Whether you’re in human resources or head an organization, you know that your success depends upon your employees. Who they are, the skills they have, and how dedicated they are will have a direct impact on whether you achieve your goals. To make it easy to see where you stand, we’ve compiled the data from hundreds of employee engagement surveys into a comprehensive benchmark report. Benchmarking this data can help you better understand how your company’s employee outreach is tracking over time and how you can improve it.

What is employee engagement?

Employee engagement is an indicator representing an employee’s commitment to the success of an organization. It is the ability for a person to utilize one’s whole self at work instead of passively doing the tasks they’re hired to do. For instance, an engaged employee will typically go above and beyond their duties. They will take on an active role in improving the organization by engaging in more responsibilities without being asked.

A disengaged employee, on the other hand, will only execute the duties they were hired to do. This act doesn’t necessarily have to be a negative attribute, depending on how the duties of your organization are arranged. However, you can also have disengaged employees who are so emotionally discontented that it negatively affects their productivity–and it can also disrupt employee morale. Find out how engaged your employees are.

How to measure employee engagement with surveys

There are essentially 4 ways to establish employee engagement benchmarks with surveys: equity, meaningful connections, purpose, and leadership. Through these pillars, you can get a better pulse of how your organization is operating and detect any areas of improvement. Let’s take a closer look at how these benchmarks can work in a survey:

Equity: Use an employee engagement survey to clearly understand your company’s demographics and role in your organization. Equity can also be measured by pay. Examine your employee engagement data relationships to focus on issues that matter to your employees.
Communication: Employees could be tasked with too much work resulting in isolation and fatigue. Consequently, they may not have the time or energy to engage in productive ways to improve your organization. The use of meaningful connections requires meaningful relationships and good communication. Surveying your employees can help you find opportunities to reform internal communications.
Purpose: Employees who lack purpose or have yet to understand how their duties make a difference can become disengaged. This issue can be easily remedied by enforcing your company’s mission and vision statement. By understanding the bigger picture of why and how your company aims to meet customer needs, workers can take pride in the part they play. In other words, giving employees purpose can help increase employee engagement.
Leadership: Send employee engagement survey questions to management. Surveying your leadership can help you assess how your internal operations are managed. This assessment provides insights into how involved leaders are with their staff and if they’re truly engaged in their duties and responsibilities. Leadership is one of the stronger benchmarks for employee engagement because it’s a position that sets the example of how employees ought to conduct themselves.
Team: Leadership manages team members. The dynamics of how a team works together can offer valuable insights into internal operations. And it also provides a better look at how well employees work with one another.
Company size: The size of your business can affect the level of employee engagement. Smaller companies typically have a higher engagement level since fewer employees exist. In comparison, larger companies may have less employee engagement because they might not feel as close to the company’s mission and vision since they don’t work closely with management.

Another way to benchmark data for employee engagement is to use the right experience management solution with an AI-powered platform. With a robust platform, you can build a survey that provides a bank of questions specific to the role or department you want to assess. You can also customize a survey that’s unique to your brand.

Why is employee engagement important?

If you want to retain and attract top talent (and make sure your employees are motivated to give it their all) employee engagement surveys are a great place to start. You’ll learn how employees really feel so you can figure out how to make improvements and increase employee satisfaction.

When it comes to measuring employee engagement, the Employee Engagement Survey Template is a valuable tool. Our survey asks employees questions from how motivated they are to how they feel about their employee benefits.

Just sign up for an account, and you can create an Employee Engagement Survey Template in minutes, or preview the template.

Using employee engagement benchmark data to make sense of survey results

Maybe you’ve already sent the employee engagement survey to your employees. Or perhaps you’re planning on sending out the survey this year. But you need context to understand what your survey results really mean? If 67% of your employees say they’re inspired to meet their goals at work, how do you know whether that’s good or bad?

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Knowing where you stand—and creating goals from there—takes perspective. Although “only” 67% of your employees say they’re inspired to meet their goals, you’d feel pretty good about it if you knew you were in the in the 99th percentile. We’re creating external benchmarks to help you get this deeper level of understanding.

Over the past year, hundreds of organizations across the country have used our Employee Engagement Survey Template to assess employee engagement to make informed decisions.

Here’s a peek at some of the data we’ve collected from the Employee Engagement Survey:

Did you know that only 54% of employees agree or strongly agree that they are inspired to meet their goals at work?

Measure employee engagement

Where does your organization stand? See all the ways you can compare your survey data with other organizations with SurveyMonkey Benchmarks.

You can’t have real employee engagement without a sense of belonging. Our end-to-end guide includes free templates and expert advice for building an inclusive company culture. Find a plan that fits your company’s business model.