Employee engagement: definition and resources

Employee engagement is about more than happy employees. Engaged employees feel invested in your company’s success, values, and goals. 

Without effective employee experience (EX) strategies, your employees might feel disengaged from their work. You can improve employee engagement by listening to employee feedback and taking action.

Employee engagement describes the overall level of commitment and enthusiasm that a worker feels toward their job. 

An engaged employee cares about their work and shows dedication to their role. High levels of engagement help improve productivity, enhance profits, and decrease employee churn.

Some businesses mistake employee satisfaction, well-being, or general happiness for engagement. However, these are not indicators of someone's investment in the success of their teams, organizations, or the overall business.

Employee engagement is not:

Engaged and disengaged employees act differently, have different work ethic levels, and contribute on distinct levels to your company. Here are the main differences between engaged and disengaged employees:

Related: Employee disengagement: what it is and how to stop it

Creating happy and engaged employees is the product of constantly improving a business's employee experience. 

These drivers are areas you should address when building your strategy to improve engagement:

Leadership, human resources, and managers are all critical to employee engagement. Each stakeholder will require specific insights from the data collected via surveys. Based on their roles and responsibilities, they’ll use the data to take specific actions to increase employee engagement.

Here’s how each central team plays a role in employee engagement:

When a team is 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. 

Your highly engaged employees feel invested in their jobs and performance. They work harder and complete tasks because they like their jobs and contribute to company values. 

How much more productive are they? A 2023 Gallup study revealed that disengaged employees cause around $1.9 trillion in productivity losses annually across the US.

Employees who have been with your company for a while have valuable knowledge and expertise. If they leave, you must spend time and money training new hires and getting them into a position where they can fill the gap the seasoned employee left behind. 

Engaged employees are more likely to stay with your company. They feel committed to their job, team, and brand. More engaged employees mean a stronger, dedicated workforce to help you hit your company goals. 

It’s a good idea to use employee feedback to attract and retain your employees.

Your engaged employees are less likely to miss work days; when they’re present, they’re fully immersed in their work. 

Disengaged employees are more likely to call in sick and are less productive while at work. 

If your employees are happy and engaged, your customers will also be happier. Engaged employees provide better customer service, resulting in customer loyalty and retention. 

These employees care about the customer experience and will go out of their way to ensure it’s positive, resulting in profitability for the company.

When your employees work harder, they finish work faster, enabling your teams to get more done. Equally, when your customer service employees care more, they give better service to your customers.

Both of these examples of high engagement result in increased profits, whether through productivity gains or increased customer satisfaction.

You can use several types of methods to measure employee engagement during an employee’s tenure with your organization:

An employee engagement survey gives you the data you need to understand several factors that can determine employee engagement:

Related: Employee engagement survey template

A pulse survey is a short survey conducted regularly. You should administer an employee pulse survey regularly. These surveys typically have 15 questions or fewer and focus on current employee engagement objectives. 

A brief pulse survey may reveal an employee's engagement, but you must dig deeper. More targeted surveys across the employee life cycle will offer data that can translate into meaningful strategies to raise and maintain engagement levels.

Related: Employee pulse survey template

Businesses can use employee lifecycle surveys at various points during a worker’s tenure with the company. Several lifecycle surveys gather employee feedback on everything from recruitment to exit interviews. 

Related: Employee engagement surveys best practices

Regular performance reviews are a fantastic opportunity to give employees in-depth feedback about their progress. These reviews also allow managers to highlight outstanding work and recognize employees' hard work. 

Companies can use performance review surveys to capture different types of feedback before official sessions. These provide a centralized space to share feedback, capture ideas, and comment on an employee’s current work ethic. 

Businesses can also use stay interview surveys with their employees to identify reasons that can help retain top talent. Giving these to top performers will help your organization create a winning employee experience. 

Another method that companies can use to monitor and improve employee engagement is employee engagement software. 

Employee engagement software is a centralized system where employees can communicate with their managers and peers, receive recognition for their hard work, redeem rewards from previous hard work, and receive and offer feedback to other people.

Tracking employee engagement with this software can contribute to a streamlined employee experience. 

Measuring and tracking 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: 

High turnover rates suggest low employee engagement, as dissatisfied employees are more likely to leave their jobs.

To calculate the employee turnover rate, divide the number of employee terminations by the number of employees at the beginning of a period. Multiply this figure by 100 to get a turnover rate percentage.

Related: How to reduce employee turnover rate 

High employee retention rates suggest good employee engagement, as happier employees are more likely to stay at their jobs, leading to lower recruitment and training costs. 

Low retention rates may signal potential issues with engagement, workplace culture, or leadership. 

High employee absenteeism rates suggest low levels of engagement and commitment, making it essential to track absenteeism to gain insights into employee morale, identify issues, and implement measures to improve attendance and productivity. 

Additionally, monitoring absenteeism can help identify underlying health or workplace-related concerns affecting employee well-being.

Tracking overall workplace productivity can help companies better understand their employees' engagement.

You can track employee productivity by setting goals, using self-reporting surveys, and measuring task progress over time.

Working for a company that keeps employees in the dark can be frustrating and make employees feel that the company is untrustworthy or is keeping secrets. 

Sharing information helps employees understand how your business makes decisions, how these decisions affect the workplace culture, and how they affect each individual employee. 

Listening to employees makes them feel valued, so provide avenues for communication. Offer one-on-one time, office hours open for conversations, and forums for anonymous suggestions or concerns for those uncomfortable speaking directly.

Building an employee recognition program celebrates the exceptional work that your employees do for your company. Showing your employees that you value their contributions is part of what makes your company stand out. 

Offering rewards like extra time off and financial bonuses for your top-performing employees will help increase motivation and engagement.

A recent SurveyMonkey study suggests that 55% of HR leaders believe employee training is the most important investment in improving employee experience. However, when discussing training, the conversation seems to stop with mid-level employees.

Leadership development is a vital endeavor for businesses. It helps to create motivational leaders who get the best from your employees. A leadership program will create healthier workplace dynamics, force new growth pathways for top employees, and create long-term goals for workers across your business.

A leadership development plan, fuelled with a new purpose, will help employees find reasons to be excited about work.

Another way to increase employee engagement at work is to set out growth opportunities for every employee. By empowering employees with learning opportunities, you can craft a map for them to follow in your organization. 

Empowering your employees increases motivation and creativity, trust in the company, and employee retention. 

Related: The first step to launching your employee engagement program 

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

Learn how SurveyMonkey can help companies improve their employee engagement.