We see employee engagement as the outcome of a good employee experience through internal communication, often through the success of a coherent and consistent Employee Value Proposition, a clear purpose and lived values.
It is a critical factor in organisational success, often influencing productivity, retention, and overall workplace satisfaction.
Some see measuring employee engagement as tricky, but here are some helpful ways to measure and improve employee engagement:
Employee Surveys and Feedback
Employee feedback, often in the form of surveys, is an easy way to get quantitative data around employee engagement, giving you an indication of employee perceptions and experiences. There are multiple ways to run these surveys depending on what you’re looking for:
- Annual Engagement Surveys: These assessments often offer a broad view of employee sentiment and help identify areas for improvement. Annual Surveys usually ask questions across multiple business areas, providing a large amount of data useful for a holistic view of engagement and sentiment6. However these are often run by HR or People teams, so a pure employee engagement lens is unlikely, it is more likely to be part of the survey.
- Pulse Surveys: These short and often frequent surveys allow for real-time tracking of employee engagement and sentiment, enabling quick responses to emerging issues. Pulse Surveys can be particularly helpful for measuring sentiment during a campaign or around a specifc focus, providing a chance to adapt your approach or strategy if needed16.
- Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS): Originally coming from the Net Promoter Score that was developed to gauge customer loyalty. This metric gauges how likely employees are to recommend their workplace to others4. While new this score provides a unique view of your organisation, how satisfied your employees are and how likely they are to recommend your organisation as a place to work by breaking down your audience into: promoters; neutrals; and dectractors.
Performance Metrics
Using a wide range of data provides a more holistic view of employee engagement.
Therefore utilising directly linked employee engagement and indirectly linked business performance indicators helps paint a better picture.
Some indirect business performance measures that are a good identifier of employee engagement:
- Retention Rate: Higher retention often indicates higher engagement
- Absenteeism: Frequent absences may signal disengagement
- Training Participation: Engaged employees are more likely to participate in development programs
- Productivity Metrics: Engaged employees typically demonstrate higher performance levels
Qualitative Methods
As always, combining both quantitative and qualitative research will provide the best results, so make sure when measuring employee engagement to incorporate some qualitative methods.
Depending on what you need, these can be targeted towards certain groups, teams or departments, or broad across the business.
Some methods you could use are:
- Focus Groups: These allow for rich person centred discussions. They can uncover nuanced insights about employee engagement16.
- Team Meetings: Attending team meetings can provide an opportunity to be a fly on the wall and provide insight into how employees in different areas engage with the organisation.
- One-to-Ones: Regular check-ins between managers and employees provide opportunities for feedback and engagement assessment3.
Benefits of measuring employee engagement
Building a full picture of engagement by collating both qualitative and quantitative data means you will have richer data and with that a better understanding of your audience, which is vital for your communications and campaigns. But it will also allow you to detect gaps in engagement and offer chances to improve employee engagement across your organisation.
