Employee engagement is an essential factor that can determine the success of an enterprise. To improve your employee engagement, you should first know what your enterprise does well and how it can grow. Measuring employee engagement is the starting point to evolving your engagement strategy. Unlike data-driven performance metrics, employee engagement is harder to measure as it is influenced by several factors and is not as concrete as indisputable data-based metrics. This article covers a few helpful tips to ensure that your employee engagement platform is effective.

Determine Outcomes in the Employee Engagement Survey

An engagement outcome represents the feelings and behaviors of an engaged employee. They can be in the form of survey questions that measure factors like intent to stay, advocacy, or pride in the enterprise. These outcomes can help you determine your enterprise’s current state of employee engagement. They are a starting point for identifying targets that your enterprise should maintain or improve. This knowledge can then inform the actions you implement later on.

Learn what is vital to your Employees

Your survey questions should cover a wide variety of topics that impact engagement. For example, some of these could be asking employees to rate their opinion of teamwork, leadership, communication, confidence in the enterprise, and more. Some engagement drivers have more footprints than others. Offering a variety of survey topics will enable you to learn what employees think drives engagement the most. You will also know to what degree your enterprise values and recognizes your employees. It can help you determine what impacts engagement to implement the right programs to improve.

Perform Driver Analysis Frequently

Amongst the several engagement drivers, some may have a more significant impact on your enterprise. Through analyzing your drivers, you could learn that employees that favor a particular driver are more likely to be engaged. The best strategy is to identify top drivers and then identify weak areas in your top drivers. You can then implement programs targeted toward improving those specific drivers.

Offer regular and varied Employee Engagement Surveys

Surveys that are conducted more regularly are more likely to be effective. You can also offer different employee engagement surveys to get more accurate results. Pulse surveys are short, simple, and provide real-time feedback. They also allow for more voices to be heard as it is easier for more employees to participate in brief surveys. You should also add lifecycle surveys that measure perceptions at key moments during your employee’s journey. The findings from all of these sources and methods will paint a more accurate picture of employee engagement and enable you to make better decisions and strategies that affect your employees.

Measure Engagement across the enterprise

Measuring engagement across the enterprise allows you to establish a baseline. It will enable you to have a benchmark for different teams and groups within your enterprise. Once you have enterprise-wide engagement data, you should dissect it in a meaningful way. You can break down employees into more targeted groups such as division, department, and expertise level. It will also help you determine areas in which you need more information which you can achieve with more targeted questions.

Measure Individual Engagement

If you want to impact a particular group or team, you should also engage the individuals within them. It is harder to analyze individual perceptions with surveys. It is where you can utilize your managers to keep watch on what is happening at an individual level. This, combined with broader group surveys, helps create a more accurate perception of engagement levels in your enterprise.

Measure Institutional Relationship

An institutional relationship is a relationship between employees and the enterprise. It includes perceptions about procedures, policies, and other factors that affect the vision of your enterprise. This relationship is an important one to measure, as it will let you know whether your employees are aligned to the broader vision of your enterprise. It will also help you understand high-level concerns your employees may have and enable you to address them more effectively.

Measure the Relationship between Management and Employees

Employees rely on managers for feedback, training, and clear communication. Managers rely on employees to get work done and maintain their team’s good reputation. Measuring the relationship between management and employees will help you identify solid teams and teams that struggle.

Measure Peer-to-Peer Relationships

The relationship between your employees is an essential factor that impacts overall engagement. Coworkers rely on each other to be respectful, accepting, inclusive, and team players. Understanding peer-to-peer relationships will identify opportunities to motivate teams and individuals as well as align them to the vision of your enterprise.

Conclusion

Employee engagement is a complex and nuanced metric that is not as easy to measure as other metrics within your enterprise. However, it is still an important metric that will impact your enterprise’s bottom line. The traditional annual employee engagement surveys were tedious and uninspiring. Fortunately, modern tools can be used to measure employee engagement correctly and with more accuracy.

Also Read: Employee Engagement Survey Best Practices

Also Read: Employee Performance Review Templates for Performance Appraisal