Employee engagement is a vital business metric that every company should track. When employees are engaged, your company will experience higher employee productivity rates, enhanced employee retention and increased profits.

It’s no wonder that SurveyMonkey research shows that 53% of HR pros are increasing their focus on the employee experience vs. the bottom line. In this article, we’ll explore what employee engagement means, strategies for improving it, methods of measuring it and the key metrics you need to track.

What is employee engagement?

Employee engagement is the level of commitment and enthusiasm that a staff member has for their job. High employee engagement rates show that employees care about their role and want to do a great job.

Employee productivity, retention and overall profits increase as employee engagement increases.

What employee engagement is not

Some businesses mistake employee satisfaction, wellbeing or general happiness for engagement. However, these are not indicators of someone’s investment in the success of their teams organisations or the overall business.

Employee engagement is not:

Employee happiness: A happy employee doesn’t always engage with their work.
Job satisfaction: Generally, job satisfaction refers to satisfaction with factors such as pay, workload, resources and perception of management.
Employee wellbeing: Employee wellbeing is a person’s physical, emotional and economic health.

Often used interchangeably, these terms do have significant differences.

Employee engagement vs. employee disengagement

Engaged and disengaged employees act differently, have different work ethic levels and contribute differently to your company.

Different levels of employee engagement will result in:

Varied belief in company vision: Engaged employees believe in your vision, while disengaged employees feel no connection to your core purpose.
Willingness to work: Engaged employees will meet goals and exceed expectations, while disengaged employees will do the bare minimum.
Communication styles: Engaged employees are passionate about their work and optimistic, while disengaged employees rarely communicate.

Benefits of employee engagement

Enhancing employee engagement is one of the most effective ways of supercharging your business. From productivity enhancements to better customer service, there are numerous reasons for trying to engage your employees.

Here are the main benefits of employee engagement:

Improved team performance: When a team consists entirely of motivated, engaged employees, each individual is likely to be more engaged in their role, resulting in higher team performance. Engaged employees working together will produce excellent results and outcomes, far better than teams that are not engaged.

Increased productivity: Highly engaged employees feel invested in their jobs and performance. These employees will work harder, complete tasks faster and display higher productivity rates.

Improved workplace morale: When your employees engage with their job roles, they bring more positivity and enthusiasm. Better attitudes can help boost workplace morale and create a lovely workplace for everyone.

Higher retention and lower turnover: Employee engagement and retention are directly linked. Engaged employees are much more likely to stay with your company, helping you to create a stronger, more dedicated workforce.

Decreased absenteeism: Your engaged employees are less likely to miss working days, and whenever they are present, they are fully immersed in their work. Disengaged employees are more likely to call in sick and are less productive.

Improved customer service: Engaged employees provide better customer service, resulting in customer loyalty and retention. Employees who care about the customer experience will go out of their way to ensure that it’s positive.

Increased profits: When your employees work harder, they finish work faster, enabling your teams to do more. Higher productivity and more efficiency result in better profits for your bottom line.

Employee engagement has multitude of benefits. Cultivating an atmosphere that incentivises and promotes engagement is a strong factor in a company’s success.

What makes employees engaged?

To engage employees, their experience needs to be improved. Various factors contribute to this, including management. SurveyMonkey research indicates that approximately 47% of employees say their manager significantly influences their experience.

However, there are several other factors that you should take into account:

Job satisfaction: Job satisfaction comes down to matching the right skills to the right role and supporting an employee with adequate feedback and rewards.

Personal engagement: Employees’ needs and concerns extend far beyond the office. Personal engagement looks after the employee as a whole person.

Growth opportunities: Are your employees able to see what their future will be like working for your company? An engaged employee needs a path to walk and a clear and captivating destination.

Team dynamics: Groups can potentially produce more value than the sum of their parts. A team dynamic fostering a sense of belonging, safety and exploration is engaging.

Purpose alignment: Your company needs an articulated purpose and employees who feel energised to pursue that purpose. Can they see where they fit into greater successes?

Understanding employee engagement ideas, strategies and metrics related to these drivers is essential for tracking and improving employee engagement.

How to measure employee engagement

Measuring employee engagement rates allows your business to track and improve engagement over time. Monitor key metrics and gather data via surveys to streamline the process.

There are several different ways in which you can measure employee engagement:

Employee engagement surveys: An employee engagement survey offers insight into factors such as an employee’s perception of leadership, emotional commitment to work, pride in their company and more. Use these surveys to create quantifiable data to draw upon.

Pulse survey: A pulse survey is a brief survey that is conducted regularly to assess employee engagement. Frequently administer an employee pulse survey, typically containing 15 questions or fewer. Focused surveys throughout the employee lifecycle provide valuable data to create effective strategies for enhancing and sustaining engagement levels.

Employee lifecycle surveys: Businesses can use employee lifecycle surveys at various points during an employee’s tenure with the company.

Recruitment surveys: Recruitment surveys evaluate your application, recruitment and interview process. They help determine how effective your recruitment process is and whether you are actively producing engaged employees.

Onboarding surveys: These surveys examine your company’s onboarding process for new hires. They help enhance your process and ensure that every employee hits the ground running.

Training surveys: Training surveys are used to review the effectiveness of your training programmes. They are great for determining whether your employees feel they have access to high-quality training programmes.

360-degree employee reviews: 360-degree employee reviews allow employees to participate in peer and manager reviews anonymously as well as in self-assessment reviews. They help you to evaluate employee relationships and identify complex individuals within your organisation.

Exit surveys: Exit surveys gather feedback about management, staff, roles and team dynamics. They can help identify ways to improve the employee experience for existing employees. You can also pair these with stay interviews.

Performance reviews: Companies can use performance review surveys to measure employee progress. These help companies recognise employees’ hard work.

One-to-one meetings: Managers can host one-to-one meetings to check in with employees and see how they are doing. According to SurveyMonkey research, 35% of HR pros consider collecting and responding to employee feedback to be one of the best methods of creating a winning employee experience.

Employee engagement software helps employees communicate with managers and peers, receive recognition and rewards and give feedback. The employee experience can be streamlined by using this software to track engagement.

Related reading: Employee engagement surveys best practices

Best employee engagement metrics

Measuring relevant key performance indicators allows HR teams to understand better employee engagement and how it varies in the workplace.

Here are the most important KPIs to monitor when tracking employee engagement:

Turnover rates: High turnover rates correlate to low employee engagement, as dissatisfied employees are more likely to leave their jobs. Reducing turnover rates is an effective strategy for enhancing employee engagement.

Retention rates: High employee retention rates show that your employees are satisfied and not actively looking to quit. Low retention may signal issues with engagement, workplace culture or leadership.

Employee absenteeism rate: High employee absenteeism rates suggest low levels of engagement and commitment. It is essential to track absenteeism in order to gain insight into employee morale, identify issues and implement measures to improve attendance and productivity.

Employee productivity: By tracking workplace productivity, companies can gain a better understanding of employee engagement. You can track employee productivity by setting goals, using self-reporting surveys and measuring progress over time.

By using metrics such as these, you will gain a better understanding of employee engagement in the workplace.

Related reading: HR quick start guide

Three employee engagement strategies

Companies that want to enhance employee engagement should use one or more strategies.

Here are some practical strategies that you can employ to improve employee engagement:

Improve communication: Information sharing helps employees understand business decisions and their impact on workplace culture and individuals. Listening to employees makes them feel valued, so provide communication avenues such as one-on-one meetings, open office hours and forums for anonymous suggestions.

Build an employee recognition programme: An employee recognition programme highlights exceptional work and shows that you value contributions, helping your company stand out. Offering rewards such as extra time off and bonuses for top performers can boost motivation and engagement.

Invest in leadership development: A recent SurveyMonkey study suggests that 55% of HR leaders believe employee training is the most critical investment for improving employee experience. A leadership development programme will create healthier workplace dynamics, force new growth pathways for top employees and create long-term goals for employees across your business.

Given the importance of employee engagement, implementing as many strategies as possible is always a good idea.

Top employee engagement ideas

You can implement small changes that can have a significant impact on employee engagement.

Here are a few different ideas for employee engagement that you could start offering today:

Growth opportunities: Another way to increase employee engagement at work is to provide growth opportunities for every employee. By empowering employees with learning opportunities, you can craft a roadmap for them to follow in your organisation. Empowering your employees increases motivation and creativity, trust in the company and employee retention.

Promote a healthy work-life balance: Nothing keeps employees engaged like ensuring they have time to rest. Lead by example by reminding people to take time off, avoid work outside of their hours of remunerated employment and get enough rest.

Bonuses: One of the best ways to enhance work engagement is to offer committed, dedicated employees financial rewards . Creating bonus schemes where people are paid for going above and beyond will help support your best performers.

Fun employee engagement activities

Employee engagement doesn’t always have to be large-scale. On the contrary, you can make small changes and introduce fun in-office activities to help boost engagement.

Work events: Host optional work events that can help to build rapport between team members. Pub quizzes or similar events are usually a good place to begin.

Seasonal trips: If your budget allows, taking entire teams away for team-building workshops can be a fun way to enjoy a change from the usual routine and forge stronger team connections. If team members get on well with one other, they’re more likely to feel supported and happier while at work.

Lunchtime events: One way to engage your employees and celebrate diversity in your workplace is to host themed lunches where they can sample dishes from various international cuisines

There are numerous in-office events that you can organise to improve employee engagement. To find out what would work best for your employees, you should send out surveys to collect feedback and insights.

Related reading: Build an action plan for employee engagement

A man working on a laptop adding charts and graphs to a survey analysis report

How to build an employee engagement programme

Employee engagement programmes can be complex. So we’ve provided a step-by-step guide to make building one as easy as possible.

Here’s how to build an employee engagement programme:

Define your objectives and metrics: The first step involved in building an effective employee engagement programme is to determine what you’re trying to do. Measure a baseline level of employee engagement and set goals for that rate. Select your core KPIs to ensure continuous measurement of your programme’s success.
Introduce your employee engagement efforts: Select the strategies that make the most sense for your business. Introduce them to your organisation and let your employees know what you hope to do with them.
Collect feedback: Ask your employees to provide feedback about your employee engagement programmes to determine where you could make improvements and what’s working well.
Monitor progress and reassess: You should continuously solicit employee feedback to see how your project is going. Over time, you should see improvements in your employee engagement rates.

If you follow these four steps, you’ll have created an effective employee engagement programme with as little hassle as possible.

Start improving employee engagement with SurveyMonkey

Employee engagement is one of the most important metrics that your business should track. Engaged employees translate to higher productivity rates, happier customers and a better bottom line for your business.

To reap the benefits of engaged employees, start with surveys to measure their current feelings. Then you can start to develop a plan to monitor and improve the overall employee experience.

Learn how SurveyMonkey can help companies improve their employee engagement.

Get started with employee engagement software with SurveyMonkey.