Tips to Measure Employee Engagement

Driving employee engagement is one of the main priorities every company must have, as a fully engaged workforce is instrumental in driving not just customer satisfaction but also growth in revenue. 

What Drives Employee Engagement? 

Determining the level of engagement of employees in a company entails concise but meaningful and reliable data. Knowing the key drivers of engagement will aid in both assessing the level of employee engagement and coming up with ways of driving engagement further.

Here are the top five factors that drive engagement, as seen in studies made on employees from North America:

1. Recognition for a job well done. Research shows that the recognition employees achieve from their managers play an important part in their engagement. The more recognition/ appreciation an employee gets the higher his level of engagement is.

2. Opportunities for advancement. It is inherent for people to want to grow and develop. This desire extends to the workplace; employees need to know that they have a shot at career development. If they do not feel that they are growing professionally in the company they work for, they will look for opportunities elsewhere.

3. Direct supervisor. An old saying goes: “People quit their bosses, not their jobs.” This has been proven true time and again. The common notion is that employees stay in a company because of the pay; but more than the benefits, what drives employees to strive and stay in the company is the type of management they get from their managers.

4. Vision-mission and strategy. Employees need to know what the goals of the company are and how they can contribute to these goals while advancing themselves. The more they contribute, the higher their level of engagement will be.

5. Job satisfaction. Are the employees given the chance to do what they do best? The more an employee performs, the more engaged he will be with what he does. Therefore employees must be given tasks that they enjoy doing.

How to Measure Employee Engagement

How do you, as a business owner, engage your employees? Before you come up with activities and plans, you must first know where your staff stands in terms of engagement. How committed are they to helping the organization reach its goals? Are they invested in the success of the business? How much effort do they exert to ensure their personal growth and contribute to the progress of the company? These questions can only be answered by steps that measure employee engagement.

1. Decide on the appropriate employee engagement survey solution. The right survey tool must be tailored to the needs and the priorities of the organization. As much as possible, do not use general surveys, as these would not give you the results that you want.

2. Assess engagement using the specific drivers of the company and the personal drivers of the individual employees. Although the key drivers might be the same company-wide and individually, there is a chance that individual employees prioritize these drivers differently.

3. Keep the survey as objective as possible. To do this, your company must have a third party survey provider to administer the survey. This will ensure that whatever results there are would be neutral and will not be influenced by anyone in the organization. Of course the choice of the survey vendor must also be taken into consideration. Look for a provider that has benchmarking data by which your results can be compared and offers action plans that can increase the level of engagement of your employees.

4. Track employee performance and measure it against their level of engagement. While it is obvious that higher levels of engagement bring more positive business outcomes, performance must continually be tracked with the level of engagement to enable continuous improvements. Some of the metrics that need to be tracked include employee retention, performance, absenteeism, customer satisfaction and revenue. 

After carefully assessing the engagement levels, then you must translate the results into tangible outcomes by communicating the results with the parties involved and coming up with specific plans of action.

Do you need help with your employee engagement surveys? Then contact DeskAlerts, a trusted internal communications solutions provider. We operate in different locations, serving more than 700 clients from different industries. Learn more about how we can help measure employee engagement in your organization.