In an ideal world, your business would have maximum productivity and work quality. However, the reality is that employees are not always engaged in their work and their priorities may lie elsewhere. If you want to ensure that your employees are performing at their best, measuring employee engagement needs to be a top priority. However, it can be difficult to put a number on engagement and determine where you can improve. But the good news is that there are a number of different metrics you can use to assess engagement. Read on to discover how to move the needle on engagement.

What is Employee Engagement?

In simple terms, employee engagement refers to the emotional, physical and mental commitment that people have to the business. It is this commitment that drives engagement. For example, someone who goes above and beyond at work would be highly engaged. An employee’s level of engagement will usually be determined by how happy they are at work. This can be influenced by a number of factors, such as recognition, meaningfulness of work and opportunities for growth.

Why You Should Measure Engagement?

High levels of employee engagement could be the difference between your business maintaining top talent and your employees deciding to work for your competitors. To increase engagement, you need to identify what is engaging and disengaging your team in the first place. Part of this process involves measuring levels of engagement to determine the things that you need to improve. When you listen to your team and show them that you care about making the workplace better for them, they are 4.6 times more likely to perform at their best. This commitment will also reflect in their productivity. In fact, research shows that businesses with highly engaged teams have 21% greater profitability. Read our article to discover more benefits of employee engagement.

Tips For Success

Remember that employee engagement does not happen in a vacuum. To start seeing changes, you need to consistently measure engagement. To help you get started, here are our top tips for assessing engagement.

1. Set SMART Objectives

Setting common goals helps employees see how they fit into the bigger picture and ensures everyone is on the same page. This will help to build a sense of pride and motivate employees to accomplish goals. All goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound (SMART) and do not be afraid to involve employees in the process of setting goals. If they feel that their voices are being heard, you are more likely to get early buy-in.

2. Survey Employees

There is no better way to find out which areas you need to focus on than by asking your team. With an employee well-being survey, you can find out how they really feel and gain deeper insights into the employee experience.

3. Involve Employees at Every Level

Of course, junior and lower-level employees do not need to attend every single meeting you have. But it is important that they are kept in the loop. Every member of the team should have regular opportunities to speak and be heard.

4. Look at Your New Employees

It is important to focus on the entire employee life cycle and not exclude new team members from the assessment process. This will allow you to identify factors that contribute to engagement for new employees and put policies and strategies in place to reengage veterans.

5. Look at Productivity

Generally, productivity is a key indicator of engagement. If employees are not hitting targets, this could indicate that they do not enjoy their role. It is a good idea to find out what makes them tick and do your best to provide this.

Metrics to Use

Assessing engagement and getting to the root of what your team needs can be tricky. That is why we are sharing the best metrics to track.

1. Feedback

Feedback does not always have to be negative. Without constructive feedback, it is difficult for employees to grow. With this in mind, it is a good idea to look at the frequency and quality of feedback provided.

2. Recognition

In a similar vein, ensuring that employees receive praise for their accomplishments is crucial. When it comes to measuring recognition, you want to look at the quality and frequency of praise.

3. Happiness

It goes without saying that happiness is one of the key metrics for most businesses. The easiest way to assess happiness is to ask employees to rate their level of happiness at work on a scale from 1 to 10, as well as how satisfied they are with their work-life balance.

4. Relationships With Colleagues

Given the fact that Brits spend 19% of every year at work, it is important to have good relationships with coworkers. After all, teams that have good communication, high levels of trust and collaborate well together are likely to thrive.

5. Relationships With Leaders

Equally, relationships with managers and leaders play an important role in engagement. When employees feel that their managers care about their well-being and devote time to help them, they are more likely to be engaged in their work.

6. Personal Development

Let’s face it, having few opportunities to grow and advance at work is a fast-track ticket to leaving the company. To measure personal growth, you may want to look at the level of autonomy employees have, how challenged they are and whether they have a sense of purpose at work.

7. Alignment

At the end of the day, people want to work for companies with visions and values that align with their personal beliefs and values. If there is no alignment, your employees are less likely to genuinely enjoy their work.

8. Satisfaction

People need to be fairly compensated for their work and have access to the right resources. Without this, it may be difficult to keep employees engaged.

9. Wellness

While some stress at work is normal, gone are the days of being bogged down by overwhelming workloads. With an employee well-being survey, you can assess whether your company allows employees to have a reasonable work-life balance and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

10. Advocacy

In every organisation, there are promoters, neutrals and detractors. While it would be ideal if every employee took pride in working for your business and recommended your company as a good place to work, the reality is that not everyone will feel that way. By calculating the employee net promoter score (eNPS) you can learn what makes detractors feel disengaged and how to boost engagement for neutrals.

How to Measure Engagement

Here are the steps you should take when surveying employees.

1. Set Engagement Outcomes

In a nutshell, these are survey questions that measure the behaviours or feelings of employees, such as advocacy, intent to stay and satisfaction. For example, “How likely are you to recommend this company as a good place to work?” These questions will provide you with clear targets to maintain or improve.

2. Identify the Key Drivers

You need to ensure that the survey covers the areas that have a significant impact on engagement, such as recognition and wellness. For example, “Do you receive recognition for your contributions to the organisation?”

3. Analyse the Drivers

Once your employees have completed the survey, you need to identify which drivers have the biggest impact on engagement. For example, highly engaged employees are likely to rate certain drivers more favourably than less engaged employees. You will then need to develop and implement a strategy to improve any weak areas.

4. Regularly Survey Employees

Some companies may want to do an employee health check every few weeks while others may do one every quarter. However, it is crucial that you survey your team at least once every year.

Different Approaches To Take

There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to measuring employee engagement. When it comes down to it, it will depend on the size and structure of your organisation. Here are the different approaches you may want to take when carrying out engagement surveys.

1. Company-Wide

If you want to establish a baseline engagement level, it is a good idea to carry out an annual engagement survey across your organisation. This will provide you with a benchmark to assess how engagement changes every year.

2. Teams & Groups

Once you have a company-wide benchmark, it makes sense to break your team down into targeted groups based on department, location and seniority. You may want to carry out an additional survey with targeted questions for these groups.

3. Individual Perceptions

It is wise to also approach engagement at an individual level. After all, no two employees are the same. One-on-one meetings provide the perfect opportunity to offer recognition and feedback.

4. Institutional Relationships

This refers to how your employees feel about your policies, procedures, vision and resources. By assessing the relationship employees have with your organisation, you can address any concerns before they become a serious problem.

5. Managerial Relationships

Managers and leaders play an important role in the happiness of their teams. Without strong communication, coaching and feedback, employees are unlikely to perform at their best. By measuring this vertical relationship, you can identify any struggling teams.

6. Coworker Relationships

Generally, the more close-knit teams are, the more productive they are. This is because employees rely on their coworkers to be team players and share their knowledge and resources. By understanding the dynamics of your team, you can identify ways to bring everyone together.

What Not To Do

Of course, you can adopt the approach that best suits your business. However, there are a few big no-nos when measuring engagement.

1. Do Not Rely On Pulse Surveys

Pulse surveys are usually sent out on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis and ask employees a number of questions about how they feel at work. While these surveys provide a quick way of measuring engagement in real time, they should not be the only tool you use. Instead, pulse surveys should be used to gather lightweight data on a particular topic, such as a change in policy or management.

2. Do Not Survey a Small Group

We know that it can be challenging to get everyone to complete a survey but it is crucial that you survey all of your employees. After all, only surveying a sample of employees will skew the results and some employees may become resentful if they do not have the opportunity to share their opinions.

3. Do Just Focus on One Data Point

While quantitative data is extremely valuable, you also need to gather feedback and opinions. Combining this data will help you get a clear picture of employee engagement and allow you to plan out your next steps.

4. Do Not Carry Out a Satisfaction Survey

Even though there may be similarities between engagement and satisfaction surveys, it is important to not confuse the two. Usually, satisfaction surveys do not include essential engagement metrics.

What To Do With The Results

Surveying your employees is the first of many steps. Once you have the results, you need to develop and implement a strategy to improve engagement. This may include steps, such as: Communicating the results Picking areas to improve Introducing an employee benefits package Upgrading your equipment and resources Conducting one-on-one meetings Creating a recognition program Creating personal development plans Following up with team members Let Us Help You Boost Your Employee Engagement Our employee engagement consultants excel at helping businesses measure and improve engagement, building HR practices that drive meaningful change. If you are struggling to measure employee engagement, we can help you find the right approach. Get in touch with our specialist consultants to discover how we can make your business a better place to work. FAQ What are the three aspects of measuring employee engagement? The three areas of employee engagement that you need to measure are: Emotional engagement – This refers to the relationship an employee has with their workplace Cognitive engagement – This refers to an employee’s understanding of the outcomes that the business would like to achieve Physical engagement – This refers to the action and motivation of an employee What KPIs are used for employee engagement? The following KPIs can be used for employee engagement: Employee net promoter score Turnover rate Internal promotion rate Employee satisfaction Productivity rate Absenteeism Customer satisfaction What are the tools for measuring employee engagement? You can measure employee engagement with the following tools: Employee surveys One-on-one interviews Exit interviews Stay interviews What are the five employee engagement components? These are the five drivers of employee engagement: Trust A sense of belonging Recognition A Supportive and inclusive community Autonomy What are the six steps of the employee life cycle? Here are the six stages of the employee life cycle model: Attraction Recruitment Onboarding Retention Development Separation