Measuring employee engagement can be a complex and challenging process for organizations. This is mainly because employee engagement is typically influenced by a wide range of factors, both inside and outside the workplace. Measuring remote employee engagement adds even more challenges. Here’s why you should still take the effort to consistently measure employee engagement at your organization and the most common ways to measure employee engagement, including some key engagement metrics to pay attention to.

What is Employee Engagement and Why Should You Measure it?

While there are many employee engagement definitions, in essence, employee engagement is the emotional and cognitive commitment of employees towards the organizations they are part of. Engaged employees are more invested in their work and committed to achieving organizational goals. They have higher job satisfaction, experience less work-related stress, and are less likely to quit their jobs.

On top of that, engaged employees are more productive, more efficient, and more likely to go above and beyond what is required of them. For businesses, it means increased profitability and improved bottom line. No wonder 71% of company executives agree that employee engagement is crucial to business success, according to research by Harvard Business Review.

To keep your employees engaged and motivated, it’s critical to measure engagement regularly and consistently. It helps uncover weak points in your engagement strategy and make data-driven decisions about improving engagement and employee satisfaction.

How to Measure Employee Engagement at Your Organization

How do companies measure employee engagement? There are several employee engagement measurement methods that you can use. Let’s take a closer look at each of them below. It’s worth mentioning, though, it’s better to use these methods in combination to get a more complete picture of employee engagement at your organization.

1. Engagement Metrics

One of the most straightforward ways to measure employee engagement is by regularly keeping track of critical employee engagement metrics, such as voluntary employee turnover rate, employee retention rate, absenteeism rate, employee satisfaction, and eNPS. E.g., a high voluntary employee turnover rate apparently indicates low engagement and that there are certain gaps in your engagement strategy that need to be addressed because highly engaged and satisfied employees are less likely to leave. Here’s how to measure work engagement with basic employee engagement metrics:

In addition to these metrics, you can also evaluate employee performance since higher employee performance and productivity are the outcomes of high engagement levels. Employee performance can be measured in many different ways, including through Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), graphic rating scales, 360-degree performance reviews, checklists, a 9-box grid, qualitative feedback from customers and peers, and self-evaluation methods.

2. Engagement Surveys

Pulse surveys

Employee pulse surveys are quick, short surveys with a series of open-ended questions (between 5 and 10) that typically focus on a specific aspect of employees’ experience, like employee morale and motivation, job satisfaction, work-life balance, etc. They can also be used to gauge the impact of specific initiatives, such as a change in company policies. Pulse surveys can be distributed quarterly, monthly, weekly, or as needed. By regularly conducting pulse surveys, you can get almost immediate, real-time employee feedback at any given time as well as a holistic view of employee engagement over time.

eNPS surveys

Similar to customer-centric NPS, eNPS is an employee-focused Net Promoter Score that measures employee satisfaction and loyalty by asking a single question: ‘On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our organization as a great place to work?’. Based on the answers, the employees are classified into Detractors (0-6), Neutrals (7-8), and Promoters (9-10). To get even more insight, you can also include 1-2 complimentary follow-up questions in your eNPS surveys, like ‘What is the primary reason for your score?’ or ‘What’s one thing that would prompt you to give a higher score?’.

Annual engagement surveys

As the name suggests, annual employee engagement surveys are distributed once a year. These are usually long surveys with diverse questions covering all aspects of employee experience. Annual engagement surveys allow getting a broad picture of the engagement levels across the entire organization and show a comprehensive view of areas that need improvement in your employee engagement strategy.

3. Exit / Stay Interviews

If you’re looking for ways how to measure employee engagement without surveys, you can conduct interviews and get valuable insights by asking the right questions. Exit interviews and stay interviews can provide some of the most insightful feedback on your employee engagement levels.

Exit interviews

Exit interviews are conducted with employees who have decided to leave the company. While exit interviews will not convince departing employees to change their minds, they can still provide valuable information and help you find out the real reasons behind leaving, understand what could have been done differently to improve engagement, identify turnover patterns, and work out more efficient engagement strategies. Some of the exit interview questions examples to measure employee engagement are:

• What was the main deciding factor that prompted you to accept a new position?
• What’s one thing you liked most and least about your role?
• Was there any specific aspect of your job that was particularly challenging for you?
• Were you able to maintain a healthy work-life balance while working here?
• Was there anything that could have been done to retain you?

Stay interviews

Instead of waiting for employees to leave to find out why they weren’t happy at their positions, businesses should also regularly conduct stay interviews. The goal of stay interviews is to get a better understanding of what you are already doing well to keep your employees engaged to amplify your engagement efforts. Asking something like ‘What’s one thing you would change about your current role that would make you 10% happier?’ can also help you identify areas for improvement in your engagement strategy and discover potential issues so you can prevent them before an employee even considers leaving.

4. One-on-One Meetings

Conducting regular 1-on-1 meetings with employees is another effective way to measure engagement and collect employee feedback. One-on-ones provide an opportunity for an employee to have an open and honest conversation in a safe and private environment, either face-to-face or virtually. For measuring employee engagement in particular, the following or similar questions might be helpful:

• What motivates you to come to work every day?
• Are you excited about the project you are currently working on?
• How fulfilling is your day-to-day work?
• Do you sometimes feel bored or unchallenged at work?
• Are you satisfied with the overall workplace environment?
• How would you rate your happiness level at work?
• Do you feel that your work is having an impact?
• Do you believe you are contributing to achieving the company’s goals?
• Do you feel you are receiving enough support from your manager and colleagues?

5. Focus Groups

For larger businesses and organizations, where employee interviews and one-on-one meetings may be challenging or nearly impossible to arrange, measuring engagement through focus groups is a helpful alternative as it takes less time and effort. Focus groups can include employees from a specific department or the entire organization. By participating in semi-structured discussions, employees may uncover meaningful insights that can help managers remove the guesswork in making important decisions. Beyond that, the fact that you are setting up a focus group shows that you are taking the time to listen to the employees’ feelings and opinions, which itself can improve engagement.

Act on Your Insights to Boost Engagement

Understanding the importance of having engaged employees and knowing how to track employee engagement with various employee engagement measurement tools is only one side of the coin. Once you have a clear picture of where your organization stands in terms of employee engagement, it’s equally important to build a thoughtful employee engagement strategy and work out ways to take your employee engagement to the next level.