Measuring Employee Engagement And Motivation
In a workplace there is a relationship between employee engagement, motivation and overall performance. The higher the engagement and motivation, the better an employee performs. This, ultimately, leads to reaching organisational goals and targets. Measuring employee engagement and motivation helps determine areas that need improvement to then improve the overall business.
The benefits and costs listed below are areas that indicate engagement and motivation.
High levels of employee engagement and motivation can be shown through:
Effective workplace relationships and communication
Engaged and motivated employees build and maintain rapport, trust, and professional relationships with peers, open lines of communication and improve collaboration across functions and with management.
Increased productivity
Engaged and motivated employees perform above expectations and understand that their role is important to achieving wider organisational strategy.
Lower absenteeism
Engaged and motivated employees want to come to work each day and are less likely to use personal or unscheduled leave to avoid work and the workplace.
Lower turnover
Engaged and motivated employees are committed to organisation as they are invested in contributing to and seeing the success of an organisation.
Better recruitment
Engaged and motivated employees speak well of their organisation both in and out of work, leading to a higher ability of an organisation to attract new employees.
Higher creativity
Engaged and motivated employees feel more open about expressing their ideas and opinions in the workplace, they bring passion and enthusiasm which can lead to innovation.
Increased loyalty / commitment
Engaged and motivated employees buy-into initiatives and change more readily as they care about the success of the organisation.
Costs of not having an engaged and motivated workplace include:
Work / Productivity / Performance
Disengaged employees may try to avoid work, struggle to meet key performance indicators and deadlines and are reluctant or refuse to accept additional responsibility.
Teams / co-workers
The negativity of a disengaged employee (e.g., withdrawal or no effort put into tasks), can have a ripple effect across the team/organisation, affecting morale.
Customers
Every employee personifies the organisation and a disengaged employee (e.g., demonstrating a lack of caring towards their work) will likely lead to disengaged customers.
Personal life of the employee
Disengaged employees can build up levels of negativity (e.g., frustration, anger, resentment), which may ultimately affect their personal and family life.
How to measure employee engagement and motivation
To measure current employee engagement and to set benchmarks, organisations can use qualitative data (e.g., employee feedback) or qualitative data (e.g., workforce statistics and comparisons). A more complete picture may emerge from gathering both qualitative and quantitative data.
Before gathering data, it needs to be clear what an organisation is trying to achieve. For example, is there an issue in a particular work group to review and address? Or is the need to measure employee engagement levels and benchmark against similar organisations?
When gathering information make sure to follow procedures on documenting and storing information.
Qualitative Information
Exit interviews
Exit interviews were traditionally used to gather employee thoughts and opinions. Organisations who solely adopt this feedback have already lost valuable employees before knowing what could have kept them on-board.
Interviews or focus-group workshops
Interviews or focus-group workshops can gather targeted employee feedback. Questions can be written to suit a particular outcome. For example, discussions could focus on workplace relationships and communication.
Employee engagement surveys
Employee engagement surveys, where possible, should be anonymous and should ask questions on the employee’s role, their commitment to the organisation, as well as the relationships they have with colleagues and managers. Surveys could be qualitative or quantitative depending on the desired outcome.
Ask employees about their motivations
Individuals and teams will likely have different motivators. Ask what motivates (and what does not motivate) individuals. This can be done either on a one-to-one basis or as a team exercise.
Quantitative Information
Reviewing hard HR data can also be a helpful way of determining employee engagement and motivation levels. Generally, an engaged and motivated workplace will have more positive data and information in the areas below:
- employee absenteeism (e.g., low unplanned personal leave)
- retention (e.g., low turnover rates, positive exit interview comments)
- punctuality (e.g., employees arrive on time, working designated hours)
- productivity (e.g., quality and quantity of output, employee meeting Key Performance Indicators)
- safety (e.g., low accident/incident rates, compensation claims made).
What Next?
It is important that the organisation acts on the findings from the data or information and communicates actions to take to address the identified issues or gaps. Failure to do so could result in further disengagement and lower motivation levels: i.e., employees may view it as a ‘tick and flick’ exercise, with no real outcome or purpose.
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Updated February 2022