Measuring Employee Engagement to Improve Your Company’s Bottom Line

By Beth Armknecht Miller special to Overdrive

Measuring employee engagement can help leaders determine what actions they need to take to improve their engagement levels. Research shows that highly engaged companies outperform other companies.

Tools for measuring employee engagement:

1. Surveys

1. Don’t launch around major project deadlines, vacations and holiday seasons, office moves, etc. 
2. Introduce the survey with its purpose and what will be done with the data. 
3. Sell the idea that giving feedback will improve each employee’s’ situation. 
4. Stress that the process will be 100% anonymous. 
5. Use multiple methods of communication—email, meetings, texts, videos—with the goal of getting at least 80% participation. Brand name surveys, including Best Places to Work use 80% as a minimum.

2. The 10 C’s of Engagement

1. Connect. Leaders must show that they value their employees. 
2. Career. Leaders must provide opportunities for career advancement. 
3. Clarity. Leaders must communicate a clear vision. 
4. Convey. Leaders must clarify expectations about employees and provide feedback. 
5. Congratulate. Leaders must recognize good performance. 
6. Contribute. Employees want to know that their input matters. 
7. Control. Give employees opportunities to exercise control over the flow and pace of their job. 
8. Collaborate. Great leaders create environments that foster trust and collaboration. 
9. Credibility. Leaders must strive to demonstrate high ethical standards. 
10. Confidence. Good leaders create confidence in a company.

If you’re planning to measure the employee engagement of your organization, consider a warning given on the Harvard Business Review blog: “… as important as performance metrics, are, problems arise when performance metrics become overly dominant as a managerial principle … Corporations need to build guidelines and values—not absolute rules and measures.