What’s the Right Way to Measure Employee Engagement?
Employee engagement metrics can feel like a maze of competing definitions and methodologies. The truth, however, is that while many providers claim to have a unique formula, most approaches are closely correlated.
I spent seven years leading methodology and data science for employee engagement surveys at Peakon and Workday. Over that time, I’ve worked with everyone from tiny tech startups to massive retail brands, mining operations, football clubs, and even government entities. Now that I’m no longer directly involved in survey creation, I can share my honest thoughts on the most effective ways to run employee surveys.
See the complete set of tips & tricks for running employee engagement surveys.
Employee engagement metrics can feel like a maze of competing definitions and methodologies. The truth, however, is that while many providers claim to have a unique formula, most approaches are closely correlated. Below are three points to help you choose a measurement method that suits your organization’s needs.
1. Don’t Get Lost in Different Indices
There are countless frameworks designed to capture employee engagement. Some focus on happiness, some on trust, others on satisfaction or discretionary effort. While providers promote them as unique selling points, they usually overlap more than you’d expect.
The dirty secret of the industry is that any solid approach will give you broadly similar results, so don’t stress too much about finding the perfect measure.
This discussion is totally valid as an academic question, but in practice our concern is usually only with identifying areas for development, or tracking change over time. The simple truth is that any of these approaches to engagement are more than sufficient.
2. Leverage Questions with Predictive Value
Although most engagement questions correlate strongly, a few types can offer extra insights. For instance, a loyalty or “intent to stay” question often helps predict future attrition. If turnover is a top concern, it’s wise to include at least one question that directly probes an employee’s likelihood of leaving.
3. Craft a Small, Focused Index
The simplest and most effective route is to pick three or four questions that capture the engagement factors you care about most. An index makes sense because it minimises variance and gives you a more stable measure, but you want it to be reasonably small so that your survey length doesn't explode and impact participation rates.
This might mean one overall satisfaction or happiness question, one intent-to-stay question, and one advocacy question (like “Would you recommend working here to others?”). Together, these can provide a reliable snapshot of engagement and help you track changes over time without overwhelming employees.
1. How satisfied are you with your company as a place to work?
2. How likely would you be to stay if offered a similar role at another company?
3. How likely would you be to recommend working at [x]?
By focusing on a few high-impact questions, you’ll maintain clarity, boost response rates, and get the insights you need to drive meaningful improvements.
Sunbeam
Sunbeam is a feedback analytics platform designed to make working with open-ended, text-based feedback as straightforward as working with scores. Too many organizations overlook the rich insights hidden in qualitative responses, and Sunbeam aims to fix that. By combining deep industry expertise with cutting-edge AI, Sunbeam makes it simple to analyze and act on text feedback, ultimately helping HR teams unlock the full potential of employee engagement data.