August 2025: Top 11 Employee Engagement Consulting Firms, Services & Companies
Updated: August 2025
Let’s face it: keeping employees happy, motivated, and sticking around is no small feat these days. In a world where companies are fighting for top talent, employee engagement is your secret weapon.
That’s where employee engagement consulting firms come in. They bring the outside perspective, tools, and expertise to help you create a workplace where people actually want to show up and do great work.
And you’re on the right page to get started. This article discusses:
The difference between employee engagement and employee experience and why it matters
How top consulting firms actually improve retention, morale, and performance
What to look for (and avoid) when evaluating engagement partners
11 vetted firms that deliver results
Real-world case studies with measurable business impact
Key questions to ask before choosing a consulting partner
Let’s dive in with this question:
Why Work with an Employee Engagement Consulting Firm?
Think of these firms as your workplace culture coaches. They help companies:
Boost morale and motivation. Engaged employees are likely to feel motivated and inspired to work. That kind of emotional fuel leads to stronger focus, better energy, and less burnout.
Lower turnover rates (because replacing great people is expensive). Companies with high engagement see up to 43% less turnover, a huge win when backfills cost a big chunk of an employee’s salary.
Sharpen leadership and communication practices. Only one in five employees strongly feels that their performance is managed in a way that motivates them. Great consultants close that gap with better leadership habits and feedback loops.
Drive better business outcomes. Culture consultants help pinpoint what’s blocking engagement and design interventions, from team rituals to recognition programs. These strategies will help you benefit from higher performance and commitment. And that’s exactly what you need: highly engaged teams have 78% lower absenteeism and 14% higher productivity.
Build more inclusive, connected teams. Solid consultants know how to surface hidden disconnects, improve psychological safety, and create team belonging, even across hybrid or distributed settings. That’s great because companies with highly engaged workforces are 23% more profitable and 18% more productive in sales than those with low engagement.
TL;DR — Top 5 Employee Engagement Consulting Firms to Know
Alpha Apex Group: A leading authority in employee engagement consulting that excels in driving workplace satisfaction and productivity through innovative strategies and in-depth analytics.
Blue Beyond Consulting: Helps build thriving workplace cultures through change management, communication, and leadership development, all tied to real business goals.
Gagen MacDonald: Experts in transforming culture, leadership, and communication with 25+ years of experience driving results.
Navalent: Masters of organizational design and strategy, helping leaders and teams align for sustainable growth.
Helios HR: Delivers HR solutions that supercharge engagement through talent acquisition, employee development, and smart HR strategy.
Alpha Apex Group, Leaders in Employee Engagement Consulting.
1. Alpha Apex Group
Alpha Apex Group helps HR leaders fix what's broken in their employee experience. They start with in-depth diagnostics to uncover exactly where disengagement is taking root, whether it’s inconsistent management, unclear growth paths, or cultural misalignment.
Then, they build custom engagement blueprints: clear, data-backed action plans that align leadership behavior, communication flows, and day-to-day systems with what actually motivates your people.
Through targeted leadership training, feedback loop redesign, and ongoing engagement analytics, they help you lock in long-term performance and retention gains.
For example, when working with a mid-sized SaaS company struggling with high turnover among product managers, Alpha Apex discovered that the root causes were unclear career paths and inconsistent feedback from team leads. Their recovery plan included manager coaching, a restructured performance review cadence, and clear role progression frameworks. Within six months, voluntary attrition dropped by 35%, and internal engagement scores jumped significantly in the product org.
Key services:
Comprehensive employee engagement assessments
Customized engagement strategy development
Leadership and management training programs
Employee feedback and survey analysis
Culture transformation initiatives
Why work with Alpha Apex Group?
Alpha Apex Group stands out for its commitment to driving meaningful change and measurable results in employee engagement. Their expertise and tailored solutions empower businesses to create more motivated, loyal, and high-performing teams.
Blue Beyond helps HR leaders turn vague culture goals into measurable progress. Their people-first strategies are tailored to your organization’s real challenges, whether that’s low morale, misaligned leadership, or a workforce disconnected from purpose.
Their proprietary platform, Beyond Insight®, goes way beyond traditional surveys. It gives employees a voice through dynamic feedback tools, narrative prompts, and live pulse check features. You uncover context, patterns, and themes that explain why your engagement is stalling and where to take action.
From there, Blue Beyond helps your team build strategic roadmaps that align engagement efforts with real business outcomes. Services like change management, strategic communication, and leadership development are designed to empower managers, reduce friction, and build trust across functions.
They also walk the walk: 98% of their own employees feel trusted with big responsibilities, and 96% report true time-off autonomy. That culture credibility means you’re working with a team that understands growth at scale and culture at depth.
Industries:
Corporate
Education
Nonprofit
Key Services:
Employee Engagement Consulting
Change Management
Strategic Communication
Culture Transformation
Leadership Development
Why work with Blue Beyond Consulting?
Blue Beyond delivers real insight and action. With their Beyond Insight® platform, you’ll find the key causes of disengagement through richer employee feedback and turn that data into a clear, strategic plan. Their services help your leaders communicate with impact, lead with empathy, and align your culture with your business goals.
Gagen MacDonald has been helping companies nail the “people side” of change for 25+ years: think culture, leadership, communication, and design that actually gets employees fired up.
One of their biggest wins? During the Dow-DuPont mega-merger, they crafted a global communications strategy that drove a 510% spike in employee portal engagement, 260% more manager involvement, and a 16% boost in employee confidence about the company’s future. They equipped leaders with toolkits, messaging guides, and feedback loops that kept employees informed, engaged, and aligned through a high-stakes transformation. The result was a smoother merger, stronger morale, and fewer people lost in the shuffle.
For a global pharma giant, they used storytelling and multimedia to get 92% of employees to fully understand a complex culture transformation, all while keeping costs flat and increasing R&D spend.
Oh, and they know frontline workers are less likely to respond to asynchronous communication. When working with a power company, they ditched the digital-first mindset and leaned into face-to-face talks and bulletin boards: exactly what the field teams wanted.
Industries:
Pharmaceuticals & Bioscience
Medical Products & Healthcare
Manufacturing
Insurance & Financial Services
Technology
Transportation & Aviation
Professional Services
Energy
Hospitality
Notable Clients:
Dow DuPont
Phillips 66
Key Services:
Change & Transformation
Purpose
Culture
Communication
Employee Engagement
Leadership & Talent
Experience Design & Creative Consulting
Why work with Gagen MacDonald?
Gagen MacDonald brings a unique blend of human-centered insights and multidisciplinary expertise to bridge the gaps between traditional functional silos. As a woman-owned firm, they’re committed to building inclusive, collaborative environments that drive positive change.
4. Navalent
Navalent is the partner HR leaders call when leadership is misaligned, silos are calcifying, and business performance is on the line. Their specialty is unraveling tangled org structures, rebuilding fractured leadership teams, and realigning culture with strategy.
They start with deep organizational diagnostics: extensive leadership interviews, behavioral pattern mapping, and systemic analysis of how decisions actually get made (versus how they’re supposed to). This surfaces the real root causes of dysfunction, which could be structural gaps, unclear authority, poor succession planning, or competing subcultures.
Case in point: a $3 billion company on the brink of bankruptcy brought in Navalent after years of internal infighting, unclear roles, and a leadership team pulling in different directions. The board needed a full reset. Navalent redesigned the entire organizational system, clarified decision rights, rebuilt the senior leadership model, and coached executives into alignment. Four years later, the company had doubled its bottom line.
They have over 1,900 transformation projects and 3,600+ leadership interviews to date. This proves that Navalent delivers lasting, real-world change by embedding custom solutions into the core systems that drive how a business actually operates.
Industries:
Healthcare
Financial Services
Technology
Nonprofits
Notable Clients:
Eli Lilly
American Express
Microsoft
The Gates Foundation
Key Services:
Strategic Planning
Leadership Development
Organizational Design
Change Management
Executive Coaching
Why work with Navalent?
Navalent builds customized operating models that fix leadership misalignment, eliminate silos, and embed engagement into how your business actually runs. Their deep-dive diagnostics and systems-level approach help you transform the root causes of underperformance for long-term, measurable impact.
5. Helios HR
Helios HR helps companies turn employee feedback into action. They use deep-dive engagement surveys to surface what really matters, then help leaders build strategies that stick. And because employee sentiment shifts constantly, they’re big on pulse surveys. These are quick check-ins that help leadership stay ahead of issues before they snowball.
One example: a small but growing business partnered with Helios HR after struggling to attract qualified candidates through their existing careers page. Helios conducted a full audit of the company’s employer brand, candidate journey, and application flow. They identified friction points like vague job descriptions, a poor mobile experience, and unclear messaging about company culture.
From there, Helios helped the team redesign their careers page to better reflect their values, growth opportunities, and day-to-day employee experience, complete with updated copy, structured job postings, and clearer calls-to-action.
They don’t just hand over a survey and wish you luck. Helios benchmarks your results, identifies key gaps, and delivers next steps that drive real improvement. This structured approach leads to faster retention, happier teams, and better business outcomes.
Industries:
Healthcare
Education
Government
Technology
Nonprofit
Notable Clients:
The George Washington University
Inova Health System
Montgomery County Government
National Institutes of Health
Hilton Worldwide
Key Services:
HR Outsourcing
Talent Acquisition
Employee Engagement and Retention
Leadership Development
HR Strategy and Planning
Compliance and Risk Management
Why work with Helios HR?
Helios HR helps you turn scattered HR processes into a structured, data-informed strategy that boosts retention, streamlines hiring, and strengthens employee engagement. Their team goes beyond one-off fixes by combining deep analytics, leadership coaching, and compliance expertise to build scalable systems that support your people.
6. Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. Employee Experience
Gallagher’s huge in insurance, but their Employee Experience team helps companies rethink how work actually feels for their people. They take into account your employees’ career growth, well-being, and connection to purpose so your company can thrive.
Fresh stat from their 2024 U.S. Career Wellbeing Report: career growth is now a top driver of engagement & retention. Unfortunately, only 35% of employers are seriously investing in it. That’s a big opportunity gap, but it’s one they can help you exploit since they’re also doing their in-house research.
One client, a 6,000-employee multi-state services firm, turned to Gallagher after realizing their benefits program wasn’t driving value, engagement during open enrollment was low, and costs were climbing without meaningful impact. Gallagher used its proprietary analytics platform to audit claims data, pharmacy spend, vendor contracts, and communication gaps.
The team then reallocated $3.5–$4 million in savings toward high-impact offerings like fertility and adoption benefits, 24/7 health access, and simplified, action-focused enrollment messaging. The result was a significant increase in employee engagement, improved benefit utilization, and a $4 million cost-to-value turnaround.
At the University of Colorado Boulder, Gallagher conducted a deep-dive engagement survey to uncover why staff reported lower enthusiasm, career satisfaction, and connection to the university’s mission compared to faculty. With a 76% staff response rate, the survey focused on leadership effectiveness, hybrid work, well-being, and career development.
Using statistical modeling and regression analysis, Gallagher surfaced key insight areas and equipped CU Boulder’s leadership with unit-level data to drive targeted improvements. The process helped transform survey feedback into real operational change across campus.
Industries:
Healthcare
Education
Government
Manufacturing
Retail
Notable Clients:
Cleveland Clinic
University of Notre Dame
City of New York
Key Services:
Health and Welfare Benefits Consulting
Employee Wellness Programs
Retirement and Financial Well-being Solutions
Employee Engagement Strategies
Organizational Well-being Solutions
Reason to Work with Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.
AJG's expertise in customized, data-driven employee experience solutions can enhance employee satisfaction and drive overall business success. Their collaborative approach ensures that each program is uniquely aligned with the client's strategic goals.
7. MAGNET - Employee Engagement
MAGNET (aka the Manufacturing Advocacy & Growth Network) helps manufacturers turn employee engagement into a competitive edge. They are experts at building leadership, retention, and culture where it matters most.
In fact, their playbook includes leadership coaching, onboarding design, performance management, and tools like Grounded Theory Analysis to figure out what’s really holding teams back.
Proof it works? MAGNET worked with Snyder Manufacturing to address low engagement and stagnant performance on the shop floor. After diagnosing gaps in leadership communication, onboarding, and performance feedback, they rolled out targeted coaching and streamlined management tools.
The results were solid. They had a $4 million boost in new and retained sales, plus 10 new or retained jobs, all driven by a more connected, better-supported workforce.
Bottom line: if you run a shop floor or production line and want a team that’s engaged, growing, and sticking around, these are your people.
Industries:
Manufacturing
Notable Clients:
Snyder Manufacturing, Inc.
Key Services:
Workforce and culture analysis
Leadership coaching and workshops
Turnover reduction strategies
Performance management improvement
Why work with MAGNET?
MAGNET specializes in helping manufacturers fix the workforce issues that hit the bottom line, like high turnover, disengaged teams, and unclear performance expectations. Their on-the-ground approach combines leadership coaching, process improvement, and culture diagnostics, specifically for industrial environments.
Side note: Are you dealing with high turnover? Then handling burnout may be a solution; explore how a 4-day work week can reduce burnout, attract talent, and even improve productivity.
8. Teneo
When the C-suite is working through high-stakes transitions like mergers, leadership turnover, restructuring, or cultural reinvention, Teneo is the firm that gets called in to steady the ship. They specialize in solving the communication breakdowns, trust gaps, and resistance that derail major initiatives from the inside.
With 1,600+ consultants across 40+ offices, they mobilize quickly to assess stakeholder sentiment, align leadership messaging, and build company-wide engagement strategies that actually land.
Teneo makes sure employees understand why change is happening by combining executive alignment workshops, tailored messaging frameworks, and audience-specific communication plans backed by behavioral insights, so every employee sees where they fit in and what role they play in making it work.
Industries:
Corporate
Finance
Healthcare
Technology
Key services:
Strategic Communication Planning
Employee Engagement Programs
Change Management Consulting
Leadership Communication Development
Organizational Culture Assessment
Why work with Teneo?
Teneo’s expertise in aligning employee engagement strategies with organizational objectives helps them deliver seamless transitions and sustained employee commitment during periods of change.
9. GRIT HR Solutions
GritHR is for companies that want HR that works. They understand why their clients dislike jargon and red tape, so they use practical strategies that help you hire, retain, and grow great teams.
For example, they helped Lead Love, a RevOps services company, achieve 100% HR compliance for over two years by implementing clear, audit-ready policies, managing employee files, and conducting regular compliance check-ins.
They also took over day-to-day HR tasks like onboarding, performance reviews, and documentation. These things cut the CEO’s time spent on HR by more than half and allowed the leadership team to focus fully on scaling the business.
For a managed IT services client, GRIT HR filled 15 high-priority roles by streamlining the entire hiring funnel: revamping job descriptions, running targeted outreach campaigns, and vetting candidates through structured interviews. At the same time, they overhauled outdated HR systems by introducing a modern HRIS, updating internal policies, and creating a performance management process that aligned with the company’s growth goals.
Their model is to become an extension of your team. They’ll handle everything from compliance to onboarding to performance management so you don’t have to stress it.
Clients rave about their speed and hands-on style: “Responsiveness, thoroughness, competency”... words you don’t always hear about HR firms.
Industries:
Technology
Healthcare
Manufacturing
Retail
Notable clients:
Meta
Amazon
Microsoft
Walmart
Key services:
HR Compliance and Risk Management
Talent Acquisition and Recruitment
Employee Training and Development
Performance Management Systems
Payroll and Benefits Administration
Why work with GRIT HR Solutions?
GRIT HR becomes a true extension of your team, handling everything from compliance and recruitment to onboarding and performance management with the same urgency and care as an in-house HR leader. They bring strategic clarity and hands-on support, so you’re not stuck juggling HR tasks alone.
10. Vero HR
Vero HR is like having an on-demand HR department: they cover everything from hiring to payroll to compliance, without the bloat of old-school HR firms.
They’ve been at it for 20+ years and work with companies of all sizes, from startups to teams of 3,000+. This shows us that they’re experienced, resilient, and appreciated by their clients over the years.
Let’s look at their case studies. One fast-scaling tech startup brought Vero in to fully manage HR after the internal admin became a growth bottleneck. Vero quickly assessed existing gaps, implemented a compliant HR framework, standardized onboarding and offboarding processes, and introduced structured performance reviews. They also took over day-to-day operations like contracts, policy updates, and payroll coordination, which freed up leadership to focus on scaling without HR distractions.
In another case, a client was looking to cut HR costs without sacrificing quality. Vero conducted a cost audit across HR systems and vendors, got rid of redundancies, and implemented a more efficient HRIS tailored to the company’s size and goals. They also deployed a team of HR specialists on demand, which allowed the company to scale support as needed while maintaining lean internal operations. The result: a 5–8% reduction in HR spend and better-fit tools with faster response times.
And with a +89 Net Promoter Score, clients are clearly loving the experience.
Key services:
Outsourced HR Support
HR Consultancy
Employee Relations
Recruitment Services
Compliance and Policy Management
Why work with Vero HR?
Vero HR gives you all the HR support you need: recruiting, compliance, onboarding, payroll, and policies, without the overhead of building out a full department. Their model scales with your business, offering expert guidance, on-demand support, and modern HR systems that streamline operations and cut costs. You get the coverage of a full-stack HR team, minus the bloat.
11. HRKonnect
HR Konnect gives growing companies the kind of HR support usually reserved for the Fortune 500. They handle the high-stakes, high-stress parts of HR like compliance, employee relations, performance issues, and terminations. That way, founders and execs can stay focused on growth.
Their plans start at just $499/month, and include a dedicated HR pro, proactive check-ins, and a toolkit of resources that scales with your team.
When YETI brought them in, they needed to grow fast without breaking their internal culture. HR Konnect helped them define core people processes, roll out scalable performance systems, and maintain alignment between leadership and team expectations, all while staying agile. YETI called the program a “gamechanger” because it let them scale fast while keeping their culture strong.
Besides, HRKonnect’s “center of excellence” model means your HR gets access to top-tier specialists exactly when you need them. Rather than assigning a generalist, they match you with experts in key areas like compensation analysis, performance management, or compliance. That means you’re tapping the best in the field for your exact challenge. Basically, you get deep, Fortune-500-level expertise on demand, without hiring a large internal department.
Industries:
Healthcare
Education
Manufacturing
Technology
Notable Clients:
Apollo Hospitals
IIT Bombay
TCS
Infosys
Key Services:
HR Management System (HRMS)
Payroll Processing
Compliance Management
Employee Self-Service Portal
Performance Management
Recruitment Solutions
Why work with HRKonnect?
HRKonnect offers affordable, pre-set plans that give you a dedicated HR partner and access to specialist support when needed. Their center of excellence model means you get expert guidance on complex issues without the overhead of a full in-house team.
How to Choose the Right Employee Engagement Consulting Firm
Not all employee engagement consultants are created equal. Some deliver generic workshops that collect dust. Others drive deep culture change that increase morale, retention, and business performance for years.
Here’s how to spot the difference and pick the right firm for your team:
Employee Experience vs Employee Engagement: What’s the Difference, and Why It Matters When Choosing a Consulting Firm
When choosing a consulting partner, you’ll need to understand the distinction between employee experience and employee engagement. Not all firms address both effectively, and your choice should make sense within your business goals.
Employee engagement focuses on how employees feel about their work, their leaders, their team, and the organization. It looks at motivation, emotional commitment, and willingness to go above and beyond. Engagement is usually measured through surveys, pulse checks, and feedback loops that track morale, alignment, and discretionary effort.
Employee experience (EX) is broader. It covers the full journey of an employee from onboarding to exit and includes every touchpoint. This means technology, workspace design, policies, leadership behaviors, career development opportunities, and well-being initiatives. EX is about designing environments, processes, and systems that enable people to do their best work without friction.
Why does this distinction matter when choosing a firm?
Firms focused only on engagement might zero in on sentiment scores, communications, and culture workshops. Firms with true EX expertise help you rework the underlying systems that shape how people experience work every day. If your challenges are rooted in process, technology, or structural issues, you will need a partner who can go beyond morale-boosting efforts to address the full work environment.
Red flags
The firm frames engagement as primarily a survey exercise without discussing operational or systemic drivers.
They lack case studies where changes to tools, processes, or structures played a role in improving outcomes.
Their solutions focus heavily on communications, values, and workshops but do not address work design or systems.
They cannot clearly explain how they differentiate between addressing engagement and experience.
Questions to ask:
How do you approach the link between employee engagement and employee experience in your work?
Can you show examples where you addressed systemic drivers of experience, not just sentiment?
How do you help clients align process and technology improvements with engagement goals?
What is your methodology for diagnosing and improving employee experience, beyond surveys and feedback?
Embedded Implementation, Not Handoff
The best firms stay engaged through execution, supporting managers, sequencing rollout, and coaching leadership through resistance and adoption.
Red flags:
They end the engagement after delivering a report or scorecard.
They talk a lot about “diagnostics” but little about sustained change.
No mention of implementation planning, enablement, or measurement.
Questions to ask:
What support do you provide post-survey or post-workshop?
Do you track adoption or impact after your recommendations are rolled out?
Can you share examples where you stayed involved beyond the initial diagnostic phase?
Systemic Root-Cause Work, Not Sentiment Band-Aids
Engagement problems are rarely just individual morale issues. They usually reflect structural blockers: broken workflows, misaligned incentives, or unclear roles. Top firms address these head-on.
Red flags:
Solutions are communication-heavy, but light on operations or structure.
No org designers, business analysts, or process experts on staff.
Case studies talk about “energy” or “alignment” without describing what changed.
Questions to ask:
How do you diagnose the systemic causes of disengagement, not just the symptoms?
Do you ever make org structure or workflow recommendations?
Can you show examples where your work changed how people work, not just how they feel?
Manager-Level Behavior Change
The team leader experience makes or breaks engagement. If your partner isn’t focused on mid-level manager enablement, the impact won’t stick.
Red flags:
Manager support = "toolkits" only.
Data is delivered at the company level, not by team or function.
They emphasize employee sentiment but ignore the leadership layer.
Questions to ask:
How do you support behavior change at the manager level?
Do you coach managers directly, or enable internal HR teams to do so?
How is engagement data translated into manager-specific action?
Actionable, Connected Insights
You don’t need another dashboard. You need engagement data that connects to retention, burnout risk, team health, or performance outcomes.
Red flags:
Results are shared as isolated metrics (e.g., eNPS, sentiment, alignment) with no operational context.
They can’t link engagement metrics to talent KPIs.
Recommendations feel generic or disconnected from your business.
Questions to ask:
How do you help translate engagement results into priorities for HR, Ops, or leadership?
Can you integrate with our HRIS or performance systems?
What metrics do you track to connect engagement efforts to business impact?
Flexible, Context-Aware Delivery
The best firms adapt their methods to your team’s size, structure, maturity, and culture. No two orgs need the same playbook.
Red flags:
They use the same delivery model across industries or org sizes.
They lead with their “proprietary model” over your business context.
No mention of hybrid, remote, or distributed team adaptations.
Questions to ask:
How do you tailor your approach to different org sizes or maturity levels?
Do you adjust strategy for hybrid or globally distributed teams?
Can you share an example where your method evolved based on client context?
Check the graphic below for a breakdown of what to look for here:
Which Employee Engagement Consulting Firm Will You Choose?
Choosing the right consulting partner can transform how your team feels about work and how your business performs. Take the time to evaluate firms carefully, dig into their results, and make sure they align with your goals and culture. The right choice will pay off in higher engagement, stronger retention, and a thriving workforce for years to come.
Alpha Apex Group stands out for its ability to turn engagement data into clear, lasting action. After all, it combines behavioral insights, leadership enablement, and cultural transformation into a single, measurable strategy. If you're looking for a partner that drives results, not just reports, AAG delivers.
Pro tip: If you enjoyed this topic, check out our article on the most important drivers of employee engagement next!
FAQ
What is an employee engagement consultant?
An employee engagement consultant helps organizations understand what's driving or blocking engagement across their workforce, then builds targeted strategies to improve morale, performance, and retention.
What is the main purpose of employee engagement?
Simple: to create a workplace where people actually want to show up and do their best work. Higher engagement = happier employees, better performance, lower turnover, and stronger business outcomes.
What are the different types of employee engagement?
You’ve got emotional engagement (how connected people feel), cognitive engagement (how invested they are in the work), and behavioral engagement (how much they go above and beyond). Great companies aim to boost all three.
What are some common employee engagement challenges?
Lack of trust in leadership, poor communication, unclear career growth, burnout, and disconnected remote teams are big ones. The good news? With the right approach, all of these can be fixed.
What are the 5 C’s of employee engagement?
The 5 C’s are Connection, Clarity, Contribution, Credibility, and Career. These represent key drivers of engagement: feeling connected to the team and mission, having clear expectations, seeing personal impact, trusting leadership, and having room to grow. Strong engagement strategies touch all five.
