The Ultimate Guide to Measuring Employee Engagement (Successfully)

This is your ultimate guide to measuring employee engagement successfully. 

In this guide we’ll help you understand: 

• What is employee engagement?
• What’s NOT employee engagement?
• What’s the benefit of highly engaged employees?
• So what decreases employee engagement? 
• Why you need to measure employee engagement
• How to identify disengaged employees 
• How to measure employee engagement (especially in remote and hybrid teams)
• What are employee engagement metrics?
• What engagement metrics should you measure? And how?
• Employee Satisfaction
• Absenteeism
• Employee Retention Rate (ERR)
• Voluntary Turnover Rate (VTR)
• The bottom line

Did you know that Adobe was rated the number 1 company with the happiest employees in 2021. This happiness powerhouse was ranked number 1 out of the 70,000 U.S. companies included in the report. 

Where do you think your organisation would rank? At the top or way down the bottom?

Adobe employees even say their workplace has a “fun family environment. We all come to work, work hard and do the best we can and have fun while we do it.” 

Imagine creating a workplace your team described as a fun family environment… The dream right?!?!

Well with a few tips, tricks, formulas and support from your fam here at PepTalk - you can create a working environment just like Adobe. And who knows you might even be in the running for number 1 company with the happiest employees in 2022.

If you’re committed to improving your organisation be ready for some open and honest conversations. And remember taking a strategic human-centric approach to your employee engagement will make a world of difference. 

Now before you scroll on, bookmark this guide - it's packed with loads of amazing resources. 

What is employee engagement?

Employee engagement is the level of commitment, investment, enthusiasm and involvement of your team to your organisation, workplace and work. In a nutshell - employee engagement is the mindset and approach employees have to achieve the common goals and objectives of the team. 

Employee engagement involves daily commitment from everyone involved. It also requires psychological safety to ensure needs and wants are met in order for everyone to do their best work.

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”
- Zig Ziglar

HERE are 23 examples of employee engagement activities

What’s NOT employee engagement?

Employee engagement is not an ad hoc event, a gym membership or a tokenistic work perk. Employee engagement is not a momentary feeling of happiness amongst your team and it’s definitely not a superficial bandaid to avoid delving deep into the core of what’s going on within your organisation. 

What’s the benefit of highly engaged employees?

It’s simple - highly engaged teams do their best work effortlessly. Now that’s not to say the work is easy but when your team are highly engaged they’ll happily go the extra mile and do so without dragging their feet. 

Highly engaged employees also: 

• reduce attrition and turnover, 
• increase productivity and morale, 
• fuel positive workplaces and culture, and 
• they lead by example, bringing energy and enthusiasm to everything they do. 

So what decreases employee engagement? 

Without throwing anyone under the metaphorical bus right here - multiple studies and surveys show the number 1 cause for employee engagement to plummet is the relationship between employees and managers/employers. 

Now in the current climate of post pandemic work-life, building and maintaining good relationships in the workplace is HARD! We get it! 

On top of all the challenges we face in our personal lives - our work lives are impacted by poor culture, unclear expectations, uncertainty, being overworked, feeling under appreciated, inadequate resources and poor relationships with colleagues and management. 

It’s an uphill battle at the moment but now is not the time to stick your head in the sand and ignore it.  

Click HERE to read how much managers can positively influence team morale

Why you need to measure employee engagement

This is a big one so I’ll try to keep it brief… 

Ignoring poor employee engagement or worse not even knowing if your employees/team are engaged will be detrimental - especially when reporting back to senior leaders about the missed goals you set last quarter.

Benefits of measuring employee engagement:

• Improve workplace culture
• Shows areas of improvement 
• Demonstrates investment in your team/organisation 
• Identifies issues - ideally before they impact the organisation
• Builds psychological safety amongst teams
• Attract and retain top talent
• Save money and resources
  

When you look after your people and they’ll look after your organisation. Now more than ever it’s pivotal to have a human-centred approach within organisations and that starts with measuring your employee engagement and committing to improving it. 

Click HERE to calculate an indicative cost of employee attrition in your organisation. 

How to identify disengaged employees 

Team members who are disengaged may fall into one or more of these categories

• Withdrawal and silence - team members who are disengaged will noticeably withdraw and remain silent rather than actively contributing to discussions and activities. They won’t be involved in anything that is not deemed essential to their role.
• Lack of commitment - they rarely, if ever, go the extra mile to achieve objectives or goals. They’re more likely to fly under the radar and get just enough done to avoid drawing attention to themselves. 
• Absenteeism and complacency - Increased days off work, missing deadlines and a decrease in the quality of output are all huge warning signs that your team member is disengaged. 
• Lack of participation - disinterest in participating in work and social events not only flags disengagement but it can also impact the team as a whole. 
• Burnout - Burnout can show up in many different ways and it’s not always a clear cut as taking a month off for some RnR. Rudeness, cynicism, naysaying, exhaustion and a lack of caring are all telltale signs your team member is disengaged and potentially burnt out (or becoming burnt out). 

So with all these alarm bells ringing what can managers do to re-engage their team members? 

How to measure employee engagement (especially in remote and hybrid teams)

It’s fair to say during the pandemic we felt a heightened sense of disconnection whether that’s personally and/or professionally. But unfortunately, I feel like remote/hybrid workplaces held centre stage as being one of the main reasons for employee disengagement. So what would happen if we flipped the script and focused on HOW we work as a team, not where we work as a team?

You see disengaged employees weren’t born as a result of the pandemic and remote/hybrid teams worked effectively before, during and after the pandemic.

The challenge lies in how we measure employee engagement, particularly within remote and hybrid teams. So here are a few suggestions to get you started:

• Open lines of communication
• Engagement surveys
• Employee pulse surveys 
• Performance reviews
• Feedback sessions
• Diversity and inclusion surveys 
• Goals setting and tracking 
• Wellbeing surveys
• Focus groups 
• Team talks 
• Employee retention, turnover and absenteeism data 
• Productivity measures
• Exit surveys 
  

Measuring employee engagement must be done openly and regularly with the collective goal of improving the workplace for everyone involved. Use one, or a handful, of these strategies to get a gauge on how engaged your employees are and take action using the data gathered. 

Grab your FREE Employee Engagement Plan Template HERE

What are employee engagement metrics?

Employee engagement metrics are essential to understanding exactly where your employees are, where the gaps are and what to improve. They’re also pivotal in tracking progress and ensuring whether the actions you’re taking are working (or not). 

Utilising employment engagement strategies without measuring specific metrics is like watching a foreign movie without subtitles - you pretend you know what’s going on but in reality, you haven’t a clue. 

What engagement metrics should you measure? And how?

Get ready to nerd out with me here! If you’re like me and love facts and figures this one’s for you. 

Now we know what employee engagement metrics are I’m going to cut straight to the point and give you 4 formulas to help you start measuring today. 

Employee Satisfaction

On a scale of 1-5 (1 being Very Dissatisfied/Very Unhappy and 5 being Very Satisfied/Very Happy)

• How would you rate your overall job satisfaction?
• How would you rate your sense of belonging to your team?
• How satisfied are you with your current work environment?
• How would you rate the overall company culture?
• How would you rate your relationship with your direct manager? 
• How satisfied are you with your career path and ability to advance within the organisation?
• How would you rate your organisation’s ability to prioritise your health and wellbeing?
  

Work out the average of the responses for the individual, the team and organisation as a whole. Rank how they’re feeling using the scale below. Additionally to this you can rank the team and organisation’s responses per question to get a more detailed overview.

Your employee/s are:

1. Very Dissatisfied/Very Unhappy
2. Dissatisfied/Unhappy
3. Okay/Neutral 
4. Satisfied/Happy
5. Very Satisfied/Very Happy 
   

Absenteeism 

(# of days absent in specific period/total # of days in the same period) 

x 100 = % of Absenteeism

Employee Retention Rate (ERR)

Download THIS PepTalk cheat sheet for all 4 formulas

Voluntary Turnover Rate (VTR)

Download THIS PepTalk cheat sheet for all 4 formulas

The bottom line

Keeping your finger on the pulse and prioritising your team at all times will improve employee engagement. Knowing how they’re feeling and what they need will improve engagement. Be ready to have open and honest conversations with the objective to improve the workplace and your overall organisation. 

It’s essential to bring a human-centric approach to employee engagement and take action from the data and information gathered. 

Whether you employ multiple strategies or just the one that best suits you - measuring employee engagement and committing to improving it will provide huge benefits to your team and organisation. 

Peptalk is a unique team engagement and action platform that enables teams to perform at their best. We provide teams with monthly data, insights and actions, available at a touch of a button, specifically aimed at enhanced teamwork and increased engagement. You can find out more about what we offer HERE.