“How do we scale connection? How do you support growth, recognizing and realizing that growth is redefined and defined by every individual on a one-on-one basis?” asked Matt Garrett, COO and CMO of Augeo Workplace Engagement. 

The answer, says Sarita Parikh, SVP of product at Augeo Workplace Engagement, starts with understanding what engagement actually looks like in daily work. It’s not the large, scheduled events that define culture, but the small, repeated interactions that signal whether someone is seen, supported, and developing.

Garrett and Parikh spoke during a thought leadership spotlight about “Powering the Future of Work: A New Perspective on Designing Connection That Scales,” at From Day One’s Atlanta conference. The session focused on a central tension in modern organizations: culture is expected to be deeply human and highly individualized, yet it must operate across increasingly complex, hybrid, and time-pressured environments. AI, in their view, becomes useful not when it replaces human judgment but when it makes meaningful moments more visible and easier to act on

To illustrate, Parikh shared the story of “Sammy,” a high-performing data analyst eager to grow into a more client-facing role. Her manager Max was genuinely invested in her success, and their initial conversation was energizing. But a week later, overwhelmed by competing priorities, Max lost the thread. 

The breakdown wasn’t about intent or capability, says Garrett. “It’s not on Max for failing to do his job, it’s really just about the system that broke down,” he said. Those missed follow-ups, the lost context between conversations, are precisely where AI can help, by surfacing what matters at the moment it’s needed.

A Flywheel for Belonging

To make culture more repeatable, the speakers introduced what they called a “cultural connection flywheel,” built on four reinforcing elements: recognition, connection, participation, and growth.

Each fuels the next. Recognition strengthens connection; connection encourages participation; participation creates growth; and together they generate the momentum that produces a shared sense of belonging.

“Culture doesn’t scale through programs,” Garrett said. “It actually scales when we’re using systems that ultimately support this idea of human behavior.” That shift, from one-time initiatives to continuous, behavior-based systems, reflects a broader change in HR’s role. Instead of managing tools, leaders are increasingly designing experiences.

What Actually Drives Engagement

The second framework focused on individual motivation. Drawing on decades of loyalty and consumer-experience research, the team identified five core drivers that influence how employees engage: purpose, belonging, growth, connection, and well-being.

These drivers don’t appear all at once or remain constant. They shift from day to day and person to person, requiring managers to respond in ways that are both consistent and highly contextual, a task that becomes nearly impossible at scale without technological support.

AI’s value, Garrett said, is that “the best AI doesn’t necessarily make decisions for people. It makes these moments more visible.” For a manager with double-digit direct reports, or, in one client example, a ratio of one to 127, that visibility is the difference between treating management as a math problem and practicing it as a human one.

But the speakers emphasized that AI must be used carefully. Poorly designed systems can create a sense of surveillance, reinforce bias, or over-rely on quantitative signals that miss emotional reality.

“AI can tell you all kinds of numbers,” Parikh said, “but it can’t tell you the context of what people are feeling.” That limitation reinforces the central principle of their approach: AI should reduce friction and surface insight, while people make the decisions and build the relationships.

Scaling the Human Side of Work

Ultimately, the session framed HR’s future as a design discipline. The goal is to ensure that employees and managers encounter the right prompts, opportunities, and recognition at the right time—not through more programs, but through systems that support human connection continuously.

For someone like Sammy, that might mean being alerted to a new mentorship opportunity aligned with her goals. For her manager, it might mean walking into a one-on-one with the relevant context already in hand. Those small interventions, repeated across an organization, are what turn engagement from an aspiration into an operational reality.

The real objective is not just scaling work, “but more importantly, scaling the human parts—scaling the belonging at work,” said Parikh.

Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Augeo Workplace Engagement, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. 

Chris O’Keeffe is a freelance writer with experience across industries. As the founder and creative director of OK Creative: The Language Agency, he has led strategy and storytelling for organizations like MIT, Amazon, and Cirque du Soleil, bringing their stories to life through established and emerging media.

(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)