Employee engagement is a critical element in increasing productivity and bolstering retention, but as the business world evolves, so to do the factors that will keep a workforce engaged, motivated, and happy. In fact, many experts say engagement may be the single most important challenge upper management faces, and there are myriad conflicting resources out there which claim to help achieve that lofty goal. However, many of these approaches end up causing more problems than they solve. “The problem with employee engagement experts is they take well-meaning concepts and over-engineer them to the point that they don't bear any resemblance to what normal people understand,” says Neil Morrison, group human resources director for Penguin Random House U.K. “Then we wonder why we have a disengaged work force.” Instead of obsessing about metrics and goal-setting, some experts are recommending a more laissez faire approach. They say focusing more on an individual employee, what their goals are, what their past is, and what their personality requires, will do far more to engage than a mountain of surveys ever will.