Imagine two identical businesses. They sell the same products in the same way and on the same scale. While it might seem reasonable that they would each flourish to the same degree, that is rarely the case. What is the difference? The difference is each company’s people. Your team is what initially drives growth and what drives all the other factors that result in growth.
As a business leader, you have more potential to build the value of your business through your people than through anything else. Anyone can have good software and tools, but it is a team of people that are motivated and engaged in what they do that can make the most difference to your bottom line over the long term.
However, people are hard to “measure.” Is there a set formula for how to measure employee engagement? It is often said that if you can measure something, you can manage it. Therefore, if you learn how to measure employee engagement, you should be able to manage it.
How Do You Identify Employee Engagement in Action?
Identifying employee engagement in your actual workplace requires that you first identify what you mean by employee engagement. Maybe it is something simple like everyone arriving on time a certain percentage of the time. Maybe it is the willingness to take on special projects. Or perhaps it is something intangible, like your employees exhibiting happiness in the workplace. With employee engagement, there is a certain amount of “I know it when I see it,” but it can be defined and measured.
When you know what you want employee engagement to look like, then you are a step closer to measuring it. One simple way is to survey employees on work engagement as a baseline, and then to survey them again later to see if there is an improvement and if so, to measure it.
Do Employees Recognize the Value of Being Engaged in Their Work?
Identifying and trying to measure employee engagement will not mean much if employees themselves do not recognize the value to them of employee engagement. Finding out if they understand the importance of employee engagement may be as simple as gathering everyone together and asking them: “What was your best day at work like, and why was it like that?”
For most people, it will involve giving their best effort and being appreciated for it, whether by a happy customer, a supportive colleague, or a supervisor who is impressed. Make clear to your team that you get this, and that you want that kind of magic to be evident as the norm, and not just on special occasions when the planets seem to align correctly.
What Specific Actions Are They Taking as Engaged Workers?
Employees who are firing on all cylinders probably do certain things that are recognizable. Perhaps they recognize upsell and cross-sell opportunities more readily and act on them. Maybe a special project you doubted you could generate any enthusiasm for is turning out to be more popular than expected. Suppose your all-hands meetings have gone from being something everyone dreads to being the ideal kick-start to a month of great productivity. It is probably because of good employee engagement.
There are many things your business can do to engage with employees, including the creation of employee engagement apps. These can deliver announcements and inspiring messages, provide quick training modules, or even provide team members with a work-related game, complete with levels and leaderboards. The great thing about employee engagement apps is that the apps themselves are able to measure engagement.
You Can Track What Employees Are Doing as Their Engagement Strengthens
Setting a goal for better employee engagement and kicking it off with a rousing staff meeting is a good start, but it is not enough to keep employee engagement going as a regular, long-term part of being on your team. That is why when you learn how to measure employee engagement, you have to be willing to do so on a regular basis. Think of employee engagement as a garden. You can plant the best seeds in the best soil, and provide water and sunshine, but without regular tending, it can get choked with weeds, or experience die-off as plants do not get the attention they deserve.
This is another argument in favor of employee engagement apps because the right app “knows” how to measure employee engagement and how to report it to you so that you can track it over time, fine-tuning and adjusting course as necessary to maintain engagement.
Employee Engagement-Based Actions Have Impact
The regular actions of engaged employees have an impact, and it is up to you to measure that impact and recognize the people behind it. If one particularly engaged employee generates 10 percent more sales this month than last, it is important to call that out. Engagement, after all, is a two-way street, and employees will not continue to give their finest efforts if they do not think anyone is going to notice or care.
ROI of Employee Engagement: A Simple Formula
The ROI of employee engagement is like any other ROI. You just get the numbers to put into it from different places. In simplest terms, ROI is measured as monetary benefits minus costs, divided by costs. Multiply the answer by 100 to get a percentage.
Suppose you spend $100 a month on an employee engagement project. Because of that employee engagement project, suppose you earn an extra $175 every month. Your ROI on that employee engagement project is then:
(175 ̶ 100) ÷ 100 = 0.75, or 75 percent
Applying this simple formula to whatever employee engagement scenario you choose, whether it is bringing in a yoga teacher every week, putting a ping-pong table in the break room, or investing in an employee engagement app, will tell you whether it is making a positive difference.
That is intangible terms, by the way. There are also intangible benefits to a more engaged workforce, such as work just being a better place to be due to everyone having a more positive attitude and knowing they are appreciated. HubEngage not only understands how critical employee engagement is to business success, we also offer an employee engagement app development platform that can help you better engage employees and measure the effectiveness of that improved engagement easily. Better still, you can try the HubEngage app for free and take that first step toward a more engaged and invested workforce.
Download The Ultimate Guide to Planning Your Employee Experience Platform
To truly empower employees and optimize productivity, you need more than a communications tool. This guide frames the employee experience platform planning process and how to create the work environment your organization needs.
