Several employers ago, when people left the organization where I worked, they also left a lot of stuff behind, as if they wanted no trace of their former work life.

I liked to browse their abandoned offices, checking out the pens, lamps, and books they left. One day a glossy softbound tome caught my eye,  a benefits solution company's name tastefully embossed on the cover.

It looked like an annual report. But page after page showed images of workers laughing, socializing, playing ping-pong, posing in the office building, smiling at their desks. Quotes from first-named employees testified to how fabulous this company is.

I suppose it's an asset in recruiting. But as a serial watcher of the now-classic work movie “Office Space,” I wonder how much of the testimony was “volunteered” (i.e., “Hey subordinates, could you send me a few paragraphs on what you most like about working here? Thanks. And I'll need that TPS report by Saturday evening too.”).

You can fake employee engagement in photos and testimony, and even on a website. But you can't fake it in reality.

For example, just fly Southwest Airlines and then fly a competitor. Chances are, the more-often-than-not engaged employees of Southwest will make your experience so good, you won't want to fly other airlines.

Technically, HR shouldn't be the only department concerned about it, though they're the ones responsible for encouraging it.

Many send out employee surveys to try to figure out how engaged employees are in the first place. (Hint: If you have to send out multiple nagging emails telling employees to take the engagement survey, and you still don't get a response, well….)

But if the survey questions ask whether employees would like to go to a baseball game or volunteer together out in the community, or have weekly coffee klatches, the effort to better engage employees has already failed, because assumptions are already being made.

Chances are, many workers are too stressed to even consider taking time out from work to be with fellow workers, knowing they'll pay for that time spent at the baseball game with extra hours at the computer that evening.

And if they're parents, many might actually prefer either a few free hours to themselves or some extra time with family.

Of course, some love the baseball game-coffee klatch-volunteer events. I think that's because most of those folks are extroverts. Like many HR pros.

But what about introverts? They still might not be as valued in the workplace or in society, but they're crucial to keeping the corporate tanker afloat.

I polled my introvert friends to find ways that companies can help create and enhance employee engagement in addition to the baseball games/coffee klatches. Here's what they suggested:

1. Offer us something bigger to be part of — a vision beyond making target profits or quarterly quotas.
2. Give us fun, meaningful ways to socialize that don't involve a lot of time, are highly structured yet flexible, and don't mean we have to make up work later.
3. Pay someone in the office to be a greeter, event coordinator, social director, office mom, office dad, whatever you want to call them. He or she can be an extrovert or an introvert, it doesn't matter – what matters is they focus on helping employees make connections with each other and with the company.
4. At open enrollment, let employees choose among benefits and make it a fun choice, not the usual grim “Do I take the high-deductible plan or the low-deductible plan?”
5. For new employees, create a hands-on, fun and helpful onboarding process. Then people won't say “I HAVE to attend new employee orientation” but rather “I GET to attend new employee orientation” and maybe even “Look what I won at new employee orientation.”

Then perhaps the next glossy publication or website you use for recruiting will have real people with real smiles and honest comments about how they love working there.