Have you ever felt the weight of unspoken workplace frustrations? Your company's success depends on addressing these very issues – it's all about employee engagement. While sometimes overlooked, it's undeniably vital. In fact, companies with high employee engagement levels leave their less-engaged counterparts in the dust, outperforming them by an impressive 202%.
So, what precisely is an employee engagement score, why is it significant, how to measure it and what steps can you take after you’ve gathered the score?
What is an employee engagement score?
An employee engagement score is a metric used to gauge employees' engagement, motivation, and commitment toward their work. This score typically falls within a range from 0 to 100, with higher scores signifying greater levels of engagement.
Employee engagement score ranges
- Low Score (0 - 29%): Employees with low scores may exhibit disconnection from their team, a lack of interest in their work, and limited communication. They often require extra motivation to complete tasks.
- Neutral Score (30 - 69%): Employees in this range generally possess enough motivation to complete their job tasks. However, their commitment to their work and the company may not be at an optimal level. This range represents the standard level of engagement.
- High Score (70 - 100%): Employees with high scores are enthusiastic about their work-related tasks. They maintain open communication lines, proactively propose solutions to problems, and are committed to learning and achieving their work goals. This level of engagement signifies an ideal scenario.
Signs that your employee engagement score is low
While specific indicators may vary, here are some common signs that suggest a poor employee engagement score:
- Lack of initiative and innovation: Disengaged employees may be less inclined to contribute new ideas, offer suggestions for improvement, or take on additional responsibilities.
- High turnover rates: Disengaged employees are more likely to seek opportunities elsewhere, increasing turnover. High turnover rates can disrupt productivity, raise recruitment and training costs, and impact team morale.
- Low employee morale and a negative workplace atmosphere: Disengaged employees often experience lower morale, contributing to a negative workplace atmosphere. A negative workplace environment can further exacerbate disengagement and hinder employee well-being.
- Low productivity: Disengaged employees may display reduced motivation, lack of focus, or decreased effort in their work, leading to lower overall productivity levels. Consistently low productivity can adversely affect business outcomes and hinder organizational growth.
- Decreased customer satisfaction: Disengaged employees may provide subpar customer service or fail to meet customer expectations, resulting in decreased customer satisfaction. Unsatisfied customers can negatively impact the organization's reputation, customer retention, and bottom line.
- Increased absenteeism and sick leave: Higher absenteeism rates can indicate disengagement and a lack of commitment to work. Excessive absenteeism can affect overall organizational performance.
- Poor communication and collaboration: Inadequate employee communication and collaboration can indicate low engagement. This can impede information flow, decision-making processes, and overall organizational effectiveness.
What constitutes a high employee engagement score?
Determining a good employee engagement score hinges on various factors, including industry, company goals, and company size. As a general guideline, a score above 70 is considered good, while a score below 70 suggests the need for attention. To obtain a comprehensive view of the company's workforce, it should be combined with other metrics like turnover, absenteeism, and productivity.
Key reasons why measuring employee engagement is important
The multiple facets of how engaged employees elevate their experiences and contribute to their organization's overall success and profitability. The transformative influence of employee engagement within organizations includes:
- Engaged employees consistently deliver high-quality results and outperform others by 202%.
- Companies with high employee engagement are 21% more profitable
- Engaged employees experience 48% fewer work-related injuries, saving companies $47,988 per worker’s compensation claim.
- Companies with engaged employees see 233% greater customer loyalty and a 26% annual revenue increase.
What metrics measure engagement?
Employee engagement metrics gauge the frequency and effectiveness of employee interactions with their organization. The most common metrics for measuring engagement for frontline workers are:
- Absence rates: Absence rates matter because they indicate how often team members take time off, affecting costs and engagement. High absence rates can signal low motivation, while low rates may indicate stronger connections to work and colleagues. Highly engaged employers experience 41% lower absenteeism rates.
- Turnover rate: Engaged teams have lower turnover rates. Monitoring annual turnover rates by department can reveal engagement issues, allowing leaders to address them with team-building activities and better support systems. Highly engaged employers experience 25% to 59% lower turnover rates.
- Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS): eNPS measures employee sentiment and helps improve engagement by collecting feedback and tracking changes over time.
- Employee survey results: Surveys identify factors contributing to satisfaction and can help measure engagement by calculating an 'Employee Satisfaction Index' across departments.
- Successful hires: Tracking successful hires versus unsuccessful ones helps evaluate onboarding processes and make improvements based on feedback from exit interviews.
- Internal promotion rate: Monitoring internal promotions indicates areas of success and opportunities for career development.
- Employee engagement through internal communication content: How employees engage with the content you share internally, whether through your company's intranet or a company newsfeed, provides valuable insights into their level of engagement. Frontline workers often miss out on internal communications due to the absence of a company email address and limited in-person interactions with their peers. Therefore, measuring whether and how they interact with internal content is essential. Using an employee application can make it easy to both reach your frontline workers while measuring interaction levels.
- Active users: Tracking active users of engagement tools helps measure motivation and adjust content for better engagement.
What is the best way to measure engagement?
The best way to measure employee engagement involves 4 crucial steps:
- Determine engagement outcomes: Use survey questions that gauge behaviors and feelings of engaged employees, such as perceptions of organizational pride, intent to stay, and advocacy. These questions provide insights into the current state of employee engagement.
- Identify employee priorities: Ask employees to rate their opinions on various engagement drivers, including teamwork, trust in leadership, career development, communication, and more. Some drivers impact more significantly than others, so ensure your survey covers various topics.
- Conduct a drivers analysis: Analyze the data to understand which drivers influence your organization most. Identifying key drivers helps target programs for improvement.
- Develop a continuous listening strategy: Regularly survey your employees for valid and actionable results. Annual surveys are effective but use pulse surveys to gather real-time feedback. Also, incorporate lifecycle surveys to assess perceptions at critical points in the employee journey.
What to do after measuring employee engagement?
Once you've measured employee engagement, it's time to put those insights to good use. Here are some steps to consider when checking in on how engaged your employees are:
- Analyze the data: Unpack the information you've gathered from the employee engagement survey to identify patterns, trends, and areas that are doing well or need help. Find the specific engagement areas that need attention or a little boost.
- Share the results: Visibly share the engagement survey results – from management to the team leaders and the frontline workers. Being open about the results shows that your organization is committed to improving things.
- Get to the root: Dig deeper into the data to find out what's causing the engagement levels. See if there are any connections between engagement scores and other things at work, like how well people communicate, the leaders in charge, how heavy the workload is, or opportunities for career growth. Knowing the root causes will help you focus your efforts.
- Create an action plan: Based on what you've figured out and the root causes you've identified, create a plan to tackle the areas that need attention. Set clear goals, develop strategies, and start initiatives that will boost employee engagement. Ensure everyone knows what they need to do, and set deadlines for making it happen.
- Involve your employees: Employee engagement is a team effort. Get your employees involved by asking for their input, ideas, and feedback on how to fix things. This makes them feel like they're part of the solution and increases the chances of success.
- Offer training and development: Invest in training and development programs that help your frontline workers grow and improve at their jobs. Give them opportunities to advance in their careers, learn new things, and improve. This shows that your organization is serious about helping employees grow and feel engaged.
- Boost communication: Strengthen how your organization talks to each other to make it more transparent, clear, and engaging. Encourage open conversations, listen to employee feedback, and deal with issues quickly. Good communication builds trust and keeps people engaged.
- Recognize and reward: Put in place programs that give props to your employees for their hard work and accomplishments. Celebrate wins and milestones, whether it's individual achievements or great teamwork. Recognizing and rewarding your employees keeps their spirits high and makes them feel appreciated.
- Keep an eye on things: Keep checking employee engagement levels over time to see if the things you've put in place are making a difference. Use feedback from your employees, short surveys, or follow-up engagement measurements to see how you're doing and make changes if you need to.
- Make the workplace awesome: Create a workplace centered around balance, inclusivity, and well-being. A key foundation is ensuring your organization is built on trust, respect, and teamwork. This makes everyone feel more engaged and happier at work.
Measuring and improving employee engagement is not just about making the workplace more pleasant; it's a strategic imperative with far-reaching implications for an organization's performance, reputation, and long-term sustainability. It's the key to unlocking the full potential of your most valuable asset: your people.
Download the Speakap Content Strategy Template to get a jump-start on creating an employee engagement strategy that works for you.