The first step in improving the engagement of your employees is knowing just exactly how to measure it effectively. This guide will explain how you can do just that to ensure your business operates at the top of its game.
What is Employee Engagement?
Employee engagement can be defined as simply how invested your employees are in the company and its success – employee engagement is not to be confused with workplace happiness or job satisfaction; happy employees, whilst incredibly beneficial to businesses, may have the tendency to jump ship as soon as a more attractive role is advertised. Engaged employees will not do this due to their loyalty and dedication to the company.
Employee engagement, then, is crucial if you wish to hold on to your employees as it benefits both businesses and employees at the same time. Some business leaders, however, are unsure as to how to measure employee engagement, which can have negative consequences for their enterprise.
Use Your Emails
Emailing is still the most widely used method of business communication, so you should certainly take advantage of it as it is one of the easiest ways to gather data relating to employee engagement.
Frequently send emails to your employees and monitor your open rate and click-through rate. Higher rates will generally indicate a high interest in company announcements and events, which directly correlates with optimised employee engagement.
Monitor Employee Retention Rates
As aforementioned, employee engagement concerns itself with just how invested in the company employees are.
Look at your past and present employee retention rates and levels of turnover. If you’re losing employees at faster rates than you’ve forecasted, then this is a general indicator that your operation has low employee engagement, which is not good for any business.
Study your Absenteeism
High levels of absence similarly indicate low employee engagement, and vice versa.
Of course, individuals taking a few days off every couple of months is generally not a cause for concern. But if you start noticing unreasonable absences and patterns among staff, your employees are likely disengaged with your company.
The Importance of Exit Surveys
Exit surveys are a great way to collect accurate information about your company from employees who are not fearful of risking their job with their answers, as they are already set to leave the company.
By doing this, you can gather honest insights about your business model and workplace environment.
Ask both qualitative and quantitative questions to gather the genuine opinions of outgoing employees. Just simply speaking to employees is a fantastic way to understand some of the shortcomings of your business, so that you can implement new strategies to increase employee engagement and, in turn, the efficacy of your business.
Engaged Employees Generate Successful Businesses
The importance of having employees who are truly engaged, interested, and committed to your company can not be overstated.
If an employee is properly engaged with the company, they are more likely to be productive, happy at work, and less likely to abandon your business when a more attractive or lucrative opportunity presents itself.
The above methods of measuring employee engagement will allow you to truly grasp the levels of commitment among your employees, and the general internal consensus about your company.
If you can identify any levels of disengagement, you will be able to put in place effective remedies to ensure that your business operates more successfully and is fierce marketplace competition.
