How to Engage Key Stakeholders at Work  

There are many moving parts to a project—including the stakeholders whose voices make an impact. By keeping key stakeholders involved in the inner workings of a project, 40% of projects are likely to finish on time and within budget. By learning how to engage stakeholders, there are no limits to what your company can achieve. 

…So, are you ready to know what it takes?  

Who are Key Stakeholders?  

A stakeholder is any individual, group, or party that has an interest in an organization and its success. Stakeholders range from board members, volunteers, customers, or executives—to name a few. They impact a project’s success by influencing decisions and securing resources, streamlining the project’s final delivery. 

Types of Stakeholders 

Internal Stakeholders 

An internal stakeholder is a professional who has a direct relationship with your company. They are directly involved in projects and ensure they successfully align with the organization’s goals. They make decisions, manage resources, and oversee executions.  

External Stakeholders  

External stakeholders, on the other hand, are people affected by your business but may not work directly with you. They usually focus on providing specific deliverables, meeting deadlines, or fulfilling expectations as clients. 

How to Engage Stakeholders 

Stakeholder engagement is the process of identifying, developing, and maintaining relationships with internal or external partners. To foster strong stakeholder communication, get to know the groups that have a stake in your organization based on their needs and capabilities. Focus on working together on the goals the shared team set to accomplish. 

Create a Stakeholder Empathy Map 

A stakeholder empathy map is a visual map representation of what a stakeholder sees, feels, thinks, hears, and says, according to your project. You can conduct interviews and surveys to gather data for each section of the map. By identifying pain points, motivations, and insights, you can better understand how to engage stakeholders. 

Photo Credit: Interaction Design

The Best Method for Engagement 

How to engage stakeholders depends on which group and level of influence they have. To facilitate stakeholder participation in organizations, set up an in-person meeting, do a poll, or a one-time survey. Once you gather data, organize the information per group into the empathy map where you can then share, analyze, and validate your findings. 

Maintain Relationships With Key Stakeholders 

One takeaway is to remember that each group requires its own unique mode of stakeholder communication to meet their needs and encourage engagement. Continue to follow up through check-ins, emails, and discussions. Why? These will be prime opportunities to develop and build bonds with one another: the secret sauce of stakeholder engagement. 

Knowing how to engage stakeholders will take you further in your next job. Start searching now! 

For more career tips, read these: Top Workplace Trends of 2025, Top 7 Professional Goals for the New Year, and How to Achieve Them, and 25 Questions to Ask at the End of an Interview.