High employee engagement is one of the many things all successful organizations have in common. Engaged employees work harder, stay at work longer, and feel more emotionally connected to their place of work. Therefore, measuring employee engagement is a great way to figure out what your organization is doing well and where it can improve.
The issue is that employee engagement isn’t something concrete – it’s influenced by many factors specific to your organization. That said, there are a few things that will help you improve your engagement initiatives. Here are five of the best practices for measuring engagement.
- Use Proven Survey Methods
The most effective way to measure employee engagement is to conduct a survey, but only if you use proven methods. The best questionnaire you can use for this purpose is the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES). This scale is well-tested and time-proven, with higher scores having a strong correlation to positive business outcomes.
- Examine the Turnover Rate
Not sure what questions to include in your survey? If so, look at your organization’s turnover rate to figure out how much you need to tune your employee experience. Studies show that you should aim for an annual turnover rate of 10% or less. An unnaturally high employee turnover can indicate serious issues within your organization.
If you’re dealing with a high turnover rate, your survey should include questions about specific managers or departments. You should also try to gauge the level of presenteeism in the workplace by asking questions about work distractions.
- Determine Engagement Outcomes
Your survey should always include questions that relate to engagement outcomes. These questions represent the feelings of engaged employees by measuring their perceptions of advocacy, intent to stay, and organizational pride. These questions shouldn’t include specific actions – instead, they aim to identify targets your organization could improve on.
- Identify Engagement Drivers
As the name implies, engagement drivers refer to survey questions that determine your employees’ level of engagement. For example, you may ask your employees to rate their opinions of teamwork, career development, trust in leadership, confidence in the future, etc.
All engagement drivers matter to an extent, but some are more important than others. Make sure that your survey covers a wide variety of drivers that can impact employees’ motivation. Responses to these questions will help your organization get a clear picture of what things impact engagement, allowing you to improve on them.
- Keep It Confidential
When measuring employee engagement, don’t make the mistake of guaranteeing the anonymity of data. Though this seems like a noble purpose, it also means you won’t be able to use the data for further analysis. Instead of promising your employees anonymity, guarantee them complete confidentiality.