Transform Employee Satisfaction With These Top Employee Engagement Metrics

Tracking employee engagement metrics is a tricky subject.

If you overdo it, you can come off as overbearing or unauthentic. But if you don’t measure employee engagement enough, you risk the happiness of your essential workforce.

Want to know the secret to building a more engaged workforce? Check out our 15 best practices here!

Employees are the lifeblood of your organization. So, it’s natural to want to know how to engage them, how to track your progress, and, specifically, how to measure employee engagement metrics.

Let’s find out.

What Is Employee Engagement?

First thing’s first, let’s dig into what is employee engagement?

Employee engagement describes the relationship a staff member has with the company he or she works for. A highly engaged employee is someone who enjoys their job and actively seeks to benefit their employer.

In July 2020, employee engagement in the workforce reached a record high at 40%. But, that still leaves 60% of employees that are not engaged at work.

Why does that matter? For a whole host of reasons.

Low employee engagement can impact everything from turnover to business performance, including:

• Employee satisfaction
• Customer service
• Innovation and idea-generation
• Motivation
• Operational efficiency
• Company culture

Companies are getting ahead of low employee satisfaction by leveraging metrics and KPIs for measuring engagement.

Why Measuring Employee Engagement Metrics Is Important 

Measuring employee engagement metrics is a critical step in better understanding the work lives of your employees. As a leader, you should genuinely want to create an environment that makes your workforce happy.

Second, employee engagement is directly tied to other business outcomes such as:

• Stronger customer service and higher customer loyalty
• Maximum productivity
• Greater retention
• Higher profits

Dr. Jim Harter, Gallup’s Chief Scientist, Workplace, has been tracking 1.8 million workers in 82,000 teams from 230 companies. It’s safe to say their results reflect the broader workforce. 

Dr. Harter and the Gallup team discovered that employee engagement numbers are the highest they’ve been in the two decades Gallup’s been tracking them. 

But, business leaders need to know how to measure engagement for themselves. 

Pro tip: Determine what objectives you want to achieve when determining the best KPIs to measure in your company.

To increase employee engagement, we suggest starting with Jill Christensen’s Four-Step Process:

1. Get the right person in every chair. There needs to be alignment between the organization’s and person’s values for each new hire. Otherwise, you risk bringing in a toxic component (no matter if you’re doing the hiring or being hired).
2. Create a line of sight (goal alignment). Employees need to be aligned on the organization’s goals to strengthen their connection to the business.
3. Build a two-way communication culture through platforms for employees to communicate with the rest of the organization—with each other and with management. No matter if you’re frontline-heavy, in the office, or half-and-half, mobile communication platforms ensure you’re connecting with everyone.
4. Lift people up. People want to work for organizations that appreciate them and motivate them! Never forget that a public ‘thank you’ goes a long way.

Ultimately, when you can track, measure, and manage your employee engagement, you will undoubtedly be able to make improvements where it matters most.

Top Employee Engagement KPIs To Measure

There are various internal elements that can help you capture employee engagement within your workforce. But first, let’s tackle how to measure employee engagement metrics.

Measuring engagement doesn’t have to be overwhelming with these key steps:

1. Identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) that are windows into your workforce data.
2. Gather a baseline measurement for each of your engagement KPIs. Establishing these baselines is much easier if you have a digital workplace.
3. rack these employee engagement metrics over regular intervals. 

Now, here are the top eight employee engagement KPIs you should measure to gauge the health of your workforce.

1. Job Performance and Productivity

How much are employees accomplishing on each shift? Employees who meet their deadlines, always show up to work, and work well with their co-workers are not only engaged employees but also great assets who are delivering quality products or services to customers.

When employees are engaged, their quality of work improves.

This KPI can be measured in ways like:

• Performing team assessments
• Examining product output or assignment completion
• Measuring the use of company resources by employees. 

It’s important to share results with employees and remember to give positive reinforcement. Employees want to know their hard work is valued, appreciated, and making a difference where it can.

2. Adoption Rates

71% of the frontline workforce report that communication tools make them more productive. So a great KPI to track is the adoption rate of your mobile collaboration platform through built-in analytic tracking features. 

It’s a straightforward method for recording who is actively engaged on your communication platform through features such as confirmation campaigns and read receipts.

To boost your buy-in numbers, use an employee engagement app that offers the following:

• An easy-to-use interface
• Mobile flexibility
• Digital training and onboarding library
• A dedicated customer success representative
• An analytics dashboard

Beekeeper offers each of these features for frontline-first organizations focused on employee engagement.  

At MOD Pizza, a nationwide chain with hundreds of new locations opening every year, keeping 6,000-plus employees happy and engaged in their work might seem like a big feat. But the Beekeeper app was able to support and sustain a thriving culture built on two-way communication. Giving employees a voice through the company’s bottom-up communication strategy has delivered a high adoption rate and a thriving, engaged workforce. 

3. Absenteeism and Turnover Rates

Of all the employee satisfaction KPI examples, there’s no disputing attendance records and turnover rates. These hard numbers can reveal just how motivated your workers are to simply show up. 

Often, when absenteeism is high, retention is low. Both are KPIs worth tracking when measuring how engaged your workforce truly is. Here is how to calculate each KPI.

• Calculating Absenteeism: Divide the total number of unscheduled absences for a set period of time by the total number of workdays for that period. Multiply that by 100 to get an absenteeism percentage. 
• Calculating Turnover: Divide the number of employees who left voluntarily during a set period of time by the total number of employees during that time. Multiply by 100 to get the turnover percentage. 

When 1 Hotels, a sustainable luxury brand with properties in New York, China, Miami, and Los Angeles, wanted to connect their company culture and strengthen their workforce, they adopted a mobile collaboration platform to streamline workplace communication. 

1 Hotels was able to track workforce analytics and saw their turnover rates drop with the adoption of their digital workplace.

4. Overall Employee Satisfaction

Want to know if your workforce is engaged? Simply ask them.

Employee satisfaction might not be something you can measure with a number. But you can definitely get a good grasp of how your workforce is feeling.

Surveys are an easy, direct way to find out what keeps employees engaged and what needs work. They can help guide your employee experience strategies to increase overall employee happiness. 

To accurately measure engagement through a survey, you need a high response rate. Try strategies like gamification and use multiple choice questions to make sure employees complete the survey to give you the most accurate numbers.

Not sure when to use (or not use) employee engagement surveys? Don’t worry!

Too many employee surveys can cause survey fatigue if you aren’t careful. But, if you don’t reach out to employees enough, it could seem like your organization isn’t interested in their feedback.

If you haven’t implemented employee surveys yet, we recommend starting with these tips:

• Know your capabilities. Does your mobile collaboration and productivity platform enable surveys? If not, it’s time to look for a tool that does.
• Decide on frequency. Are you planning to do one survey per year? Or, do you want to do smaller check-ins? Both have their merits. Just remember – timing is everything!
• Plan your questions. What is it that you want to uncover with your survey? You may want to find out what truly motivates your employees or what makes their lives a little more challenging. Whatever it may be, map your questions out in advance.
• Make it easy for employees to participate. Sending an employee survey via email will exclude anyone without a company email address. So, it’s important to distribute your survey through a channel all your employees can access. Don’t forget, mobile is best.
• Track the feedback. Using your data and analytics dashboard, you should track participation with the survey. If you’re noticing certain groups aren’t engaging as much, send a communication directly to them to encourage their valuable participation.
• Take action. Now that you’ve asked for employee feedback, it’s critical to put that feedback to work. Employees want to know you’re listening to them by addressing what needs to be addressed.
• Stay consistent. Employees look forward to giving feedback and sharing new ideas, especially when they see something come of it. No matter what you decide for your timeline, remember to stick to it.

Here’s our rule of thumb: ask for the feedback. If you’re not already tracking feedback through employee surveys, you can quickly get started with the right tools and the right plan – and you’ll be glad you did!

With Beekeeper, employee feedback can be automated, pulse surveys that can be easily distributed through the mobile app. With an analytics dashboard, leaders can track answers over time to accurately measure this KPI.

5. Employee NPS

Employee Net Promoter Score, or ENPS, is another solid KPI that easily tracks internal engagement. Once a marketing tool for consumer research, NPS is now often used by business leaders to get a general feel for the employee experience with just one question. 

NPS can give you a simplified and straightforward number to rate the experience and environment your company is creating for your workforce.

Examples of NPS questions include:

• On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your experience at our company?
• How likely are you to recommend this company as an employer?
• How would you rate your communication with your manager?
• Do you feel valued as an employee?

You can follow up a short question with an open-ended one asking for more details. For example, “how can we improve your experience?”

6. Employee Wellbeing

Employee mental health and wellbeing came into the global spotlight when the COVID-19 pandemic stretched everyone to their limits. Now, companies are expected to continue supporting and championing employee wellbeing.

One of the most insightful measurements of employee wellbeing is their productivity. Workers that perform well, get their work done on time, and aren’t working late hours are generally doing well.

The best way to track employee productivity is through 1:1 conversations with their manager. Regular performance review materials will also capture their leader’s insight into how the employee is performing.

Employee wellbeing also includes workplace health and safety procedures. If your workplace incident rates are sky-high, it’s time to make some changes.

7. Employee Resilience

If 2020 were a word, it would be resilience. We’ve seen, heard, and experienced firsthand the amazing things that can happen when workforces adapt to the challenging environment around them.

But, resilience can quickly shift to resentment if businesses don’t take the time to understand what makes a resilient workforce. Is it know you’re all in it together? Is it feeling valued? Is it knowing where employees fit into achieving overall business goals?

As businesses return to their next normal, now is a great time to capture your employee resilience. Here are a few metrics to track your employee resiliency:

• The number of new employees onboarded to the company within the last year
• The number of employees that voluntarily left within the previous year
• The number of employees that received a promotion within the last year
• The number of educational courses and training your employees participated in last year

Compare these metrics to previous, and somewhat normal, years to see what the numbers tell you.

Additionally, you could go directly to the source by surveying your employees. In your outreach, ask them about hard-to-gauge topics like:

• Work/life balance
• Stress
• Mental health
• Overall engagement and satisfaction
• Inspiration

Either way, employee resilience is truly what gets organizations through tough times. As the horizon starts to look brighter, now is that time to capture how your employees are doing today and where you could have done better.

And, don’t forget to thank them for all their hard work.

8. Employee Advocacy

Employee advocacy is one of the best things that can happen for any company. Why? Because that means employees are so happy with their employer, they naturally sing its praises.

Pro tip: Employee engagement and employee advocacy aren’t the same things. We get questions around these all the time!

With employee advocacy, team members are out in public, either through word of mouth, social media, etc., speaking positively about the company.

One way to capture employee advocacy is by measuring employee adoption of your important communication platforms. Employees that are aligned with your mission, goals, and objectives will want to stay on top of company news – even when it’s not required.

Also, you can track how your employees interact with your company on social media. The more likes, comments, and shares from your employees, the more significant reach your message will get.  

For the most thorough measurement, use these eight employee engagement KPIs in unison to build a complete picture of your employee experience. It will deliver the information you need to design the best communication and engagement strategy for your workforce.

Want a more engaged, productive workforce? Download our 15 Best Practices for Employee Engagement eBook today!

Most Frequently Asked Questions