership and workers.

5. Promote safety at every turn

Safe manufacturing environments foster employee trust which then builds the confidence needed for stronger engagement.

Safety occurs on an organizational and individual level. So, give all team members access to their full range of safety materials and cultivate a pro-safety culture.

Some best practices include facilitating regular training sessions, making safety documentation accessible, installing clear hazard statuses, and providing safety routines and daily checklists.

Your employee experience platform should serve as a digital library and communications solution. Use it to offer comprehensive safety resources and to send out updates when new material is available.

In addition, visual safety reminders will never be outdated and the workplace should have plenty of signs, posters, hazard warnings, and other cues.

6. Make work more meaningful

Modern workplace culture has evolved to prioritize meaningful work that positively contributes to society. And these expectations extend into the manufacturing sector, which has traditionally been more transactional than purposeful.

“It's not just about financial compensation, but also listening more carefully to their aspirations and what they care about.” - Stéphane Souchet, KPMG Global Head of Industrial Manufacturing Industry Sector.

Create a sense of purposefulness, support organizational connectedness, and facilitate personal growth.

7. Localize your focus

Workers can care about the company's mission, but nothing matters more than home. To further stoke connection, meaning, and engagement, tailor your focus to their local community.

“The problem is that most leaders think big, while most workers feel local,” - Denise Delahanty, former Senior Practice Consultant at Gallup.

Tell frontline workers how the company benefits their local community. This is fairly straightforward for companies participating in charitable programs, community outreach, or sustainability initiatives. 

At companies without ESG, CSR, or philanthropic activities, uncover and personalize the positive economic impact. E.g., does the company make it easy for young people to get their first jobs? Or does it employ multiple generations of the same family? Share their stories.

8. Recognize, appreciate, and value your workers

Workers who receive enough meaningful recognition are four times more likely to be engaged than workers who don't. And for manufacturing workers considering whether to resign, feeling valued is more important than financial compensation.

Concretely appreciate them. Talk about the tangible impact their work creates for the company and its end users. And include some peer-based recognition to charge them up even more. To do this, many organizations are using employee engagement platform which allows giving employees a platform to recognize and celebrate achievements.

9. Cultivate feelings of workplace belonging

Feelings of organizational fit and belonging are tied to frontline workers' mental health, well-being, and retention levels.

79% of frontline workers who feel they belong at work plan to stay with their employer, versus only 33% of those who don't. And those who fit in are four times less likely to have declining mental health or well-being levels.

This is essential for talent retention, engagement, and development, particularly for underrepresented groups.

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How to know if your employee engagement initiatives are successful

Now that we've covered what employee engagement in manufacturing is, why it's low, and how to improve it, it's time to discuss how to measure and evaluate your success.

Implement feedback mechanisms

Engagement generates a measurable impact on core business outcomes and goals. But not everything shows up in metrics.

Some insight, like team happiness and satisfaction levels, has to be gathered directly from employees. In addition, employees need a way to share thoughts, opinions, and other input at their own initiative.

Direct feedback mechanisms like surveys and internal communication channels make this possible.

These tools are a precise and efficient way to gather workforce intelligence and find out what's going on with your employees. Without collecting this insight, you'll be out of touch, operating in the dark, and leaving your workers unheard.

Top employee engagement metrics to track employee engagement in manufacturing

Turnover

High turnover in the manufacturing sector isn’t just a headache—it’s a sign that something deeper is off. Turnover tracks how many employees need to be replaced within a given timeframe, and in the context of employee engagement in manufacturing, it reflects how manufacturing employees are connecting (or not) with the work environment, leadership, and company goals. To boost employee engagement and reduce turnover, manufacturing organizations must prioritize employee experience, listening to employee concerns, offering career growth, and investing in training and development programs that give workers a real reason to stay.

Retention

Tracking employee retention tells you how long employees are sticking around—and why. In the manufacturing industry, retention is often a strong indicator of employee satisfaction, professional development, and whether frontline workers feel like they matter. Highly engaged manufacturing employees are more likely to stay when they see opportunities for career advancement, feel recognized, and are supported by manufacturing leaders who walk the talk. A solid engagement strategy can improve employee engagement and build a stable, highly engaged workforce ready to meet your production targets.

Attrition

Attrition—particularly voluntary attrition—can quietly erode the effectiveness of your manufacturing workforce. This metric measures how many employees leave without being replaced, often due to burnout, lack of employee recognition, or poor workplace culture. In a high-demand market where skilled labor is scarce, tracking attrition helps manufacturing companies spot cracks in their engagement initiatives. Regular employee surveys, active employee feedback, and visible support from senior leaders go a long way in fostering employee engagement and retaining your most experienced manufacturing workers.

Absenteeism

Employee absenteeism is more than just a missed shift—it’s often a blinking red light for disengagement. When frontline employees routinely call out, it may signal low morale, safety concerns, or a lack of work-life balance. For manufacturing managers, this metric is critical. An engaged workforce is more present, more accountable, and more productive. Address absenteeism through wellness programs, employee recognition, and a supportive environment that shows you care about employee health, not just hitting production targets.

Incident rate

Your workplace safety metrics, like incident rate, offer a direct line to employee engagement. When manufacturing processes are run by disengaged or distracted workers, safety incidents rise—along with downtime and liability. In contrast, engaged workers follow safety protocols, stay alert, and look out for their team. If you want fewer injuries and more productive employees, start with employee engagement software, training programs, and regular town hall meetings that reinforce a culture of safety, care, and mutual responsibility.

Quality or defects

In the manufacturing environment, the quality of work isn’t just about machinery—it’s about the people running it. Measuring defects and product quality is a powerful way to understand how engaged employees are on the floor. When manufacturing workers are motivated, well-trained, and feel valued, defect rates go down and customer satisfaction goes up. Pairing quality metrics with employee feedback and continuous professional development can dramatically raise standards across the line.

Productivity

Let’s be real: productivity is one of the clearest indicators of engagement in manufacturing. Highly engaged employees meet or exceed production targets because they’re aligned with the mission, equipped with the right tools, and fueled by a positive work environment. On the flip side, disengaged employees coast through shifts, dragging down the whole line. If you're serious about improving employee engagement, track productivity alongside feedback mechanisms, training and development opportunities, and employee morale to build a truly engaged workforce that performs.

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Evaluate, improve, repeat

You can't create an organization full of thriving, happy, engaged workers with a one-time project, no matter how incredible it is. And you won't consistently hit the mark without maintaining insight into the organization and its employees.

So, take a methodical, continuous, and data-driven approach. Use feedback mechanisms and engagement-impacted metrics to gauge the organization's pulse, determine priorities, and measure your success.

Metrics can be used to analyze organizational performance as a whole. Or used to target specific groups, such as high-performers, high-potential workers, senior workers, or specific departments, teams, managers, etc.

For example, are senior workers quitting at a higher rate than normal? Find out what's driving them away and work to reintegrate them. Are safety incidents abnormally high for young hires? Build targeted safety campaigns and offer digital resources, like checklists and daily routines.

Conclusion

Communication barriers, an image problem, and frontline workers who feel unheard, unrecognized, and undervalued. Those issues might not sound severe, but altogether, they are responsible for driving engagement levels down to a dangerous low.

And this is not a good time for leadership and frontliners to be out of sync.

Workplace culture is evolving, the labor market is competitive, and manufacturing is advancing further into the Fourth Industrial Revolution. At this point in time, long-term economic success demands deep engagement.

Try our employee engagement app to build a stronger, more resilient, future-ready organization.