Getting the measure of employee engagement: How happy ARE your people?
When it comes to understanding the impact of your employee engagement activities, you clearly need to go on more than just ‘vibes’. If you’ve put a structure in place around internal communications and employee engagement, then you have hopefully already outlined a number of SMART metrics or KPIs which will help to provide some insight into how well it’s going.
You know WHAT you have to measure, but do you know HOW to measure it?
Perhaps you already have some measuring activities in place, or perhaps you’re still somewhat in the dark about how engaged your people really are in your business. Either way, we’ve put together some of the best and most popular methods around so you can get some inspiration. You’re so very welcome.
Gallup Q12 Employee Index: Let’s face it, international poll wizards Gallup really are the G.O.A.T when it comes to the measurement of human opinions and experiences. We quote their findings constantly and the world’s largest organisations count on them for insights into the employee experience. .As they say, they’ve been spending more than 80 years gathering data about human nature and performance, so it’s fair to assume they know their stuff. In terms of practical offerings, their Q12 Assessment tool offers a key set of questions. that they say gives the most insight into the engagement and satisfaction of employees. The survey is designed not as a standalone exercise but as a tool to start a conversation between managers and employees, allowing the latter to communicate their needs and concerns. Join the program and you can even assess how you stack up against others from your sector within Gallup’s database.
eNPS surveys: One for the quantitative data fans (aka the number crunchers), calculating your eNPS can provide a fast overview of the state of the nation in your organisation. Based on the original Net Promoter Score used across the commercial world, the eNPS, in its most basic form, asks one simple question: “On a scale of zero to ten, how likely is it that you would recommend working for our company?”. Based on their score employees are divided into promoters (9-10/10), passives (7-8/10) and detractors (0-6). From there a simple bit of maths is deployed ((Number of Promoters — Number of Detractors) / (Number of Respondents) x 100), and the number you get gives an idea of the overall success of your engagement strategy. Anything between 10 and 20 is reasonable, between 20 and 30 is good, and 40 to 50 is outstanding. Of course, you can take the principle of the eNPS survey and expand it to include more questions, and add the possibility to comment for more insight into responses. By it’s nature the eNPS doesn’t give an in-depth look at things, but it can work effectively as a barometer of how engaged your workforce is
Pulse Surveys: Exactly as they sound, the pulse survey is a quick and effective way to do a ‘pulse check’ on employee engagement and to evaluate reactions to any changes being implemented. And because they are by their nature short and quick to answer, they tend to have a high response rate. Exactly what you need. Unlike annual employee engagement surveys, pulse surveys are generally performed more frequently, typically weekly, monthly, or quarterly, and are much shorter, usually consisting of 1 to 15 questions. By providing a much more continuous measurement, Pulse surveys allow you to respond faster to issues and get data on change perceptions much faster, which can be very helpful in the context of longer campaigns, allowing you to tweak and adapt your strategy if it’s not having the desired effect.
Apps and Technology: Of course, there are a multitude of technology tools available to make gathering feedback and analysing the data a piece of cake. And many have the added bonus of offering more ways to connect with and engage your team and in a more consistent way. For example, Officevibe is an employee engagement app that helps you collect employee feedback and conduct surveys to track overall various employee engagement KPIs, employee feedback responses, and even offers recognition and reward activities. While Glint is an employee engagement app focused on analysing employee feedback and looking for actionable insights through a simple rating system that allows you to pinpoint exactly where improvement needs to be made
Retention and attrition rates: This is obviously an important KPI and a very clear indicator of whether your strategies are working or not, although you could argue that the insights may come too late if your employees are flying out of the door! However, it’s an important one to look at and also gives a meaningful benchmark at an industry-wide level.
However you measure: just measure.
That’s really the key message here. Or actually, don’t JUST measure, measure and then analyse and then implement change. And keep doing that! Knowledge is king and truly knowing and understanding your workforce will deliver so much value to your people and your business. Want to talk about the right approach for you? We’d love to share our experiences with you.