A Comprehensive Guide to Employee Engagement Metrics

Do your workers feel unmotivated? Are you noticing a decrease in productivity? Your employee engagement is likely lacking. The meaning of employee engagement in HR is the level of connection that an employee has to their employer and the level of commitment that employee has to their work and workplace.

According to Forbes, 30% of workers get demotivated and leave their jobs within their first three months of being hired. 43% quit when their role fails to meet expectations. 34% resign because of a specific incident, and 32% leave when the company culture isn’t a good fit.

So, how do you avoid your company becoming one of those statistics? Measure your employee engagement metrics.

Measuring employee engagement metrics will help you identify areas that need improvement and will help keep employee morale and productivity high. Tracking employee involvement indicators like sense of purpose, job satisfaction, and feeling valued will give you an indication of just how engaged your workforce is.

For an accurate workforce engagement analysis, you’ll need an employee engagement scorecard. This scorecard comprises metrics for each component of employee engagement along with a scale (e.g., 1 being dissatisfied vs 5 being satisfied) for scoring each metric to determine your ideal employee satisfaction KPI (key performance indicator).

To collect data, you’ll also need to implement employee engagement tools including employee engagement survey questions.

In this article, we’ll share a comprehensive guide to employee engagement metrics. This guide will include employee engagement measure tools, employee morale indicators, and employee retention analytics.

Employee Engagement Measurement Tools

Your employee engagement strategy framework needs to include a variety of employee engagement measuring tools including surveys, one-on-one meetings, employee apps, interviews, etc.

Let’s explore how each tool can aid in your employee engagement measurement efforts:

Employee Engagement Surveys

An employee engagement survey is a great way to collect employee responses, especially if your employees feel more comfortable providing feedback anonymously. You can use engagement surveys to get feedback on a variety of topics.

Pulse surveys, in particular, are convenient for employees due to their short length. A pulse survey is a brief but regular set of questions sent to employees that help track the overall work environment over time.

Common pulse survey questions to measure employee engagement are:

• Satisfaction Questions: How happy are you at work? Do you feel your work-life balance has improved since you started working for this company?
• Opportunity Questions: Do you feel your opinions matter as related to your work? Does your management team foster a positive work environment?
• Alignment Questions: Are you aware of how your role fits into the greater outcomes of the company? How satisfied are you with your career and developmental opportunities?

Carefully review your employee survey responses, looking for areas of low satisfaction so you can address them. Conversely, take note of areas with positive responses, too, so you can continue to invest in those high engagement producing initiatives.

One-On-One Meetings

If you’re looking for how to measure employee engagement without surveys, one-on-one meetings are a solid alternative. These meetings can be conducted in-person or virtual, making them ideal for remote and hybrid workforces. These types of meetings are also great for gauging verbal and non-verbal cues.

Some questions you can ask are:

• What do you like most about working for this company?
• Do you feel supported in your role?
• What do you feel needs improvement?

As your employees answer, also pay attention to what they are, and what they aren’t saying. This can provide additional context to their responses.

Employee Apps

Utilizing employee feedback tools (e.g., Blink, Bonusly, Awardco, Nectar) can provide real-time conversations between managers and staff.

Employee apps not only offer a digital space to spark conversations, but many apps offer the option to build surveys within their platform and send them directly to employees. They also offer recognition and rewards analysis, too.

For example, employee recognition software Nectar assists in engaging remote staff to improve their output. They do so by appreciating exceptional work and sending shout-outs.

 Source: Nectar

Focus Groups

For larger companies where one-on-one meetings may not be feasible, focus groups are another viable option. Focus groups can enable companies to ask open-ended and qualitative questions to observe their employees’ likes and dislikes.

To maximize the effectiveness of your focus group, select a diverse group of employees from different departments and positions. This will give you a more accurate picture of employee engagement as a whole for your company.

Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)

In addition to surveys, apps, meetings, and focus groups, we also recommend using a scoring system.

An employee net promoter score (eNPS) is a scoring system used to track and measure employee engagement and loyalty. Here’s how it works:

1. You ask your employees a single question (e.g., From 0-10, how likely would you recommend this company as a great place to work?).

2. Your eNPS is calculated based on the difference between the highest (e.g., most-engaged employees) and lowest response (least-engaged employees).

Exit (and Stay) Interviews

If you’re experiencing high churn, consider conducting exit interviews. Before an employee departs, an exit interview can provide insight as to what is causing employees to voluntarily quit your company. These exit interviews can be conducted by Human Resources.

Some questions you can ask are:

• Why are you leaving this role?
• Are you satisfied with what you accomplished?
• Would you be open to returning in the future?

In addition to exit interviews, ask your long-term employees which aspects of your company have kept them from leaving. Their feedback will give you an idea of what factors are contributing to these employees’ loyalty.

Employee Morale Indicators

Keeping a close eye on key employee morale indicators will help you know when employee morale is high and when employee morale is low.

Obvious signs of high morale are increased productivity, and in turn, customer satisfaction. But, what are the signs of low employee morale? Let’s take a look:

Low Employee Morale Indicators

Common signs of low employee morale are:

• High Turnover. Employees are leaving the company in high numbers. New hires, in particular, are leaving before the one-year mark, oftentimes before their 90-day reviews.
• Absenteeism. Employees are frequently calling out of work or leaving early.
• Lack of Enthusiasm/Motivation. Employees are doing the bare minimum to get by in their roles.
• Employee Burnout. Employees are exhibiting symptoms of mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion.

Employee morale’s impact isn’t just limited to individual employees. It also impacts team cohesion. Team cohesion is the measure of how well team members work with one another. Common team cohesion indicators are the level of trust, sense of belonging, communication, and teamwork.

To improve individual employee and team morale, let’s take a look at some employee engagement strategy examples.

Employee Engagement Activities To Boost Morale

To boost employee engagement, implement the following employee engagement activities:

• Team-Building Activities. Cultivate engagement and trust with team-building exercises.
• Training. Offer opportunities such as skills workshops, mentorship programs, etc. for professional growth.
• Wellness Initiatives. Boost mental and physical health with health challenges, classes, and sessions. 
• Employee Appreciation Programs. Implement reward and recognition programs.

To evaluate the effectiveness of your employee engagement activities, you’ll want to measure the following staff development KPIs:

• Training Attendance Rate. How often did employees attend classes/activities?
• Course Completion Rate. What was the employee course completion rate?
• Average Time to Completion. How long did it take employees to complete the activity/course?
• Assessment Results. Did employees retain information and skills? If tests were used, what were employees’ test scores?
• Job Performance Impact. Did you notice an improvement in job satisfaction and productivity upon completion of the course/activity?

Now let’s take a look at employee retention analytics and the effect they have on employee morale.

Employee Retention Analytics

Recruiting and training new employees is costly. When employee turnover is high, it can demoralize existing employees who are forced to take on extra roles, oftentimes with no support or monetary compensation.

Reviewing employee retention analytics can give you a clear picture of the level of churn your company is experiencing, enabling you to focus on departments that may need extra attention.

Then, using the insights from employee satisfaction metrics to assess your employees’ satisfaction, you can determine which employee engagement initiatives to implement to reduce turnover.

Remember employee engagement benefits not only employees but the company as well. High morale equates to higher productivity, and ultimately, improved customer satisfaction and ROI. But, your employee motivation factors (e.g., work-life balance) need to align with your company values. When there’s a disconnect, both your employees and your company will suffer.

Source: Robert Walters

Ready To Improve Your Employee Engagement Metrics?

Take the guesswork out of employee engagement metrics with an employee advocacy platform like GaggleAMP.

Our platform makes it easy for employees to communicate internally and externally with others, plus with robust analytics and engagement data you’ll be able to accurately measure and boost your employee engagement metrics.

To get started, schedule your demo today!