How to Measure Employee Engagement in the Workplace?

Employees who believe that management is concerned about them as a whole person – not just an employee – are more productive, more satisfied, more fulfilled. Satisfied employees mean satisfied customers, which leads to profitability – Anne M. Mulcahy, former CEO of Xerox.

According to research, organizations with highly engaged employees have 17% higher productivity and 21% higher profitability.  Engaged employees thus work harder and stay for a longer period of time in the organization since they don’t have a reason to move out. 

Employee engagement not only measures the happiness level or quantity of work done by an employee, it does much more than that. In fact, it takes into account how connected and motivated an employee is with their role, work, and organization. 

But employee engagement does not remain constant and should be measured and nurtured from time to time, or it shall until it dissipates. Although there is no specific way to measure employee engagement, here are some of the tools that have made it easy to measure employee engagement. 

Surveys

If you want quick and most effective methods to measure employee engagement, then your go to option should be to conduct surveys. It not only helps in measuring engagement, it also helps in employee motivation, and getting ideas from employees. This two-way communication is very important in having an engaged workforce. HRs and managers should frequently send simple, small, and actionable surveys to the employees of the organization asking them about work. It will help HRs, managers, and the organization to know how engaged their employees are and also help them understand the temperament of the organization. Be sure to focus your survey questionnaire on three basic metrics: Satisfaction, Alignment, and Future orientation.

Engagedly’s inbuilt survey feature helps you create and assign surveys without a hitch.

Stay / Exit Interviews

Employees leave the organization at different points of time, but as a manager or an HR, you need to know the actual cause behind it. Often employees cite that they didn’t feel engaged or excited with the work they do, as the reason behind leaving the organization. Conducting exit interviews and stay interviews help the managers and the HRs to know which areas they should work on to improve employee engagement. 

Exit interviews help in understanding what you could have done differently to improve engagement, whereas stay interviews let you know what you are already excelling at and what not.

Some common questions for both exit and stays interviews are:

• What do you like most about your job?
• What makes for a great day of work to you?
• What do you look forward to everyday at your work?
• What’s your relationship with your manager like?
• What do you dislike most about your job?
• If you could, what’s one thing you would change with your role?
• What makes you want to stay with this organization?
• What makes you want to leave this organization?

This helps in preventing another employee leaving the organization for the same reason.

Also Read: 7 Successful Strategies To Conduct  A Stay Interview

One-to-One Meetings

From time to time, HRs and managers should have one-to-one meetings with their employees. As one-to-one meetings are in person with the manager or the HR, the employee feels free to share information and express themselves. This should be done regularly, probably weekly once or every fortnight is advisable.

Also Read: Know How To Conduct One-On-One Meetings Effectively

Focus Groups

When organizations are very large it might be difficult for you to conduct a one-to-one meeting with your employees. In this case, focus groups could be formed. Often members of the same team or different teams can be grouped for this. As a manager or an HR, you should be well prepared with a set of 5 to 8 questions, based on asking the employees whether they feel that their work is important or whether they have all the tools to do their work. This will help organizations to know what they can do more to improve employee engagement and productivity.

Also Read: A Manager’s Guide To Review Remote Employees

Recognition Activity

According to a recent study, 69% of employees would work harder if they felt their efforts were better appreciated.

Employees recognition and rewards activities are a good way to identify engaged employees. It is already known that recognition and rewards have a direct impact on employee engagement. The reverse also stands true, identifying the number of employees receiving rewards and recognition helps managers and HRs to identify employee engagement in their organization.

Also Read: Things To Consider When Recognizing Remote Employees

Retention Rate and Productivity Metrics

Retention rate and productivity metrics of employees will help determine how engaged the employees are in the organization as employee engagement will have a direct effect on the retention rate and productivity metrics. 

Also Read: 6 Stay Interview Challenges To Be Aware Of

Thus it cannot be stressed enough how important employee engagement is and why it should be measured from time to time to keep your employees motivated and retain them in your organization. So if you have not been doing so, now is the time you should incorporate employee engagement measurement strategies and tools. If you wish to know hoe Engagedly can help you, just fill in the form below and reach out to us.

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The Coronavirus has affected the way we work today and for months to come. Unprecedented events require unprecedented measures. We at Engagedly believe it is our responsibility as socially conscious corporate citizens to help equip organisations with additional tools and resources during this time of crisis.

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