Engaged employees are productive employees and productive employees drive revenue. They may not be perfect, but they’re dependable and are bought into delivering and achieving the company’s goals. Do you know what your employees’ engagement levels are? Knowing how to measure employee engagement is critical for long-term company success.
what is employee engagement?
People tend to think of employee engagement as a measurement of worker happiness and satisfaction. These elements do play a role, but they’re not the full picture. Many happy employees may decide to leave for greener pastures if a better paid opportunity presents itself. Even more so if it helps them to achieve their career goals or givens them the career progression that they seek to achieve their career goals. Perhaps there isn’t an open role available to them. For this reason, there has to be another element that more accurately defines employee engagement.
Here’s a better definition: Employee engagement refers to an employee’s overall level of investment and dedication to the company’s success. Engaged employees care whether a company project does well, even if its performance doesn't directly affect their salary or job security. They will tend to work collaboratively to ensure that the company achieves the results it is after.
One example of this is teachers who are genuinely happy when their students do well. Contrast this with teachers who don’t care either, they still get paid however their students perform. However, they don’t seem to take a sense of pride in their work. You’ve likely had both types of teachers throughout school, those who aren’t engaged are still employed. . Which teachers are engaged and which ones aren’t?
how to measure employee engagement: all the metrics you need to track.
It’s important to diversify your data points with both quantitative and qualitative data.
quantitative data
Quantitative data is information that contains numerical figures and is measurable, it is gathered from a database or reporting. Turnover rate, for example, is quantitative data because you can measure it as a percentage. Other quantitative metrics include:
- Participation rate in non-mandatory company events, such as social outings and lunches
- Absenteeism rate, or no-shows without prior notification
- Answers from ordinal scale (scale of 1 to 10) survey questions
qualitative data
Qualitative data is information that can’t be broken down into numbers. It is typically gathered through asking questions and surveys and cannot be gathered from numerical data sets. Examples include profile information, answers from open-ended survey questions, or data which identify their attitudes to situations, as well as their beliefs.
Measuring employee engagement should include an even balance of quantitative and qualitative data, which should be regularly and routinely gathered and reviewed.
Now, let’s examine ways to accurately evaluate staff engagement and productivity.
how to measure employee engagement: a look at 5 methods.
Here are some methods you can employ regardless of industry or number of employees. They’re also applicable to both in-house and remote employees.
1. take surveys and pulse surveys
Employee engagement does fluctuate over time, so it’s important to conduct regular surveys to know what employees are feeling. An effective strategy is to release a primary survey every quarter. In between, conduct weekly or bi-weekly pulse surveys. The latter are short surveys, usually no more than five questions, and take two to three minutes to complete. Questions are based on responses from the primary surveys or previous pulse surveys.
Whether you conduct surveys in the office or online, assure employees they are anonymous. Surveys are a great way to acquire both quantitative and qualitative data. Here are some effective questions:
- On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend your job position to a friend? (quantitative)
- List three words that describe how you feel about working with us. (qualitative)
- Do you agree or disagree with the following? Management does a good job at handling employee grievances. (quantitative)
- How would you describe your work/life balance? (qualitative)
2. measure employee net promoter score (eNPS)
A Net Promoter Score measures customer satisfaction. eNPS is similar but measures employee sentiment. You can acquire an eNPS score by asking ordinal scale questions and including them in your surveys. Ask plenty of scale of 1–10 and agree/disagree questions. They are easy for employees to answer, and the numbers provide rich quantitative data. When you conduct a survey, aim for at least half of your questions to be of this variety.
3. hold group discussions
Surveys are effective but fail to capture the full human element. On occasion, hold a casual lunch meeting. The HR or senior leadership team attend but there’s no hierarchy. Anyone is free to discuss what’s on their mind, whether work-related or not. The topic of discussion and participation level of individual members will give you a good gauge of where their headspace is at. Who is animated? Who seems distant?
4. conduct exit interviews
An exit interview can be a one-on-one meeting or even a quick questionnaire. Employees will answer candidly; they’ll feel like they can fully express themselves without fear of what their now-ex-boss thinks. Ask simple questions like their reason for leaving or if there’s anything that could’ve been done differently by management to convince them to stay. Comparing notes from multiple exit interviews may yield valuable insight about turnover and unearth problems in your company culture.
5. conduct stay interviews
Just as there are exit interviews, there are also stay interviews. Stay interviews are for employees already committed to staying, such as long term contractors or temporary employees on a longer term assignment. You’re not trying to convince an exiting employee to reconsider. You can conduct these annually or when employees renew their contracts. Ask why the member chose to stay or what the motivators are for remaining. Other questions can include open-ended questions you would ask in a survey.
hireful is here to help.
Measuring the success of employee engagement requires a lot of analysis and observation but you shouldn’t overlook its importance and value. Looking for an employee engagement survey service for companies; we offer a free tool that you can use to evaluate your employee engagement. You can request more information on this here.
We’ve also built a great community of UK in-house recruiters and HR professionals who regularly discuss issues like engagement and retention. You no longer have to tackle these issues on your own; sign up for free access to sub1000 here.
