Engagement Isn't a Happy Hour Problem: What Actually Drives Performance
The Step UP - Where Leaders, Talent Managers and Leadership Development pros find expert tips for Leadership excellence · 2026-05-19 · 49 min
Episode notes
Most companies measure engagement once a year and then throw a happy hour at the results. Seth Thomas, HR leader at Claris Health, argues that's exactly backwards — engagement lives in the 364 other days, not the survey or the social event. In this conversation, Kent and Seth dig into the real relationship between engagement and performance, why feedback culture is harder to build than it looks, and what leading a fully remote workforce of 30+ states has taught Seth about making connection feel less optional. Guest: Seth Thomas is an HR leader at Claris Health with a background in industrial-organizational psychology, focused on engagement, performance, and building feedback cultures inside software organizations.