You might have hundreds or thousands of employees on your payroll, but how many of them are truly part of your team and how many are just doing the bare minimum? It makes a powerful difference in your business operations and your bottom line, but how do you know whether your employees are as engaged and invested as they could be?

It all comes down to employee engagement. With more engaged, emotionally invested employees, you can tap into your teams’ talents and allow each employee (and your business) to thrive. We’ve built your go-to guide to help you measure and improve your employee engagement.

What Is Employee Engagement?

Employee engagement can be difficult to define, but in a nutshell, it’s the amount of connection employees feel to their work. It can include factors like their commitment to the company’s mission, their investment in their day-to-day work, their bond with coworkers, and so on. Employee engagement is the amount of energy your employees are investing into their workdays.

Why Is Employee Engagement Important?

Employee engagement has more of an impact on your business than you may realize. It affects your company in several ways. Some are related to your revenue, others to your workplace culture, but they all contribute to your ability to thrive as a business.

Enhanced Productivity

Unsurprisingly, employees who are more engaged feel more of a drive to put in the work and make a difference. Not only are they more motivated to work harder but they tend to produce better work too because their minds are more active in their work. Overall, studies show that engaged employees are 22% more productive than those who aren’t engaged.

Better Employee Retention

Employee retention is highly valuable, especially in this very competitive employee market. Engaged employees tend to stay longer, which lowers your attrition costs and improves the consistency and reliability of your team.

Stronger Reputation in Your Market

When your employees are more engaged, they’re often happier and more passionate about their jobs too, and they’re more likely to be singing your praises. This boosts your company’s reputation in a couple ways.

For one, it gives you a positive reputation as an employer because others see that your employees are happy and energized. As a result, you’ll be more likely to attract top talent. Second, you’ll be known as a company that treats its employees well. This sits well with potential customers who want to support companies that treat their employees well, giving you an edge over competitors.

More People in Your Corner

In a business where employees are minimally engaged, most employees are just doing the bare minimum. While a company may be able to function that way, it also means that only a few people (likely senior leadership) are generating ideas for success and improvement. When employees in every department are more engaged, they’re likely to be contributing ideas for improvement too. The more people are dreaming up ways to enhance your business, the more likely you are to find gems and unique perspectives that will make a big impact on your business.

How to Measure Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is an intangible, human-based concept. Inevitably, that makes it difficult to measure in a quantifiable way. There’s a way to do it, though, and it all begins with employee engagement surveys. 

Develop a survey for your employees to find out how engaged they are, in what ways they feel engaged, and in what ways you can strengthen their engagement. Ask questions such as:

• On a scale of 1-10, how much do you enjoy working at our company?
• How strongly do you believe in our company’s mission?
• How invested are you in our company’s success?
• How connected do you feel to your colleagues?
• What motivates you to perform well in your job?
• What can we do to help you be more engaged in your work?

To do this well, you need an advanced survey tool that can filter through large amounts of qualitative data. GroupSolver is an AI-based survey tool that automatically takes in and analyzes open-ended questions from your employees. It processes and interprets responses behind the scenes and outputs quantifiable insights on your employee engagement.

So how do you report and track your progress for employee engagement? One of the top strategies is to use their answers to the survey to put each employee into one of four categories: highly engaged, moderately engaged, barely engaged, and disengaged. From there, you can look at the percentage of employees who are in each category and use that as your baseline metric to improve.

How to Improve Employee Engagement

Your first employee engagement survey tells you where you stand today, but how do you go about improving those numbers? Each circumstance varies, but start with these effective strategies.

Ask Employees for Advice

Within your employee engagement survey, ask staff members what you can do to help them feel more engaged and invested in their jobs. Employees want to feel more fulfilled in their jobs, so you don’t have to trick them into being more engaged – just ask them.

Offer Financial Incentives

Want employees to feel invested in your company’s success? Try giving them a financial interest in the company’s growth. You could gift them stock if you’re a public company, or you could set up a profit sharing system or award bonuses based on company performance.

Focus on the Big Picture

It’s easy for employees to get lost in the minutiae of their daily duties, but one of the top factors in employee engagement is a commitment to the company’s mission. Find ways to remind employees regularly of the big picture and the people they’re serving. An example might include a monthly newsletter spotlighting a customer who you’ve made a difference for.

Helping Your Employee Engagement Strategy Thrive

When employees are more engaged, it helps everyone: employees, your business, and customers. You can start working toward a better employee engagement strategy today by developing your employee survey. GroupSolver’s advanced AI-driven survey capabilities allow you to perform an in-depth engagement survey and gain productive, actionable insights quickly. Learn more about GroupSolver and how we can simplify and enhance the process today.