CIPD Good Work Index 2026: 4 Key Takeaways for Your Employee Engagement Events Strategy

The CIPD has just published the ninth wave of its Good Work Index, based on YouGov survey data from over 5,000 UK employees. It measures job quality across seven dimensions, from pay and contracts through to voice, relationships and wellbeing, and tracks how each one links to five business outcomes: satisfaction, advocacy, discretionary effort, innovation and retention.

Reading through it, four dimensions kept jumping out: skills development, line management, purpose and voice. They show up as the biggest drivers across nearly every outcome the CIPD measured. Here's what the data says, and what to do about it.

1. Training and development programmes are your most direct lever on retention and advocacy.

CIPD finds "considerable gaps in employer-provided skills development", with nearly a fifth of employees (19%) not completing any training over the last 12 months, rising to over 27% in SMEs.

At the same time, employees who feel their job offers good opportunities to develop their skills are dramatically more likely to be satisfied (86% vs 39% for those who disagree) and to recommend their employer (71% vs 23%), so that means a lot of organisations, especially smaller ones, are leaving an easy win on the table.

In particular, with AI adoption on the rise, CIPD found a definitive link between training participation and employees’ perceptions of the usefulness of AI to their jobs, yet of the 11% of employees who use AI daily, 60% haven’t received training on how to use it. As mentioned in our article on the Gallup Engagement Report, a clear AI strategy rollout is integral, with organisational readiness becoming the new barrier to overcome for a strong return on investment with AI tools.

Overall, just over half (58%) of employees agree they have the training and information they need to do their job well, so internal training & development programmes are not only key to developing skills that will improve efficiencies, but also have a long-term impact on overall satisfaction and employee retention.

2. Manager-focused events are the single biggest investment you can make in job quality.

It’s often said that managers are ‘the guardians of company culture ’, and the CIPD findings back this up, with line management being one of the most consistent relationships with every outcome the CIPD tracked. Employees who rate their line manager in the top quartile are more than twice as likely to say they'd recommend their employer as those in the bottom quartile (81% vs 21%), and nearly twice as likely to say they're unlikely to quit (73% vs 45%).

The same goes for how employees perceive senior leadership: those who agree their leaders have a clear vision are far more likely to be satisfied (84% vs 45%) and to recommend their employer (75% vs 24%) than those who disagree.

It’s often said that managers are ‘the guardians of company culture’, yet 82% of UK managers consider themselves to be ‘accidental’ without any formal training, which has a significant effect down the line. Whether it’s a leadership offsite, a manager-only stream at a conference, or structured sessions that give people leading teams the tools to lead more effectively, if you're going to prioritise budget for one audience next year, then the data says to invest in your managers.

3. All-company conferences reinforce an employee’s connection to the company’s mission.

Engagement with your company and its mission starts at onboarding, but as time passes, the feeling of how someone might fit into the larger picture can often become more diluted as they focus more on the day-to-day.

For instance, CIPD found that nearly three-quarters of employees (72%) feel like they're doing useful work for their organisation, but less than half (42%) feel inspired by their organisation’s core purpose. The same inspiration that has direct links to job satisfaction (88% vs 40%), to recommending their employer (77% vs 24%) and to being less likely to quit (72% vs 47%).

All-company conferences are standout ‘tentpole’ moments to help reinforce that purpose and bring it to life while everyone is in the same room. And alongside a full suite of written comms and touchpoints, it gives the opportunity for employees to hear directly from leadership and helps them get inspired by their company’s future and the role that they have to play in it.

4. Town halls, socials and celebrations are where connection gets built.

Town halls, socials and recognition events are more than a nice afternoon out. They're doing a specific job that daily working life, especially under hybrid patterns, simply isn't doing on its own: actually connecting with the people they work alongside.

In what may not be a total surprise, it turns out that working from home is quietly eroding peer relationships, with 1 in 10 fully remote workers saying they have no relationships with their colleagues at all.

Good relationships with colleagues are a major driver of employee satisfaction (73% vs 32% of those with bad relationships), so all-company events are not a great opportunity to deliver business information more engagingly, but also an even better opportunity to have remote and hybrid teams connect with one another and form long-lasting relationships.

What this means for 2026 planning

None of the strongest findings in this report point to pay, contracts or policy as the fix; they point to whether people are developing new skills, being led well, connecting to purpose, and being heard and seen by the people around them.

Those are the four things internal events are well placed to deliver, and not as one big set-piece moment a year, but as a programme of touchpoints across the calendar: training days that close the skills gap, manager-focused development that builds line management capability, conferences and brand immersions that make purpose real, and town halls and socials that give people the chance to connect.

Employee events aren't a nice-to-have sitting on top of a people strategy. On this data, they're one of the more direct routes into the outcomes that actually matter: satisfaction, advocacy, retention and performance.

If you're a FTSE 100 company, challenger or purpose-led brand looking to close the good work gap and collaborate on your internal events strategy, contact one of our employee engagement event specialists at hello@thinkbright.co.uk