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It’s not enough these days to simply have cool perks in your office with no underlying values or mission. Similarly, engagement won’t be complete if you have a meaningful mission without offering employees the right incentives to motivate them.
The term “engagement” has been used so often and in so many different situations that it’s become hard to define. Many people think it means happiness or satisfaction, but it’s much more than that.
According to Gallup, which has been collecting and measuring employee engagement data for nearly 20 years:
Only 33% of U.S. employees are currently engaged at work, while an alarming 16% say that they’re actively disengaged from their daily tasks.
This means that millions of people are restless and dissatisfied. While this is concerning, it also presents a golden opportunity for companies to ramp up employee engagement and leave their competitors in the dust.
What is employee engagement?
One of the first definitions of employee engagement comes from a professor named William Kahn. He defines employee engagement as:
“The harnessing of organization members’ selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances.”
Gallup defines engaged employees as those who are “involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to their work and workplace.”
Notice the common themes in these definitions: emotional commitment and attachment from employees. When employees are engaged, they’re “all-in” and want to see the organization succeed. They’re not just there for a paycheck or because they have to be; they choose to be there because they want to be.
Engaged employees are the ones who feel confident bringing their truest selves to work and looking for new solutions to processes and procedures. They innovate, collaborate, and inspire others around them.
Workleap defines employee engagement as:
The emotional commitment an employee has to the organization.
When an employee is engaged, they use discretionary effort to go above and beyond their typical job requirements without being asked to do so. They do this because they’re emotionally invested and genuinely care about the company.
Why is employee engagement important?
Imagine if every employee was passionate about seeing the company and its customers succeed.
The only true way to ensure that your customers are well taken care of is by taking care of your employees. This concept, known as the service-profit chain, was first introduced by Harvard Business Review in 1998. It’s still as relevant today as it was then.
Profit and growth are stimulated primarily by customer loyalty. Loyalty is a direct result of customer satisfaction. Satisfaction is largely influenced by the value of services provided to customers. Value is created by satisfied, loyal, and productive employees. Employee satisfaction, in turn, results primarily from high-quality support services and policies that enable employees to deliver results to customers.
The key is to start internally. When you create an environment where employees are happy, productive, autonomous, and passionate about what they do, they’ll provide better customer service.
While profitability and customer loyalty are not the only signs of a successful company, they’re definitely high on the list of motivating factors.
The benefits of having engaged employees go beyond fueling customer loyalty and profit and include:
- A stronger employer brand helps you recruit and retain the best talent.
- Reduced stress at work, letting everyone be themselves, be creative, and have fun. Psychological safety is so important.
- Higher employee retention, helping you avoid the costs (time and money) of replacing someone.
Employee engagement statistics
If you’re still not convinced if engagement matters or not, here are some employee engagement statistics that prove how valuable it really is:
- Employee disengagement costs the world $8.8 trillion in lost productivity.
- Highly engaged business units result in 23% greater profitability.
- Highly engaged business units realize an 81% difference in absenteeism.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “working and related activities” account for the second largest portion of our day, with an average of 8.34 hours spent on them, rivaled only by personal activities (including sleep) at 8.99 hours.
When you think about how much of our time is spent at work, it’s only fair to hope that it can be a good experience. No one should have to spend that much of their life stressed, unhappy, overworked, or under-appreciated.
HR leaders and managers must ensure that employees are all living happy, healthy, and productive lives.
10 Key factors of employee engagement
At Workleap Officevibe, we take employee engagement very seriously (so much we built a tool for it). Our solution measures employee engagement across teams by sending automated surveys to employees and gathering anonymous feedback. Insights from these regular surveys help spot disengagement across a company, helping leaders address areas of concern with their teams.
These pulse surveys measure 10 key metrics of employee engagement:
- Personal growth
- Feedback
- Recognition
- Relationship with Manager
- Relationship with Peers
- Happiness
- Ambassadorship
- Wellness
- Alignment
- Satisfaction
Together, these metrics capture a snapshot of how your employees feel and how invested they are in their roles within your organization.
Let’s deep dive into each and examine why and how you can support these contributing factors to enrich engagement levels on your team.
Personal growth: A deal breaker
When employees stop growing, they plateau, get bored, and will eventually start looking elsewhere for career opportunities.
Research from Gallup found that younger generations, like millennials and Gen Z, are 17% more likely to prioritize professional development opportunities when seeking a new career than their older counterparts.
Personal growth is made up of three components:
- Autonomy
- Mastery
- Purpose
Autonomy
We all have an inner drive that makes us curious to discover and learn new things. Our self-direction is a part of who we are. We need to feel like we have control over our work and our day-to-day.
This emphasis is important for engagement, and companies should actively look for ways to give their employees more autonomy over their work — whether it’s deciding what to work on or when to do it.
Mastery
Mastery is the concept of getting better at something and the feeling we get from progress. Sometimes, this is easier said than done because we can quickly become overwhelmed if a task is too difficult or bored if a job is too easy.
Purpose
Purpose is when you connect with and believe in the mission and purpose of the organization. If you’re truly passionate about what the organization is doing, you’ll come to work each day excited and motivated.
HR leaders can empower managers to help their employees achieve purpose by connecting their work to the bigger picture. For example, instead of focusing exclusively on numbers and metrics, highlight the real change you’re making in customers’ lives by giving them a voice.
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Quick tips
- Invest in learning. Give employees the opportunity to continuously grow and encourage them to learn.
- Promote autonomy by giving employees the space they need and avoid micro managing.
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Feedback: Continuous communication
Giving and receiving feedback is an essential part of fostering this engagement. Effective communication builds solid relationships, retains top talent, expands and retains customer base, and elevates your employer brand.
Employees need a clear understanding of their performance and whether they’re on their way to reaching their professional goals. Any ambiguity will lead to confusion, which can be demotivating.
Too often, employees have to wait until an annual review to get a sense of how they’re doing. Feedback has a short shelf life. It’s tough to remember the details of a project that happened last quarter, so maybe it gets overlooked. Positive reinforcement works best when addressed immediately, not after the fact.
Employees are craving feedback. And they want it often.
Workleap Officevibe survey data shows that 26% of respondents don’t feel like the feedback they receive is frequent enough to understand how they can improve.
Feedback is delicate, though: it’s tough to get right. The words you use, your tone of voice, and even your body language all influence feedback delivery. Unsurprisingly, how feedback is delivered affects whether an employee wants corrective feedback or not.
So, the question becomes: how do we give better feedback?
Give feedback frequently
When a basketball player does something wrong, do you think the coach waits until the end of the season to tell them about it? Of course not. You can’t wait until the end of the year to give someone feedback; it’s already long forgotten. The same goes for off the court.
Employees are 3.6 times more likely to strongly agree that they are motivated to do outstanding work when their manager provides daily (vs. annual) feedback.
Feedback is about helping employees improve and grow, so it’s important to focus on changing behaviors without making it personal. Give feedback in as near real-time as possible, and make sure to hold frequent meetings (like one-on-ones).
Tie a goal to your feedback
The best way to ensure that feedback gets listened to is to tie it to a goal. That way you can measure employee progress for performance, and they can use that metric to measure their personal growth. With a specific outcome defined, it becomes easier to see what effect the feedback had.
Focus on the behavior, not the person
Feedback can be sensitive for employees, so leaders have to master their delivery. You don’t want your input to come off as a personal attack, so it’s better to focus on the behavior rather than the person.
For example, instead of giving feedback about the person (“You’re always late!”), you can make it about the behavior (“When you showed up late, it delayed the whole team.”)
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Quick tips
- Have a continuous feedback process that includes one-on-ones, OKRs, 360 reviews, etc.
- Make feedback a collaborative opportunity to uncover and apply learnings to future projects.
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Recognition: The power of props
Recognition is about highlighting strong efforts and professional wins. It sounds simple, but many leaders should brush up on it.
Our Employee Pulse Survey data shows that the strongest correlation between any 2 of the 26 Engagement Sub-Metrics is between Recognition Frequency and Happiness at Work. People want to feel appreciated for their efforts, and the frequency at which they receive this recognition is directly tied to their levels of happiness and motivation.
Proper recognition can have a measurable business impact:
Companies that prioritize recognition multiple times a month are 34% more likely to see increased employee engagement, according to Officevibe data.
Receiving recognition instills a sense of pride and purpose in people and helps fulfill our most basic human need to feel valued. Modern employees bring their whole selves to work, their technical skills, passion, and creativity. Simply put, work matters to people, and they want to feel they matter to their team and company.
As a leader, take a step back and be mindful of your employees’ actions. Just telling them that you notice can make quite the impression.
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Learn how to make your team feel more valued with our guide to creating a culture of recognition in the workplace.
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Quick tips
- Leverage a dedicated space for peer recognition, like Workleap Officevibe’s Good Vibes engine. Include company values, goals, and current projects to orient everyone around what binds the team.
- Make sure to recognize efforts, not just successes. Employees deserve to feel appreciated for their hard work and energy regardless of outcome.
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Relationship with Manager: Building trust
The employee-manager relationship is pivotal, as a manager's influence can profoundly shape an employee's professional journey and overall well-being. Managers can influence everything from daily tasks and career guidance to promotions and time off. They hold a key role in shaping an employee's experience, which is why building a strong, positive relationship with them is so valuable.
Managers account for 70% of the variance in employee satisfaction scores. As satisfaction drops, so does engagement.
Gallup’s State of the American Manager: Analytics and Advice for Leaders asked employees to rate their managers on behaviors linked to employee happiness.
There were three behaviors that they focused on:
- Communication
- Performance management
- Focusing on strengths
They recommend leaders communicate with their team frequently and create a safe and open environment for employees. Everyone should be comfortable enough to approach their leaders with their concerns.
They also say that too many managers focus on weaknesses. If you focus on helping employees recognize and develop their strengths, you’ll have a much more engaged and productive workforce.
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Quick tips
- Collect feedback from your employees. That vulnerability and growth mindset will show employees you’re trying to improve.
- Use your one-on-ones as a way to connect with employees on a personal level.
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Relationship with Peers: Connections matter
Whether you're having a tough day, celebrating a success, or feeling stressed, having people you can count on is a crucial part of the workplace experience. These connections boost productivity, help manage stress, and keep you engaged.
Fostering friendships built on trust, respect, and collaboration is key. When colleagues trust and respect each other, open communication and teamwork flourish. These bonds make work more enjoyable and build a creative, harmonious workplace where everyone feels inspired and valued.
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Quick tips to improve relationships with peers
- Social events are a great way to form genuine connections and don’t need to be formal. Often the less formal, the better! Fun activities that are interest-based and creative allow employees to let their true selves shine.
- Encourage group projects and create time for employees to work together.
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Happiness: The secret to productivity
Many people make the mistake of thinking that employee engagement and employee happiness are the same things — they’re not.
You can be happy at work without being fully engaged. Engagement is about commitment and productivity, while happiness covers overall well-being and job satisfaction. For people leaders, keeping employees happy is key because happy workers are more loyal, creative, and collaborative, driving long-term success and a vibrant workplace culture.
According to an Oxford study, happy employees are 13% more productive than their “unhappy” counterparts. Simply put, when employees are happy, the entire organization thrives.
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Quick tips
- Be flexible with your team. Workplace flexibility can be a real game-changer — not just for employees but for employers, too.
- Encourage professional development. Provide opportunities for growth.
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Ambassadorship: Nurturing promoters
Do your employees consider themselves brand ambassadors for your organization? If there was a job opening and they knew someone who would be a good fit, would they recommend it to them?
Attracting and retaining employees can be challenging. With shifting work realities, new technologies, and new employee mindsets, it's important to keep up with the times and find innovative ways to keep employees engaged and on board for the long haul.
Promoting a powerful employer brand is one of the best ways to do this. Organizations can start by looking inward and improving their company culture.
One of the most popular ways to measure whether your employees are ambassadors is to use the Net Promoter Score (eNPS), a concept originally developed by Bain & Co. to measure customer loyalty.
The way it works is you ask employees, “On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this organization as a good place to work?” and then follow up with a “Why?” The qualitative responses (the why) that give you the most value. You’ll be able to see exactly where the areas for improvement are in your culture.
The goal is to continuously improve your organization’s score and have a team full of ambassadors, spreading your mission’s message for you. It’s like amplifying your recruiting team by 10, 20, or 100.
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Quick tips
- Find out why people would hesitate to promote your brand. Conduct stay interviews or focus groups to get feedback.
- Involve employees as much as possible in defining how to improve your employer brand with eNPS survey questions.
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Wellness: Don’t skip a beat
Employees need work-life balance to stay happy, productive, and engaged.
It’s unfair to assume that employees will always be available for you and to not even consider their lives outside of work. Everyone needs time to recharge and refuel, and people leaders must be mindful of that.
Our data shows that people are stressed:
More than a quarter of employees report an unhealthy balance between their work and personal life.
Can you relate? How do you find a balance between the two? Are you leading by example? Reflecting on your answers is a great place to start because, as a leader, your team often mirrors you.
The cost of poor well-being is steep.
Gallup estimates:
- On average, a loss of 15% to 20% of total payroll in voluntary turnover costs is due to burnout.
- Employee burnout costs $322 billion of turnover and lost productivity globally.
In contrast, perks like subsidized gym memberships and health budgets are minimal, and the return on investment can be huge.
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Quick tips
- Listen to employees. Get to the heart of what really matters most to your team through one-on-one check-ins, anonymous surveys, and team meetings.
- Promote mindfulness. An effective mental wellness program starts with a corporate culture that recognizes the importance of mental health. When business leaders acknowledge issues like anxiety, depression, and burnout, employees are more likely to take advantage of a subsidized coaching program, therapy, or meditation classes.
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Alignment: Connection to values
Many organizations look at culture fit during the hiring process, but they should “value fit”.
For an employee to feel connected to the organization, their personal values need to align well with the organization’s values. The key to making this process work for you is to be honest about your values.
When creating your core values, write things that you believe in and that you will use to run your organization. It starts with having a meaningful mission that employees can get behind.
The best path to success for your organization is when everyone works together towards a common goal. Try to incorporate your core values into different areas of your organization, like through your performance reviews or team recognition. The more you can tie their behaviors to core values, the more likely they will live them each day.
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Quick tips
- Promote and embody your core values as much as possible.
- Use employee onboarding to enforce your brand's mission, values, and purpose.
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Satisfaction: More than money
For an employee to be satisfied at work, you need to think about two key elements.
- Total compensation (salary + benefits)
- A satisfying work experience
Regarding compensation, remember that money isn’t the only thing that motivates people at work. Once salary is considered, you can make a real difference through benefits. People want work-life balance, extra support, and the ability to work some days remotely. As leaders, we all need to be more mindful of this.
To ensure employees are satisfied with their work experience, provide things like:
- A comfortable workspace
- Resources and support they need to do good work
Help them feel at ease at work. Set goals with your employees to ensure you’re all on the same page, and then measure success based on the plans. Too often, work is measured by time spent at an office desk, but it should be measured by looking at the results.
You should be continuously looking for ways to improve this (hint: ask employees!) to make sure they stay satisfied.
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Quick tips
- Make sure employees are clear on their job roles. Confusion will lead to dissatisfaction.
- Listen to employees. Ask for their feedback regularly and make sure they have what they need to do good work.
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Measuring and improving engagement
The first step to measuring and improving engagement is to use surveys. You need a baseline to understand where you are and where you need to improve. When creating your survey, there are a few things you need to keep in mind.
Keep them short
Survey fatigue is real; the longer your survey is, the more chance you have of your data being incomplete or biased. Ensure that you’re only asking what matters.
Ask the right questions
Creating survey questions is tough. You need to understand how to phrase your questions, which words to use/not use, and how to order the questions. Check out these sample question lists you can use for various contexts in your next employee survey.
Get into the right mindset
Before starting surveys, ensure you’re in the right frame of mind. There’s nothing worse than asking employees for their feedback and not acting on it. Be open to hearing anything (including negative comments), express gratitude for their openness to share, and be ready to act.
It’s important to note that measuring is only the first step.
Managers significantly affect employee engagement, so what tools can support their growth?
Training in emotional intelligence is a great place for managers to start because a lot of the soft skills needed to be a better leader come from being more emotionally intelligent. Make sure to hold managers accountable by setting clear goals for how they will improve. If the entire organization is committed to improving engagement, you should focus on helping managers become better and more compassionate leaders.
Another focus should be career development. Professional development is at the root of employee satisfaction. Do your employees have clear goals set? Are they clear on their opportunities for advancement? These are essential questions that every successful leader should have an answer to.
From big-picture thinking to taking action
At the root of all of this are trust and respect. Without that genuine respect, you won’t be able to truly connect with your employees and improve employee engagement. Here are a few ideas you can use right now to start engaging your team.
Make work fun
People spend way too much time at work for it to be bland and serious all the time. While work and being productive are important, make time for social interactions and a bit of fun.
It can be simple, like a team lunch at a restaurant, or it can involve organizing annual company-wide events to help build team spirit.
Encourage flexibility
As a leader, one of the best things you can do for your employees is to be flexible with them.
Establishing flexible work hours and environment or encouraging them not to stay too late is essential for creating a healthy and sustainable workplace. Don’t look at how much time an employee spends at their desk as a measure of productivity. It’s not.
Set clear, realistic goals
First, be sure to set goals. Second, too often, teams set unrealistic goals that lead to unnecessary stress. For your team’s overall health and well-being, be realistic about your expectations.
Encourage employees to speak up if they feel like they’re overworked. An anonymous feedback tool like Officevibe can help facilitate conversation even amongst the shyest.
Make sure that the goals are clear for all team members. Don’t hesitate to check in with them everyone once in a while to keep things transparent.
Only up from here
Improving takes time, so be patient; the more you involve employees, the better. The more involved they are in defining that strategy, the more likely it is to work. They’ll take it more seriously and be more emotionally invested in it because they had a part in creating it.
Including your team in creating the strategy also takes much of the load off your back, making it easier to start.
Ideally, you want to have an engagement strategy defined with many members of your organization that includes the 10 key metrics we went through in this guide.
The best way to maintain high employee engagement is to continually track it and quickly address any areas where employees are struggling. Workleap Officevibe makes maintaining employee engagement simpler by combining anonymous employee feedback with data-driven insights.
Over time, you’ll foster a culture of happy, healthy, and productive employees working together to bring the organization to new heights.
