Most organizations use eNPS as a quick measurement of employee engagement. All it takes is a single question, and you’ll know how likely an employee is to recommend your organization, a good measurement of how engaged they are.
But that only tells part of the story.
Today, HR leaders need a broader picture of employee engagement, with metrics that give them more data and better insights. Employee engagement surveys are an important part of this, giving you much of the data you need.
In this guide, you’ll know which employee engagement metrics you should measure and how you can act on them.
Key Takeaways
An eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score) measures how likely an employee is to recommend their employer as a place to work. It’s incredibly simple to measure; it takes one question and one rating scale. The question? “How likely are you to recommend this company as a great place to work?” The scale goes from zero to 10, categorizing employees in one of three groups:
eNPS has two main advantages. It’s a single question, making it easy to measure. It also serves as a stand-in for other employee engagement metrics, making it a simple benchmark.
But it also has its limitations:
eNPS is a foundational metric, but it shouldn’t be the only one you use.
Measuring eNPS gives you basic data on how engaged employees are, but it’s far from enough. Here’s all the context you’re missing out on if you use eNPS exclusively:
While eNPS gives you a single metric to gauge employee engagement (and how it changes over time), it’s not the only metric you should measure. Here are others you should keep an eye on.
Employee engagement surveys allow you to ask multiple questions, track employee engagement across teams, and measure the effectiveness of HR initiatives over time. Recording results and evaluating them gives you a more accurate read of employee engagement throughout your organization.
The quality of survey responses and participation rates can also tell you how engaged employees are.
If employees have opportunities to give feedback to their peers and managers, then that feedback itself can become an employee engagement metric. Is feedback growing less frequent? Is the quality of feedback decreasing? What are the most common themes in open-ended responses?
Managers have a massive impact on employee engagement, tied directly to how effective they are at coaching their teams. You can measure manager effectiveness through:
The most engaged employees have goals that tie their day-to-day work. If goal completion rates start to decline, whether in a specific team or organization-wide, that can be a sign of declining engagement.
Aligning goals throughout teams and departments can help improve engagement, as can visibility into broader strategy. Performance management software can help with this visibility as well.
Employee recognition ties directly into employee engagement. Employees who get frequent recognition are more engaged, while engaged employees are more likely to give recognition to their teammates. When recognition grows scarce, that’s a sign that engagement is on the decline.
You can measure employee participation across a range of initiatives, like:
Declines in activity can represent decreasing engagement, especially when mapped to other metrics.
An “indicator” is a metric or signal you can measure that reflects something else that can’t be measured directly (e.g., eNPS is an indicator of employee engagement). “Leading” and “lagging” describe an indicator’s relationship to the thing it’s measuring. A leading indicator is a signal that can predict changes in what you’re measuring. A lagging indicator typically comes after whatever it is you’re measuring.
Here’s where common employee engagement indicators fall in the leading vs. lagging divide.
The following indicators typically follow changes in employee engagement:
These indicators can be used to predict changes in employee engagement:
How? Let’s use goal progress as an example. A decrease in goal completion rates can signal a potential decrease in employee engagement, as employees get frustrated with their lack of progress. More completed goals might track with an increase in employee engagement.
With people analytics, you can pull data from multiple employee engagement signals to identify engagement trends. By comparing multiple metrics, you can get a clearer picture of these trends—rather than relying exclusively on eNPS—and make stronger HR decisions. More metrics give you more angles to evaluate the same trends, more detail, and a better idea of what’s actually going on. People analytics combine data from:
Knowing the metrics you need to measure employee engagement is just the first step. Here’s how you turn these metrics into clear data you can use to make better initiatives.
What does a successful employee engagement strategy look like for you? Is it as simple as increasing engagement across the board? Or do you want to be better at tying engagement metrics to organizational priorities?
Relying on a single engagement score or just a few metrics won’t give you the full picture you need. Make sure to combine a balanced set of leading and lagging indicators, quantitative and qualitative signals, as well as metrics covering performance and recognition.
Once you’ve identified the metrics you want to track, you need to set a cadence for measuring them. A quarterly review can allow you to check in on all your metrics at once, with enough time between cycles to actually see movement.
Monthly pulse surveys can add more granularity to the way you measure engagement, while continuous listening can surface problems through day-to-day performance conversations and alignment sessions.
Metrics give you insights, and these insights should inform HR initiatives that improve employee engagement. Here are just a few action steps you can take after identifying these trends:
When you first start measuring employee engagement metrics, look out for the following common mistakes.
While eNPS is a simple metric to measure, it doesn’t capture enough of employee engagement to give you the insights you really need. Adding at least a few more metrics gives HR a clearer picture of engagement.
Employee engagement surveys give you a ton of data, but many organizations don’t actually use that data. Every survey should lead to a review process that turns engagement data into trends you can use to make better strategic decisions.
Tracking metrics in isolation won’t give you a full picture of employee engagement. Metrics like employee performance, for example, should be measured against recognition and goal progress. The relationships between these metrics tell you as much (if not more) as the metrics themselves.
Managers have a massive impact on employee engagement. Tracking manager effectiveness—and how it interacts with other engagement metrics—is vital.
Annual surveys might result in a wealth of engagement data, but that doesn’t mean they should be the only way you get that data. Not only is a yearly cadence far too long, but there are other metrics you need to measure that these surveys don’t capture.
Measuring employee engagement should be an ongoing commitment. Annual surveys give you yearly opportunities to measure engagement, while monthly pulse surveys and other conversations give you more data points over time.
Tracking multiple employee engagement metrics over time can create a significant amount of extra administrative work if you’re not using the right tools. That’s where dedicated employee engagement software like 15Five comes in.
15Five can help organizations:
That means less administrative work for your HR team, better visibility into engagement data, and a clearer path to acting on the insights you get. With built-in people analytics, manager enablement, and more, 15Five gives your HR team everything it needs to track and act on employee engagement.
Employee engagement metrics are signals HR teams use to measure engagement. Examples of these metrics include eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score), employee performance, manager effectiveness, and goal progress.
No, eNPS usually isn’t enough to measure employee engagement on its own. It’s a simple metric to track, but it doesn’t give the full picture. That’s why HR teams typically use multiple metrics to measure employee engagement.
HR leaders should track employee engagement metrics like:
A quarterly review of your employee engagement metrics gives you enough time to see trends develop while allowing you to act relatively promptly. Some metrics, such as manager effectiveness and goal progress, can be measured more frequently.
Employee engagement metrics measure how connected, motivated, and committed employees feel towards your organization. Employee experience metrics draw a broader picture, evaluating the interactions, perceptions, and experiences employees have. It’s not just about the psychological experience of an employee at your workplace, it’s about their overall experience.
Measuring eNPS is easy and gives you a quick snapshot of employee engagement throughout your organization. But it’s rarely enough. HR teams need a broader measurement strategy, tracking metrics around employee performance, manager effectiveness, and more, to get a better picture of employee engagement trends and better insights they can act on.
Focus on the right metrics, get the right insights, and take the right actions.
Want to see what 15Five can do for employee engagement? Book a demo here.