Engagement Kpis

Six Employee Engagement KPIs You Need to Know

5 min read
Lynsey May Sutherland
Author
Lynsey Sutherland

Setting out to improve your employee engagement levels is one of the best things you can do for your business, but are you consistently measuring how well you’re achieving your goals? 

Be confident that your engagement initiatives are making a difference, and find areas that might need some improvement with efficient benchmarking. We’ve put together some of the most sensible Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for measuring employee engagement, so you can ensure your efforts are paying off. 

Why use KPIs for employee engagement?

The easiest way to know how engaged your employees are and how well your strategy works is to set measurable key performance indicators (KPIs). Measuring employee engagement can’t be done with one KPI alone, you need multiple engagement metrics to get the complete picture of your team’s workplace experience. 

Why should you spend time looking at these metrics? According to Gallup, only 21% of employees feel engaged in their work, meaning 79% feel disconnected, leading to lower productivity, high turnover and decreased performance. 

Setting measurable KPIs will help you understand whether initiatives are working and if there are any areas for improvement.

Effective and essential KPIs for employee engagement

Ready to understand how well your strategy is working? Here are some valuable KPIs to track.

1. Employee net promoter score

Your Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) is not only a fantastic way to find out how likely your employees would be to recommend your organisation to others, but it also offers useful insight into your engagement levels. 

An eNPS survey typically asks two core questions:

  • How likely are you to recommend your organisation as a place to work, on a scale of 1-10
  • What made you choose the score that you did

The strength of eNPS is in its simplicity. Using data from the first question, you can split your responders into three categories: promoters with ratings of nine to ten, passives or neutrals with ratings of seven or eight, and detractors with ratings of six or under. 

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The more detractors you have, the more likely you aren’t hitting your engagement targets. 

2. Employee engagement surveys 

While your eNPS score can give you some great top-level information, an employee engagement survey is excellent for gaining a more comprehensive picture. Here, you can look at areas directly related to engagement and open up the potential for suggestions. 

To use a survey as an engagement KPI, you must do it regularly. Sticking to a quarterly schedule will give you frequent enough results to check if your engagement strategy is still making an impact, while also allowing enough time to see the benefits of any changes implemented since the last round. 

If you need some inspiration to get started, our guide to useful employee engagement questions could help you get off on the right foot.  

3. Turnover rate

This is a simple and efficient way to keep an eye on how engaged your employees are. 

Gallup reported in its 2022 State of the Global Workforce report that businesses with highly engaged employees had better retention levels than those who didn’t. Because low engagement is a primary reason why employees leave, your staff turnover statistics provide the perfect metric to track your engagement levels.  

According to recruitment company Monster, the average employee turnover rate for a UK-based business is 15%. This is across all sectors, and churn can vary depending on your type of business. However, you might have some engagement issues to address if you have a higher annual percentage of people leaving than you’d expect for your industry. 

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4. Absenteeism

This is another organic way of measuring your employees’ general satisfaction, wellbeing, and engagement levels. 

While there are many legitimate and completely expected reasons for needing time off work, a marked rise in absenteeism can be a red flag. It’s also essential to look at your employees because if you notice they are never taking time off, that could indicate something is wrong with your workplace culture

It’s tempting to think that there’s only one angle to this, but it’s more nuanced than you might think. While some disengaged employees may sometimes be more likely to bunk off, there’s also an intrinsic link between engagement and wellbeing. So disengaged employees may genuinely need more sick days! 

5. Online ratings 

These days, it’s much easier for employees and ex-employees to share their experiences with the rest of the workforce. Keeping an eye on sites like Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter, or LinkedIn Job Search could provide interesting information. 

It’s always worth going directly to the source to find out what your team thinks about your organisation. Be mindful that individuals may not always feel comfortable sharing – even if you try to encourage honesty in the workplace. That’s why it’s worth adding a quick check for mentions of your company + the name of popular recruitment sites on forums or Google. 

You may just find out something you’d never even considered before and some helpful insight into how your employees see you. 

6. Internal promotion rate

One of the main drivers for employee engagement is the opportunity for growth within the organisation. This highlights the importance of your internal promotion rate, as it represents your ability to retain your top talent. 

According to The Society for Human Resource Management, only 29% of employees said they were satisfied with their career advancement opportunities. Personal growth is an essential requirement for most employees, and if they don’t feel like they can develop a strong career at your company, they will search for a new role. 

By measuring your internal promotions, you will see how willing your organisation is to grow employees. Improving growth opportunities will lead to better employee engagement and retention rates. Here’s how to calculate it: 

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Mo is a new kind of reward and recognition platform that makes it easy for busy managers to meaningfully recognise, engage and connect with their teams.

We equip managers with weekly suggestions to energise and connect with their people, help teams build habits of recognition into their day-to-day rhythms and go beyond simple rewards as a way to motivate staff.

Join companies like SHL, OVO Energy and William Hill in delivering meaningful improvement on engagement results with Mo. Book a free demo today!

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