Imagine this: Productivity and profitability have increased by 18% and 23% respectively. People show up to work and enjoy collaborating. Turnover was already low, but you’ve seen a 51% decrease in employee turnover rate over the past year.
These are some of the benefits and business outcomes of employee engagement, according to Gallup. But you wouldn’t know about them without tracking them. Enter employee engagement metrics, which are Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) used to measure how engaged employees are.
Why Measure Employee Engagement?
If you see the value of tracking hard metrics such as profit margins but don’t know if measuring employee engagement is worth it, it’s time to change your perspective. Employee engagement isn’t a fluffy or “soft” business goal. It’s the foundation upon which organizational success is built.
Employee engagement is about the relationship that people have with their role and organization. Do they feel connected? Are they enthusiastic about showing up to work? Are they committed to reaching organizational goals? Do they bring passion and creativity to their role?
Engaged employees aren’t just more content – they also exceed performance expectations. They want to go above and beyond to deliver great work. In doing so, they inspire others to do the same and raise the bar for their team.
From improved morale and retention to increased innovation, employee engagement comes with several benefits. And if you don’t track it, you’ll be shooting in the dark when investing in HR strategies or trying to figure out why quarterly results were disappointing despite a strong strategic position on the business front.
On the flip side, analyzing employee engagement metrics will make your HR efforts targeted and intentional. You’ll be able to identify trends, prevent issues before they snowball and implement solid strategies to improve engagement.
What Are Employee Engagement Metrics?
But what exactly are employee engagement metrics? If engagement is related to connection, it may sound like it would be hard to quantify. It’s not – but there are different ways to capture it to get a full picture of what is going on with people and their workplace experience.
Employee engagement metrics are qualitative and quantitative data points used to measure how connected, motivated, and satisfied employees are in their roles.
They go beyond surface-level observations like “there is great synergy in my team.” They provide actionable insights that help leaders and HR professionals understand how employees feel about their work, organizations, and overall workplace environment.
Some employee engagement metrics take the form of scores, others are all about tracking business outcomes related to engagement. Other engagement metrics involve measuring aspects of what we know makes employees engaged, from employee satisfaction to employee recognition.
Benefits of Using Employee Engagement Metrics
Tracking employee engagement metrics on a regular basis offers tangible benefits. These include:
- Informed decision-making: Employee engagement metrics provide valuable insights that leaders can use to make better decisions.
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Improved productivity: If you do it well, measuring employee engagement allows you to improve it. This has a direct impact on productivity.
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Better employee well-being: Monitoring metrics can uncover stressors that affect employee well-being. This is crucial to prevent burnout.
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Greater ROI on HR efforts: The more high-quality data you use, the smarter you get about spending your budget and the more fruitful the results of your investments.
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Easier to get buy-in: Speaking of ROI, employee engagement metrics can help you justify why senior leaders should be investing in people strategies. Show up to a meeting with data and the conversation takes on a whole new dimension.
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An edge on your competition: When you get super savvy about measuring employee engagement, you get an edge on your competition. Maybe they don’t even know what an Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) is or how high their employee satisfaction levels are – and it hurts both their culture and bottom line.
11 Employee Engagement Metrics to Track
Ready to start tracking employee engagement? Here are crucial metrics to know about for a holistic understanding of what keeps employees engaged.
Employee Engagement Score
The employee engagement score is a metric calculated from the results of employee engagement surveys. These surveys have employees rate different aspects of the employee experience, from well-being to a sense of purpose. The score that results from the answers provides an overarching view of how engaged employees feel that you can measure and monitor over time.
Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)
The eNPS is a simple yet powerful metric. It’s derived from the answer to one question: How likely are employees to recommend their workplace to others? Employees give an answer from 0 to 10, which gives employers a glimpse into overall levels of job satisfaction.
Remember, though: job satisfaction and employee engagement aren’t one and the same. Engagement involves a desire to perform, while satisfaction is simply about contentment – but one could say employee satisfaction leads to engagement, which makes eNPS important to track!
Employee Satisfaction Index (ESI)
The ESI is another way to keep an eye on employee satisfaction trends. ESurveys typically include a series of scaled questions, providing an aggregate satisfaction score. Questions can range from “How satisfied are you with your current job?” to “To what extent does your work environment meet your expectations?”. While, again, satisfaction isn’t synonymous with engagement, it’s a key driver of it – and the results can provide insight into employee well-being and sentiment.
Employee Retention Rate
Employee retention is an indicator of engagement, as engaged employees are more likely to stick around. Employee retention rate calculates the percentage of employees who stay with the organization over a certain period of time.
A high rate is a green flag on the employee engagement front, as it tends to signal a positive work environment. On the other hand, a low rate signals potential issues to address.
Employee Turnover Rate (Including Voluntary Turnover)
Similarly, employee turnover rate can indicate whether employees are disengaged. If people are leaving at a rapid rate, you’ll want to dive deeper into employee engagement trends to tackle areas of improvement. Voluntary turnover is especially important to look at, as high voluntary turnover can point to dissatisfaction and disengagement.
Employee Recognition Data
Employees who receive high-quality recognition are 65% less likely to look for other opportunities, Gallup data reveals. Organizations with recognition-rich cultures tend to have highly engaged employees, as feeling valued is a human need that positively affects engagement.
Tracking employee recognition data, such as how often employees are acknowledged for their achievements, is a good idea. Using a platform like Applauz takes the guesswork out of doing so.
Employee Engagement Survey Participation
Survey participation rate in and of itself is another KPI to keep tabs on. It shows how invested employees are in sharing their feedback. When you feel connected to your job and workplace, you care about improving it.
Low participation rates can indicate disengagement or a lack of faith in leadership responding to the feedback.
Customer Satisfaction Levels
Highly engaged employees are motivated to deliver their best work. Whether they are in client-facing jobs or not, this ultimately has an impact on the client experience. According to Gallup, teams with high levels of engagement experience 10% more customer loyalty.
Even though other factors affect it, customer satisfaction can still offer an interesting glimpse into engagement trends. Measure it through surveys and feedback forms, take notes, and take care of your employees so they take care of your customers.
Employee Performance Levels
Higher engagement translates into higher performance. Whether you use OKRs (Objective and Key Results) to set goals tied to measurable outcomes or analytics from your project management tool to measure team productivity, measuring employee performance levels can help you unpack engagement trends.
Absenteeism
High absenteeism is a red flag. This isn’t about people taking sick days or being on vacation, but employees regularly being absent from work in general. High absenteeism can indicate wider-scale issues like burnout or dissatisfaction, which spell bad news for employee engagement.
When tracking absenteeism, it’s important to be mindful of not policing employees, which can erode trust and cause more harm than good. Asking people to self-report absences is the best way to go about it.
Use of Employee Perks and Benefits
Tracking how often team members take advantage of perks and benefits like wellness programs or professional development resources gives you insights into what people value.
Low usage could indicate that the company’s offerings don’t align with employees’ needs – and it’s kind of hard to have a highly engaged team when you don’t understand your team.
Lesser-Known Employee Engagement Metrics
Measuring a few of the employee engagement metrics above can set you up for success. If you want to dive deeper into factors that affect engagement or you’re looking for something more specific to suit your team’s needs, consider tracking these lesser-known data points.
Internal mobility rate
This metric tracks how often employees move onto new roles within the company. A high number reflects a culture filled with opportunities for growth and indicates that you nurture talent.
To calculate mobility rate, take the total number of internal job moves within your organization during a given period and divide it by the total headcount.
Manager effectiveness rating
Healthy management tends to be synonymous with healthy engagement. A metric like manager effectiveness rating can provide valuable insight into engagement-related blind spots. Get this data point by asking employees to rate their managers’ communication, leadership, and ability to support their growth.
An anonymous survey can lead to a more honest, accurate result – people may not feel comfortable disclosing how they feel about their bosses if they are identifiable.
Employee innovation index
Yes, you can measure innovation. Since highly engaged teams tend to innovate more, it can tell you a lot about the engagement levels of your employees. A high employee innovation index reflects a company culture where creativity and problem-solving are top priorities.
To get this data, track metrics related to idea generation and idea implementation: One is about assessing the number of ideas submitted per employee, the other is about assessing how good those ideas were in practice. This might take time to put the systems in place to track it, but patience will yield valuable results in the end!
Resilience score
In an increasingly uncertain world, resilience is key. A resilience score can be particularly valuable during periods of organizational change. The idea is to measure how well employees navigate change and remain productive during challenging periods. If the score is low, your team is at a greater risk for disengagement.
According to the Resilience Institute, research shows six areas in which resilience can be seen: reframing, using the power of positive emotions, exercising, engaging in trusted social networks, identifying signature strengths and being optimistic.
A self-reported questionnaire is your best bet for uncovering insights related to these facets of employee experience. If it’s anonymous, people will be more likely to be candid.
Career development tracking
Organizations that invest in developing their people see a staggering increase of 218% in terms of income per employee, according to the Association for Talent Development (ATD).
Evaluating how much access team members have to training, development and mentorship opportunities can tell you whether your culture provides a solid foundation for employee growth.
You can do this by tracking the number of courses/workshops taken or attended and by running employee surveys to gauge how people feel about the types of opportunities on offer.
How to Measure Employee Engagement Effectively
Now that you have a variety of metrics to choose from, it’s crucial to keep a few best practices in mind when measuring engagement. Otherwise, you might end up with data you can’t use. Here are a few tips to embrace for a systematic and thoughtful approach.
Use Multiple Metrics
Relying on a single metric like the Employee Net Promoter Score can be a good start, but it’s not enough. Combining qualitative and quantitative data offers a more colourful picture of employee engagement in your organization.
Invest in the Right Tools
Data is only as effective as the tools you use to collect it. The last thing you want is to rely on manual processes that are prone to human error! Investing in an employee engagement platform like Applauz gives you an array of features to collect, analyze and act on engagement data in real time.
For example, pulse surveys are excellent for regularly gauging employee sentiment. They are short enough to send out on a frequent basis. Choose an area of focus, pull together a rapid questionnaire, and assess how sentiment evolves over time. Then, adjust your people strategies accordingly.
Communicate Transparently
Don’t be mysterious when it comes to deploying employee surveys or tracking data on various platforms.
Share the intention behind engagement measurement with your team and explain how their feedback will lead to meaningful change. Get buy-in from leaders to support efforts to track employee engagement metrics.
Use communication channels to clearly explain how and where to take engagement surveys. Reducing friction is key to increasing participation.
Ask Insightful Questions
Employee survey questions are not created equal. Whether you’re asking open-ended questions to get qualitative data or assessing different aspects of engagement based on a rated scale, the quality of the questions you ask is critical.
Give the process some thought and enlist the help of multiple stakeholders to make sure you’re asking insightful ones.
Act on Feedback
Collecting data is only half the battle. You must act on insights to build trust with team members and foster a healthy workplace culture. Otherwise, it can actually damage engagement.
But don’t make promises that you can’t keep. Measuring employee engagement isn’t about fixing all challenges at once or making everyone happy, but taking intentional steps in the right direction and communicating changes transparently along the way.
Review and Optimize
Engagement isn’t static – it’s dynamic and needs to be tracked regularly. Make a plan to measure employee engagement metrics on a regular basis and optimize strategies to address continuously evolving employee needs. Your team will thank you.
When learning about employee engagement metrics, remember that these data points are more than numbers. They can paint a detailed picture of the heart of your organization and turn sometimes complex, abstract concepts into actionable insights.
Feel Empowered About Employee Engagement Efforts
Armed with employee engagement KPIs, you can feel confident about your HR strategies and create a culture where people feel valued, motivated, and empowered to succeed. From boosting productivity to reducing turnover and improving morale, the benefits are tangible and long-lasting.
Remember that measuring engagement effectively is only the beginning of the journey. As you use data to inform decisions, you can cultivate continuous improvement – and that’s where the real magic happens.
Start measuring, watch your team thrive and position your organization for long-term success in a crowded landscape. A platform like Applauz can support you on your journey.
