What is employee engagement?
At its simplest, employee engagement describes the level of attachment and affinity your employees have for your company. Engaged employees go above and beyond, have reduced levels of absenteeism, and readily recommend working at your company to their friends and family. They are proactive about their tasks at work, are motivated to take initiative and feel cared for and listened to by their peers and supervisors. Their colleagues often enjoy working with them, and their passion for what they do and where they do it is infectious. You want as many engaged employees at your company as possible, and it’s in your best interest to keep engaged employees satisfied.
Disengaged employees generally dislike working at your company. They are the employees who are only in it for the paycheck. They only perform their job duties (and nothing more), are disinterested in learning more or taking on other responsibilities, and overall feel as if their contributions to the company are unrecognized or unappreciated. You may have heard the term “quiet quitting” to describe this behaviour, and while that is a relatively new term, disengaged employees have always been around, often bringing down those around them and making your workplace less friendly and productive. Sometimes, disengaged employees can become engaged through changes to their job description, compensation, or work environment. Unfortunately, disengaged employees often spread their cynicism to other employees, so many employers choose to cut ties with them to save the rest of their company.
The good news is that there are screening methods you can use to get an accurate reading on whether or not your employees are engaged. Generally, disengaged employees only get to that point by having their concerns disregarded or invalidated, so giving them a proper channel through which to share their grievances can save you lots of problems down the road. By measuring employee engagement across your company, you have the chance to see pain points on a big picture and identify things that need to be changed before they fester and affect your bottom line.
Effective ways to measure employee engagement
The easiest and most comprehensive way to measure employee engagement is through anonymous engagement surveys sent out to all employees on a semi-regular basis. The breadth of these surveys will vary depending on how often you intend to send them throughout the year.
The first way to conduct these surveys is annually. These surveys tend to be quite long and comprehensive, but also crucial in getting the most general sense of engagement at your company. The results of your annual engagement survey are best used to make larger, more broad changes to your company. You should not rely exclusively on annual engagement surveys, though. Findings in one snapshot of time at a specific time of year may not be the same months later. It is for this reason that many companies also do “pulse” surveys.
Pulse surveys are usually sent out on a quarterly basis but can be sent out much more often if you are truly dedicated to measuring employee engagement. They are much shorter than annual engagement surveys and are used to capture moment-in-time engagement. Many business owners find pulse surveys to be more actionable than annual surveys, but it is still important to do both to get the fullest picture of engagement at your company. For example, if you make a business decision that affects a lot of employees (like return-to-office) in January, but wait until December for your annual engagement survey, you won’t get an accurate picture of how your employees feel about the change and in that time, engagement could plummet. Had you conducted a few pulse surveys between January and December, you would have been able to make adjustments to the policy or add incentives for compliance and saved your employee engagement before it soured.
What to measure on your surveys
Belief in your company’s mission, vision, and values
If your employees are not aligned with your company’s mission, vision, and values, find ways to incorporate it into how your company operates. It’s one thing to claim one of your company’s values is transparency, it’s another to actually be transparent. Task your leaders with finding ways to infuse your company’s direction into how they work. Offer learning opportunities or skill-building sessions that align with what you want out of your employees. Volunteer opportunities and community initiatives are both popular and effective ways to get your employees to believe in your business’ strategy.
Recognition
If your employees don’t feel like they are appropriately recognized or rewarded for the work they do, they will become disengaged. Luckily, this is one of the easiest things to fix as an employer. Little things like appreciation notes or employee of the month awards are equally as important as larger rewards like bonuses or promotions, so don’t be afraid to show your gratitude using different means of appreciation.
Growth opportunities
Few things cause employee disengagement more dramatically than keeping them at the same level or same compensation indefinitely without disclosing why. Your employees need growth opportunities to stay engaged. Whether it’s through learning new skills, offering mentorship opportunities, or even offering the chance to temporarily cover the duties of a more senior employee, there are countless ways to give your employees chances to show they are capable of more and that you trust them to do it. Otherwise, they will find a different company that will give them these chances.
Relationship with management
Engaged employees have a positive relationship with their manager, while disengaged employees either have a more adversarial relationship or no relationship at all. Since their manager is the most influential person they deal with on a day-to-day basis, it’s important that managers and their reports have a relationship that fosters trust and openness. If you notice that employees across your company have a negative relationship with their managers, it’s time to send your management team for training.
Relationship with colleagues
Toxic work environments typically foster negative relationships among your employees, so if this measure of employee engagement is negative, you may need to take a good, hard look at who among your ranks is causing the bulk of the problems. Engaged employees don’t dread showing up to work, and the people they work with play a major role in this. Disengaged employees tend to have their negativity rub off on those around them and can quickly poison a workplace if not dealt with accordingly.
Trust and autonomy
Nobody likes to be micromanaged. Engaged employees generally feel trusted to do their jobs and to make decisions on their own, while disengaged employees feel trapped in a mire of delegation and deferral at almost every turn. If employees report low trust and autonomy scores, you may need to have your managers change their management philosophies to encourage more independence among their direct reports.
Value of work
If people feel useless at their job, as if they are replaceable and that what they do ultimately makes no difference, they will be disengaged. This can sometimes happen in larger companies that hire many different people to do one job. This dilution of responsibility can lead to stretches of inactivity, where employees can go days or even weeks without a meaningful task to complete. If employees report negative scores in this measure of engagement, consider assigning them more important tasks to complete or give them new responsibilities that have measurable outcomes on business success.
Compensation
This final measure is easily one of the most important. Employees will not feel any devotion or connection to your company if you don’t pay them enough. On the other hand, some employees may be willing to accept meaningless work or tolerate a toxic work environment if you pay them enough. In both cases, these employees are not truly engaged, and you should try to address your compensation structure.
However you choose to measure employee engagement, the benefits of knowing what your employees struggle with (or appreciate) about your company can make a positive difference on hiring, retention, and ultimately your bottom line.
