How To Measure Employee Engagement

In order to improve employee engagement, first you need to establish how to measure it.

In this article, we’ll go over what employee engagement actually is and when the discussion around employee engagement first started.

As always with our ‘how to’ series, we’ll also debunk some common myths and provide you with a clear step-by-step plan to help you measure engagement…the right way.

To finish things off, we’ll take a quick look how one company is going the extra mile to boost employee engagement (spoiler alert: it’s Google).

This article is part of a series developed from season two of our podcast – The Ins and Outs of Work. You can watch the video format below, or listen to the episode on your favorite podcast app.

Table of Contents:

What is employee engagement?

A brief history of employee engagement

Two common employee engagement myths debunked

How to measure engagement: best practices

Storytime: Google’s passion projects

What is employee engagement?

There seems to be an endless list of definitions for “employee engagement”. This fundamental concept describes the relationship between an organization and its employees. Therefore, how one company defines it may be very personal, and varies from one company to the next.

Here are two definitions we particularly identify with:

According to HR Zone, employee engagement is the emotional attachment employees feel towards their place of work, job role, position within the company, colleagues, and culture and the effect this attachment has on their wellbeing and productivity.

Put simply, best-selling author Kevin Kruse says it’s the emotional commitment employees have to the organization and its goals.

Why is it important?

Imagine spending 40 hours a week going somewhere you don’t particularly like, hanging out with people you don’t connect with, and doing something you don’t particularly enjoy doing. This isn’t good for anyone—but it’s especially bad for business.

Employee engagement is important because it’s closely linked to successful organizations.

Keeping your employees engaged is a strategic move. [It means] 20% more sales, better customer scores, 65% less turnover, and 41% less absenteeism on average.

–Qlearsite

A brief history of employee engagement

employee engagement

Have you heard the story of President John F. Kennedy and the janitor?

The story goes like this.

President John F. Kennedy was visiting NASA headquarters for the first time in 1961. While touring the facility, he introduced himself to a janitor who was mopping the floor and asked him what he did at NASA.

I’m helping put a man on the moon!

– said the janitor.

This story is often cited as an example of employee engagement (though apparently, it’s untrue). Regardless, this story brings to life an image of how seeing a bigger purpose for one’s work than just the tasks at hand can make employees more engaged and satisfied in their work.

The janitor got it. He understood NASA’s vision, the role he played, and that gave him purpose.

Before this, circa 1990, the discourse was really about employee satisfaction—’how much do I like things here?’

Then, William A. Kahn wrote an article in a 1990 Academy of Management Journal describing employee engagement and disengagement. In it, suggested that engaged employees come to work as their ‘preferred selves’, which means they bring their full talents and efforts to their jobs. Disengaged employees, meanwhile, defend their ‘preferred selves’ from their work.

His innovative research was finally able to give a name to the mysterious reason behind why people ‘engage’ with their work.

Two common employee engagement myths debunked

Let’s debunk two of the most popular myths surrounding employee engagement:

1. Most of your workforce is disengaged

In researching their book ‘The Employee Experience’, authors Tracey Maylett and Matthew Wride found that 32% of employees globally are fully engaged (the “enthusiastic champions”) and 48% are key contributors (the “strong and steady”).

This means that only 20% of employees are either disengaged (4%) or are situationally engaged (the 16% that may or may not be engaged, depending on the situation or moment).

2. You can perk your way to engagement

Psychological research says that when someone jumps to a higher level of income or a new standard of living, they quickly adapt and become dissatisfied again.

If you try to buy employee satisfaction by upgrading perks and hygiene factors, the price always goes up. Give employees a bonus, and that becomes part of next year’s expectation.

How to measure engagement: best practices

In this part, we will take a tactical approach to measure engagement and share 5 best practices on how to measure it right.

1. Measure the right thing

The term engagement is used for many different things. They all relate to some state of wellbeing, but an engaged worker is not necessarily a happy worker. And a happy worker is not necessarily an empowered worker.

Different companies measure different things and even when two companies have the same engagement score, workers may feel very, very differently.

2. Use proven methods

Two of the best-known questionnaires are the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (of which there also is an ultra-short 3 item version) and the GALLUP scale.

Other scales are less tested. This risks your engagement survey being (virtually) worthless.

3. Confidential, not anonymous

Measuring employee engagement should have a business reason.

A common mistake is guaranteeing the anonymity of data. This means that you can never use this data for further analysis and, by extension, for the business.

Therefore, guarantee confidentiality, not anonymity.

4. Use your data for value added-analysis

It’s nice to know you’ve achieved a 7% increase in engagement since last year but what does that really mean? You can use the data to measure how engaged workers impact business outcomes.

To give an example, at Best Buy a 1% increase in engagement led to a $100,000 growth in revenue per store.

5. What’s in it for the employee?

Filling in surveys is usually not people’s favorite way to pass time. So, what can you give your people to motivate them to fill in a survey?

Giving them insights into their own results is fundamental to helping them understand the importance of the survey. Or maybe you can promise a customized report with tips on their current situation.

How to successfully offboard an employee: a step-by-step plan

How to effectively manage the departure of an employee in just 9 easy steps. Use this guide as a checklist the next time you need to bid farewell to an employee.

1. Thank your employee

And congratulate them as they move on to a new role! In any case, when an employee is leaving, start by thanking them for the work they’ve done and the time and energy they’ve invested in your company.

2. Communicate about the departure

Though it can be tempting to hold off on communicating about an employee’s departure, it’s best to share this information right away.

Managers should inform their team, department, and HR as soon as possible about an employee’s departure.

As with most things, it’s best to be honest. Tell people when someone is leaving and why, and that you’ll fill them in on the details once you have them.

3. Encourage a knowledge transfer

You want to make sure you keep the leaving employee’s knowledge inside your company. It’s always good to ask people to create a handover document or video with useful tips for whoever is going to take over their role.

An added bonus of staying on good terms with former employees is that if you find yourself missing certain knowledge after their departure, you’ll be able to ask them to help you out and they’ll be happy to do it.

4. Recover company assets

Onto the more practical part of the employee offboarding process now.

Don’t forget to ask the leaving employee to hand in their company equipment: company badges, credit cards, uniforms, phones, laptops, a company car, you name it.

5. Revoke systems access

The same thing goes for the employee’s systems access, don’t forget to revoke all of them.

Think of CRM systems, the company’s social media accounts, content databases and access to sales dashboards for instance.

6. Hold an exit interview

When done properly, the exit interview can provide you with a wealth of information. It can give you insights into your organization’s strengths and weaknesses and how to improve the latter.

Here are some examples of exit interview questions you could ask:

– If we could improve in any way, how would we do it?
– What are we not doing that we should be doing?
– Is there anything we could have done to make you stay?

7. Update your organizational charts

Once an employee has left the company, make sure to update your organizational charts and directories…this will avoid a lot of (internal) confusion.

8. Don’t forget about the payroll!

Just like some companies forget to revoke a leaving employee’s systems access, others sometimes forget to take them off their payroll!

Even though payroll systems have this functionality built-in, you may want to double-check that the final payment process is actually being carried out by payroll.

9. Stay in touch

Think of this as staying in touch with an old friend. From time to time you ask each other how you’re doing and what you’re up to. Perhaps you meet up for a coffee.

When it comes to former employees there are various ways to stay in touch. For example via a talent pool or an alumni group. Both options allow you to send former employees the latest company news (and vacancies) so that they stay up-to-date if they want to.

Storytime: Google’s passion projects

Google and many other Silicon Valley giants are famous for their employee perks, everything from employee shuttles, to free lunches, and even in-house massages.

But while perks are nice, they don’t always impact employee engagement. Freedom and trust are better—especially when it comes to how to use your time.

Google goes one step further, allowing employees to spend 20 percent of their time on personal projects, or what they call, “Passion Projects”.

Google Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin created ’20 percent time’ back in 2004. It gives employees one full day per week (20 percent of their time) to work on a Google-related passion project of their own choosing or creation.

Not only does this 20 percent program give employees an incredible amount of autonomy, but it’s also hatched some of Google’s most valuable services, including AdSense, Gmail, and Google Maps.

In short, we love how Google is handling employee engagement because it:

• Allows employees to be autonomous with their time
• Shows the company’s flexibility
• Empowers employees

In sum, it’s a great example of exactly Steve Jobs once said: “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do”.

The manager’s role in employee engagement

You now have the key to measuring employee engagement. Time to take action! But when better benefits, free snacks, and ping pong tables don’t do the trick, what’s left to move that engagement needle?

The answer: managers.

The role of the manager is evolving as workplace relationships and environment are becoming key to employee connection and engagement.

Download our ebook to discover everything you need to know about the changing role of the manager in 2021.