In as much as employers want to know how satisfied their employees are with their work and the company they are working for, it is even more so important that business owners and managers measure employee engagement.
While employee satisfaction is simply an indicator of how “okay” one is with the company they work for and the work they do, employee engagement is about how loyal and committed they are. An engaged employee is more than a satisfied employee. He or she is enthusiastic about his or her job and is fully absorbed in it. His or her enthusiasm and motivation is so much so that he or she does everything in his or her power to make sure that the company progresses and succeeds.
Employee engagement is greatly linked to productivity, creating, innovation and longevity in the company. It is especially important in this day and age when people leave companies only after a few months or a few years.
Here are some of the metrics used to measure employee engagement in the workplace:
1. Voluntary employee turnover
This occurs when an employee voluntarily quits his position at a company due to conflict within the company, a better offer from another company, need to stay home to take care of a family member, and other reasons.
The age-old golden standard used to measure employee engagement was voluntary employee turnover. However, many deem the said standard as only one among others that are seen as more apt. This is because the effects of voluntary turnover can only be measured once an employee has already left.
Also, voluntary turnover can be considered as a positive rather than a negative – especially when the employees who choose to leave are low performing ones rather than those deemed to be high performers.
While, as mentioned, voluntary turnover isn’t the most apt metric to use in all cases, it is still a good indicator of a company’s employee engagement if assessed properly and compared with other companies in the same industry.
2. Results from an employee engagement survey
The good thing about employee engagement surveys is that unlike voluntary turnovers, these involve staff members who are still active within the company. This then means that you can integrate changes based on the results of the surveys into your operations. These changes can then be monitored and compared to how things previously ran before implementation.
Through employee engagement surveys, you don’t only get to measure employee engagement, you are able to identify problem areas within the company and assess company policies and initiatives on their timeliness and effectivity.
3. Recognition
While recognition certainly drives employee engagement, very few firms actually measure this. Recognition and effectivity can be measured by allocating a particular budget per department for recognition efforts, tracking the amount spent on the said efforts, and delving into its effectivity in motivating and engaging staff members.
4. Percentage of employee referral
This percentage refers to the new company hires who have opted to apply to the company because an existing employee referred them. Referral means that employees are engaged enough in the company to take pride in it and refer work to others. On the other hand, if staff members are not referring other people to your company, this may be an indicator of disinterest, indifference and lack of engagement.
5. Investment on training and development
Organizations who are concerned about their employees typically spend around 3 to 5 percent of payroll on training and developing. The availability of training and development programs usually speak of how much companies value their staff, which is, in turn, linked to employee engagement.