Engagement strategies are often treated as exciting and fun perks to help employees stay motivated and fulfilled at an organization. But Jenessa Disler, Senior Director of Talent and Succession at McKesson, and speaker at SPARK HR 2026, turns that thinking on its head.
The reality is, she says, “When engagement is done really well, it’s actually just calm and boring in a way; it’s that people feel good. They’re able to be creative and talk across boundaries of roles.”
Disler is part of the engagement and experience sessions at SPARK HR in St. Pete Beach, FL, April 28–30, where she will speak on future-forward engagement strategies and innovations. As an HR leader who has specialized in talent management spanning her career, Disler knows what true engagement looks like, explaining the calm aspect of it.
“Some of the things that are really important for that level of calmness is role clarity: being able to help individuals understand where they fit inside the ecosystem; understanding how they tie to larger strategic priorities and making that feel very meaningful; understanding what’s expected of them; and then, of course, the feedback loops. And that, in my opinion, should always be two-way.”
Disler will expound on engagement strategies and share actionable insights during her sessions, but here are her three sneak peeks on the themes HR leaders can expect to hear.
AI Is an Amplifier for Engagement—Not a Replacement for Human Insight
Using AI in the workplace can speed up tasks at scale, but the real value is the redirection of time and energy toward employee development that drives engagement.
For example, as part of Disler’s talent and succession role at McKesson, she creates success profiles for executive succession and development efforts. Creating the profiles typically took Disler and her team several weeks and multiple meetings to achieve. But after building a custom AI agent as a coworker, creating the success profiles now takes just minutes, preserving the most valuable time for human judgment, dialogue, and validation conversations with leaders.
Employee Growth Happens Through Clear Pathways and Future-Focused Leadership Capabilities
At McKesson, Disler says an engagement challenge she and her team recently tackled is clarity around employee growth and development, in which employees were asking to understand “where they fit into that larger ecosystem, how to progress their career in a meaningful way,” and what development opportunities were available.
Disler and her team have worked to define capabilities that clarify what it “looks like to lead into the future and transform this environment. We’re creating a stronger tie to development for those capabilities, giving things a fresh look, and building a brand-new strategy to help how people feel about development, and hopefully give them the precision and focus that they need.”
To Make Engagement a Repeatable Outcome, You Must Have Foundational Systems in Place
Every organizational system, be it performance management, feedback cycles, development, or succession planning, should communicate an organization’s values. Messaging should be cohesive, as employee engagement plummets when messaging around feedback, goals, and strategy are disconnected. But when all are aligned, engagement becomes repeatable.
Disler says, “I know what type of work it takes to make all those things talk to each other. The other key thing is to think about systems and structures in terms of what message it’s sending. That’s sometimes where culture comes into play, where what’s maybe not spoken, or unspoken rules, are how the system or the structure is translated to the everyday person. Employees will give you an earful if you’re willing to listen on what message is being sent from our structures and systems.”
To hear more from Disler, join us at SPARK HR 2026 at St. Pete Beach, FL, April 28-30. From calming AI job-loss fears to spotting flight risks before they walk out the door, you’ll gain practical engagement strategies and actionable solutions that work. Join the world’s top HR leaders from Disney, IBM, Meta, Chick-fil-A, LinkedIn, and more. It’s not just another conference—it’s hands-on, interactive, and a chance to connect with people who really get it. Plus, who doesn’t like a good beach trip? Click here to register today!