Beyond Engagement Scores: What Your Top Performers Are Really Trying to Tell You
- The Disappearing Act HR Doesn’t See Coming
- Surveys Capture Sentiment. Behavior Tells the Story
- Quiet Quitting Isn’t Always Loud
- Behavioral Rhythms Are the Real Engagement Score
- AlbiCoins: A Barometer for Human Signals
- Are You Noticing the Emotional Dropouts?
Traditional metrics measure satisfaction. But your best employees speak in signals — not surveys.
The Disappearing Act HR Doesn’t See Coming
In a recent McKinsey study on the Great Attrition, 41% of respondents cited lack of meaningful work and recognition as primary reasons for leaving. Yet these reasons rarely show up in pulse surveys or eNPS scores. Why? Because by the time a high performer starts checking “neutral” or “satisfied,” they’re already halfway out the door emotionally.
Traditional engagement tools rely on what people say. But the most valuable signals often come from what people stop doing.
Surveys Capture Sentiment. Behavior Tells the Story
Employee engagement surveys, pulse checks, and eNPS systems serve a purpose. They provide snapshots of how people feel at a given moment. But these tools have built-in blind spots:
| What Traditional Surveys Capture | What They Miss |
|---|---|
| Self-reported satisfaction | Decline in discretionary effort |
| Generalized sentiment | Withdrawal from cross-team collaboration |
| Agreement with values/mission | Quiet drop in informal leadership or mentoring |
| Reaction to events (e.g., reorgs) | Emotional withdrawal from peer recognition loops |
Especially in hybrid or distributed teams, these missed signals can compound invisibly.
Quiet Quitting Isn’t Always Loud
When underperformers disengage, it often shows up quickly: missed deadlines, low energy, manager complaints. But when top performers disengage, the signals are subtle. They don’t complain — they conserve.
- They stop volunteering for pilot projects.
- They attend meetings, but no longer lead discussions.
- They skip writing that internal post or welcoming the new hire.
High performers are rarely disruptive. Instead, they shift into emotional minimalism: doing what’s expected, and nothing more. This is invisible disengagement.
Research from Harvard Business Review highlights that quiet quitting often correlates with low psychological safety and unrecognized effort, especially in high performers.1 It’s not about rebellion; it’s about retreat.
Behavioral Rhythms Are the Real Engagement Score
Organizations are beginning to look beyond surveys toward behavioral infrastructure. Emerging approaches include:
- Tracking micro-engagements: frequency of knowledge sharing, social interaction, mentoring
- Peer signal analysis: how often someone is acknowledged or mentions others
- Behavioral rhythms: consistency of discretionary actions over time
MIT Sloan research has shown that these patterns predict team cohesion and burnout risk more reliably than periodic self-reports 2
But such insights can’t be extracted manually or retroactively. They require real-time visibility.
AlbiCoins: A Barometer for Human Signals
Modern platforms like AlbiCoins aren’t built to replace surveys. They operate on a different layer: the behavioral-emotional layer.
Rather than ask people how engaged they feel, AlbiCoins reads contribution signals across the organization:
- Who’s sharing knowledge?
- Who’s being recognized by peers for informal leadership?
- Who’s stopped giving feedback in areas they once led?
By distributing micro-recognition across teams, it creates a passive signal map of contribution, without interrupting workflows or requiring responses. It works especially well in hybrid environments, where leaders often miss real-time emotional shifts.
This is not “feedback” software. It’s infrastructure for human visibility.
Are You Noticing the Emotional Dropouts?
If your top performer starts doing everything right — but just a little less often, will you know why?
Quiet disengagement isn’t a management failure. It’s a visibility failure. The future of HR isn’t more surveys. It’s systems that can listen without asking.
References:
- Harter, J., & Mann, A. (2022). “The Real Causes of Quiet Quitting.” Harvard Business Review.
- Wu, L., & Brynjolfsson, E. (2021). “The Attention Economy and the Net Effect of Information Technology on Knowledge Worker Productivity.” MIT Sloan Management Review.
- McKinsey & Company. (2021). “Great Attrition or Great Attraction? The Choice is Yours.”
- Bersin, J. (2023). “Human-Centered Performance: Moving Beyond Ratings.” The Josh Bersin Company.
