Measuring Employee Engagement

Measuring employee engagement can be a challenging task since it’s an activity that requires evaluating of human feelings and emotions (Robinson et al., 2004). The most commonly used tool for measuring employee engagement is an employee engagement survey. These surveys help gauge the intensity of employee engagement as well as evaluate the relationships between engagement and key business results. The findings from such surveys often provide critical information on the effectiveness of HR practices of the organization and provide insights on where changes are needed (Vance, 2006).

The surveys are usually conducted online. The guarantee of anonymity is a very important aspect of the surveying methodology – the employees will share their candid feedback only if they are certain that the survey ensures anonymity. At my current organization, tools at surverymonkey.com is used to send out the employee satisfaction surveys and the responses are not tracked with complete anonymity guaranteed hence as an employee I feel safe in sharing my honest opinion.

It is critical that an employee engagement survey contains questions that would help capture the essential data relating to the responder’s biographical characteristics (gender, age, ethnicity to name a few) and other job-related characteristics (such as department, length of service group, nature of employment). This information is critical when it comes to the analysis of the responses and coming up with strategies to increase employee engagement levels (Robinson et al., 2004). However, it must be noted that these identifying questions should not break the anonymity of the responder. For example, if the IT department of an organization only has one employee, the survey should be designed in a way that the employee from IT can remain anonymous.   

The questions on employee engagement surveys are often literal statements where the employees can pick an option from “Strongly disagree, Disagree, Neutral, Agree or Strongly agree”. Figure 05 shows a sample layout for engagement survey with the rating scheme. The scale on the sample doesn’t include an option for the responders to select “Neutral”. It can be argued that the option to respond as “neutral” could help differentiate a not-engaged employee from an engaged or actively disengaged person discussed on the previous post of this blog.

Figure 05: Sample Employee Engagement survey.

Source: (Armstrong, 2009).

Figure 06 lists some examples of statements used on employee engagement surveys by reputed organizations. As seen with the statements used by Dell Inc., the statements should be simply worded, specific and relatable for the employee.

Figure 06: Sample questions for Employee Engagement surveys.

Source: (Vance, 2006).

According to Vance (2016), the below are some of the key areas that the statements/questions on an engagement survey should cover:

1.    Pride in employer

2.    Satisfaction with employer

3.    Job satisfaction

4.    Opportunity to perform well at challenging work

5.    Recognition and positive feedback for one’s contributions

6.    Personal support from one’s supervisor

7.    Effort above and beyond the minimum

8.    Understanding the link between one’s job and the organization’s mission

9.    Prospects for future growth with one’s employer

10. Intention to stay with one’s employer

Due to their simplicity and effectiveness, many organizations chose surveys as their method of gauging employee engagement. Other means such as focus groups and one-on-one interviews would also be helpful in measuring employee engagement and diagnosing related issues (Armstrong, 2009).

At my current workplace, a bi-annual survey is shared with all employees. The survey has most of the characteristics discussed on this post. The HR team of the organization also conducts interviews with focus groups. The management team most of the time uses the feedback received via surveys and discussions to make sure that necessary adjustments are made on the company’s HR strategies & other policies/procedures. These practices have helped the organization get recognized as one of the best places to work in Sri Lanka in 2019, by Great Place to Work Sri Lanka ® Institute.

     Bonus fact: Interesting point to note is that carrying out employee engagement surveys itself could also enhance employee engagement. This is because, by asking for employees’ opinions/feedback and then implementing strategies based on those survey results, the organization conveys the message to its employees that their input is respected (Vance, 2006).

References:

Armstrong, M. (2009). Armstrong's handbook of human resource management practice. 11th ed. London: Kogan Page, P. 1019.

Robinson, D., Perryman, S. and Hayday, S. (2004). The Drivers of Employee Engagement. 1st ed. Brighton: Institute for Employment Studies, pp.13-20.

Vance, R. J. (2006) Employee Engagement and Commitment. [Online] Available at: https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/special-reports-and-expert-views/Documents/Employee-Engagement-Commitment.pdf [Accessed 01 October 2019].