Does your business do enough to ensure employee well-being and happiness? Well, these are two important metrics that all businesses should track as more and more employees tend to quit their jobs since the beginning of the pandemic.
The mass resignation across the globe finds its roots in employee dissatisfaction and increased focus on achieving overall well-being. In today’s competitive world of business, organizations should not ignore the ROI of increased employee engagement.
Especially if that leads to the development of a highly-engaged workforce!
But how are you supposed to improve employee engagement if you don’t know how to track or measure it?
In this post, we will discuss the best metrics and other factors companies should track to take the pulse of their employee’s engagement and create a happier and more fulfilled workplace. Which ultimately, can lead to increased profits!
Let’s get started, shall we?
What are employee engagement metrics?
As a business owner, one should be able to quantify experiences related to employees to ensure a highly satisfied workforce. The quantification is only possible if the employer defines the metrics related to employee engagement.
Therefore, metrics that measure employee engagement are essentially indicators that refer to the level of engagement in the workforce.
The metrics are highly useful for HR and managers that undertake the responsibility of employee welfare. The idea is to use these indicators to simplify the process of tracking employee satisfaction and break down the task into trackable numbers.
This approach helps guide employers to take tangible action that promotes employee engagement at the workplace.
Employee engagement surveys that measure employee engagement metrics tend to effectively improve the managers’ perspective on the workplace’s health.
It ensures more transparency in the work culture by preserving employees’ anonymity. In simple terms, employee engagement metrics, when tracked to perfection, help nurture the relationship between an organization and the employees in it.
Best employee engagement metrics for successful surveys
Now that we understand what employee engagement metrics are and why you should be tracking them in the first place, it’s time to move on and learn about the different employee engagement metrics worth tracking.
Here are some of the best employee engagement metrics for successful teams.
1. Employee retention rate
What is the retention rate? Retention rate is another useful employee engagement metric that helps determine the percentage of employees that stay with a company over a set period.
Don’t confuse employee retention rate with employee churn rate. The latter is the percentage of employees fired over the ones hired. Well, all companies show some level of churn. But, one should remember that employees resign due to various reasons.
However, companies that experience a high degree of churn and lack the ability to retain employees have a lot of trouble coming their way. Such a situation is indicative of a much deeper issue in the company related to employee satisfaction.
2. Work-life balance
Isn’t “work-life balance” a buzzword popular across all industries? Well, it surely is as many companies have already started pressing on to ensure work-life balance for their employees’ satisfaction.
Even the World Health Organization inducted “burnout” as a word and also as an occupational hazard back in 2019. Recent research suggests that employees have started taking work-life balance seriously.
They want to have a fulfilling life both at work and at home.
The 2021 study by WHO and International Labor Organization shows that employees working more than 55 hours per week run a higher risk of dying from heart disease or stroke!
Companies can ask their employees “How satisfied do you feel with your work-life balance?” as a survey question.
3. Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)
eNPS or Employee Net Promoter Score is a well-known metric to measure employee engagement. It was created in 2003 and quickly grew in popularity among businesses and employees willing to improve their personal networks.
Employee NPS essentially determines how likely employees are to recommend their family and friends to work at their workplaces. In other words, it shows how likely employees render their workplaces suitable for work.
This employee engagement metric is quite simple to understand and execute.
Hence, it works perfectly for businesses that are willing to run quick employee check-in. eNPS is calculated by first sharing an engagement survey with the employees: “How likely are you to recommend us as a great place to work to your family and friends?”
The employees can answer the survey question on a scale of 0 to 10. Here 0 will mean “least likely” and 10 will mean “most likely.” Simple, isn’t it? Determining the result is also quite easy. The higher the eNPS score, the better.
4. Employee recognition
It is important that deserving employees get recognized for their work and performance. All companies should have an employee recognition policy that regularly recognizes staff achievement and rewards deserving candidates.
This is a simple metric that you can measure and improve employee engagement.
And the idea driving the metric is simple too — when employees will feel praised for their work when they perform well, they will push harder in the future in the anticipation of better performance which will bring in rewards.
A culture of regular gratitude and continuous feedback is missing in many companies and it’s time to measure recognition as a major employee engagement metric.
5. Importance of Autonomy
We are yet to come across an employee that prefers being micromanaged. This is because managers and leaders that micromanage don’t let employees work as they want.
The lack of creative freedom and managers breathing down the neck makes a combination that can be disastrous for business growth.
Therefore, we suggest you include autonomy or employee autonomy as an important employee engagement metric. How can you measure autonomy as an employee engagement metric?
You can ask questions like “How satisfied do you feel with the autonomy you’re given at work?” or “How would you rate the company when it comes to providing employees creative freedom?”
6. Employee professional development
Businesses that want to grow quickly invest heavily in developing better workplaces. Not just that, they take professional development very seriously and ensure their workforce keeps growing in their skills.
This is because only a small number of employees will be happy working in a role where there are minimal growth opportunities.
Did you know that 94 percent of employees will want to stay at a company if the management invests in their training and professional development?
Also, employees that have access to professional development were found to be 15 percent more engaged! Professional development is a crucial employee engagement metric that will help develop successful surveys.
7. Quality of professional bonds
A workforce performs well when each employee finds it easier to work with other employees. In other words, the employees should be able to foster high-quality professional relationships that are reliable.
This is true for both remote or Work From Home settings or the regular in-office arrangement.
The quality of interactions and relationships has a direct impact on employee engagement and therefore, manager-report and employee-employee relationships should be quantified.
8. Alignment with team OKRs
How can a company make the whole organization work as a unit? This can be done by aligning the staff around the company goals and missions.
To be specific, the employees should understand and believe in the goals to work like a true workforce.
The best way to achieve this is by establishing alignment on the Objectives and Key Results or OKR. This allows companies to set measurable goals that the employees can achieve as a whole.
9. One-on-one meetings and check-ins
Are the managers in your organization conducting regular one-on-one meetings? Do they invest their time in conducting team check-ins to promote strong internal relationships?
The more they schedule such meetings, the higher the chances of gathering insights about employee morale and providing the required development support.
Such meetings function as a crucial employee engagement metric that helps the employees involved keep track of the meeting schedules and embrace the interaction as an aspect of the company culture.
10. Employee perks
Most companies provide their employees with additional facilities and perks to improve their morale and well-being. These perks can be gym memberships or corporate memberships, discounts on well-being services, and more.
Such perks go a long way in boosting the number of highly engaged employees and overall employee satisfaction at work. Employee perk is another employee engagement metric worth measuring.
You can measure it by checking how many employees make the most of the perks.
11. Employee engagement survey participation
This guide helps companies determine the employee engagement metrics that can help facilitate a proper working environment and gauge overall employee morale. Moreover, the metrics will help prepare better surveys.
But, are the employees even participating in the surveys? How can you improve employee engagement if the employees don’t respond to the surveys in the first place?
Therefore, we recommend you measure survey participation rates as well. Not just that, you should measure how much time the employees take to take part in this crucial company process.
12. Customer satisfaction through engaged employees
Let’s set this straight — dissatisfied employees will not leave your customers satisfied. Low employee engagement rates will directly impact customer satisfaction.
This is because employees that are completely dedicated to their job and immersed in the work culture will find work more enjoyable.
They will be more inclined to meet or exceed customer expectations. In other words, the level of customer satisfaction can also show how engaged your workforce is.
13. Employee engagement scales
Another sure-shot way of measuring employee engagement is by considering different employee engagement scales.
These scales, for example, Utrecht Work Engagement Scale and GALLUP scale, have been developed through extensive academic research studies and are statistically valid across industries.
These employee engagement scales make the employee engagement insights clearly distinct and factor in various other variables in a work environment to quantify employee engagement.
14. Employer review site rating for employee feedback
Are you only measuring the feedback left by existing employees? You are leaving a lot on the table.
As an employer, you should be inclined towards gathering employee feedback, especially insights related to employees that have left the organization.
Take a look at what an existing engaged employee has to say about your company on online employer review sites like Glassdoor.
The reviews are quite telling of how employees feel at the organization. A recent study shows how employee engagement and reviews on these sites are related.
Why should you measure employee engagement metric?
How important is it for businesses to measure employee engagement? Yes, you should measure employee engagement metrics at all costs as the process fosters better employee performance and retention.
Ask yourself — How well do you know your employees? Are you well acquainted with their demands and expectations? As a leader in an organization, you should prioritize the well-being and happiness of your workforce.
This can be done by creating an environment that renders the workforce empowered and happy. Believe it or not, employee engagement in any business setting will significantly impact business outcomes like profits, customer experience, productivity, innovation, employee retention, and overall well-being.
A recent study shows that 71 percent of business leaders believe in boosting employee morale and engagement as it is directly linked to an organization’s success.
But, that’s not it. Developing a positive work culture and an engaged workforce will successfully improve the organization’s bottom line.
Gallup reports that highly engaged employees have the capacity to improve a company’s profitability by a whopping 21 percent! What about the losses? Well, a disengaged workforce can make companies lose as much as $550 billion every year!
A company that doesn’t have engaged employees will most likely suffer from issues related to high absenteeism and low turnover. Indeed, all business leaders will say they prioritize employee engagement. But, words are not going to cut it.
High-level employees, HR, and managers will have to measure employee engagement to identify and solve problems the workforce experiences.
Organizations will have to use data-driven methods to generate workforce insights that can later complement the engagement surveys.
This is one of the best ways to make managers actively partake in the process of improving the number of engaged employees. Here are some other reasons for tracking employee engagement worth mentioning in this post.
1. To determine the hidden truths
It’s better to resolve problems before things get out of hand. And to do that, business leaders should do their best to identify the potential issues, obstacles, strengths, and problem areas, aka. the “hidden truths.”
The employee engagement metric and related data will help showcase the positives and negatives of any work environment.
2. To build trust within the workforce
Do your employees trust the management? How often do you ask the employees for their feedback?
These are important questions that require deep thought and brainstorming. Sending employee engagement surveys shows that you care about what the employees feel or think and value their opinions.
It is one of the best ways to show that you are willing to listen and cater to the employees’ demands.
3. To keep everyone on the same page
As a business owner, you should make sure all the employees and departments understand what’s going on in the organization.
In other words, your policies should give employees, leaders, managers, and others equal opportunities to contribute to building a better work culture. This also helps grow the organization and foster unity in it.
4. To keep up with the trends
Regardless of the industry, changes are always around the corner.
Business leaders should be prepared to take on the challenges of pivoting, optimizing, or making significant changes to introduce the trends and implement the best employee management practices.
Measuring employee engagement successfully
We just discussed some of the best employee engagement metrics that are useful in conducting successful employee surveys. Indeed, not all companies will measure or track the eleven employee engagement metrics.
But, each employee engagement metric mentioned in the guide will drive you towards achieving employee satisfaction and well-being. That being said, we suggest you choose the metrics that feel most relevant to what you want to focus on in your organization.
This will require you to first shortlist the employee engagement goals you want to achieve as an employer over set periods.
Once you finalize the metrics, it will become easier to develop successful surveys and automate or streamline the entire process of quantifying employee engagement.
Did you find this extensive guide helpful? Get in touch and let us know! Also, don’t forget to check out other informative posts on the blog!