Employee engagement: do practitioners care what academics have to say – and should they?

Securing high levels of employee engagement has become a dominant concern for HR practitioners globally, and a lucrative survey and consultancy industry has grown up around the topic. Despite significant parallel interest within the scholarly community, it is questionable whether research published in peer-reviewed journals has had any impact on the practice of engagement. The divergent perspectives of academics and practitioners on engagement are explored within the wider context of evidence-based management and the ‘rigor – relevance’ debate, alongside consideration of the risks of presupposing a simplified binary divide between the two communities. Some suggestions for strategies aimed at creating a stronger connection between the interests of practitioners and those of academics are proposed, whilst bearing in mind academia’s broader and more critical remit.