The Employee Engagement Iceberg: What’s Hiding Beneath the Surface?

An impressive engagement score is always welcome news. But how much does it really tell us about what it’s like to work somewhere?

Picture an iceberg floating in the ocean. From above the water, it looks relatively harmless. What you can’t see is the enormous mass of ice sitting beneath the surface.

Employee engagement surveys can be surprisingly similar.

Imagine presenting an 85% engagement score to your senior leadership team. It’s a strong result, everyone is pleased, and there’s plenty of reason to celebrate.

But somewhere within that 85%, there might be a department struggling with workload, employees questioning decisions made by senior leaders or people who feel they’ve been overlooked for promotion.

None of these experiences necessarily disappears because the overall score is positive.

And if we focus too heavily on that one figure, there’s a danger we’ll miss the bigger picture.

When the numbers don’t quite add up

One of the more interesting things about employee engagement data is how two perfectly reasonable results can tell very different stories.

Take a hypothetical organisation where one department records 95% engagement and another scores just 65%. If both departments have the same number of respondents, the average comes out at 80%.

On the face of it, that’s a good result. But you’d be hard pushed to convince employees in the lower-scoring department that their experience is reflected in that figure.

We’ve also seen some interesting differences in our own research.

In The Survey Initiative’s Employee Engagement Mid-Year Benchmark Report 2026, organisational Pride stood at 86.8%, compared with 73.0% for Advocacy.

That’s almost a 14-point gap between employees feeling proud of their organisation and being willing to recommend it as a place to work.

There’s something quite revealing about that difference.

You can believe wholeheartedly in what your organisation does and still find aspects of working there frustrating. You might love the people you work with but feel opportunities to develop are limited. Or perhaps you’re proud of the organisation’s achievements but less enthusiastic about the way it’s managed.

We can’t determine the reasons from those two figures alone. But we’d certainly want to investigate.

The same goes for retention. An employee saying they intend to stay doesn’t necessarily mean they’re particularly happy. For some, staying might simply feel easier than leaving.

What aren’t employees telling us?

Another area worth exploring is employee voice, particularly when the results appear contradictory.

It’s quite possible for employees to have positive relationships with their line managers while feeling uncomfortable challenging decisions or raising concerns.

After all, getting along with someone and being willing to disagree with them are two different things.

The CIPD’s Good Work Index 2025 found that 51% of employees rated their managers positively for seeking their views, but only 37% felt their managers were good at allowing them to influence final decisions.

That distinction is important. Employees may be given plenty of opportunities to share their opinions, but if they feel those opinions rarely make a difference, how meaningful is that opportunity?

It’s also worth considering what this means for the feedback organisations aren’t receiving. If someone doesn’t feel comfortable raising an issue with their manager, there’s a chance that problem will remain largely invisible.

A confidential employee survey can help bring some of these experiences to light, particularly when employees trust the process. But understanding what they’re saying requires more than reviewing the overall percentages.

There’s more to a survey than the headline score

None of this means we should disregard overall engagement scores. They’re incredibly useful for tracking progress, making comparisons and understanding the general mood across an organisation.

We just need to be careful about how much weight we give them.

Some of the most useful insights come from looking at differences between departments, changes in individual questions over time or recurring themes within employees’ written comments.

It’s also important to understand what has the strongest relationship with engagement. The lowest-scoring question won’t always be the one most closely associated with how employees feel about their organisation.

These details can make a real difference when deciding where to focus attention and resources

A score of 85% might be an excellent achievement, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with celebrating it. But it shouldn’t be the point where the analysis stops.

At The Survey Initiative, we work with organisations to understand the stories behind their employee engagement results, using benchmarking and detailed analysis to explore what’s working well and where improvements could make a difference.

Because the headline score is only the tip of the iceberg. There’s usually a lot more worth exploring underneath.

Curious about what’s happening beneath the surface in your organisation?

Whether you’re planning your next employee engagement survey or looking to make more sense of your existing results, we’d love to help. Get in touch with us to find out how we can help you uncover the insights that matter.