Measuring Employee Engagement

Last week we read that employee engagement correlates to the level of commitment, involvement, and productivity displayed by an employee and by a workforce overall. An employee who is highly engaged or actively engaged would have high involvement, better retention and greater productivity. Gallup describes actively engaged employees as rare: “Engaged workers stand apart from their not-engaged and actively disengaged counterparts because of the discretionary effort they consistently bring to their roles. These employees willingly go the extra mile, work with passion, and feel a profound connection to their company. They are the people who will drive innovation and move your business forward.”

“Contrast this with actively disengaged employees, who are more or less out to damage your company. Not only are they unhappy at work, but they are intent on acting out their unhappiness. They monopolize managers’ time and drive away customers. Whatever engaged employees do — such as solve problems, innovate, and create new customers — actively disengaged employees will work to undermine.”

There are a multitude of ways to define and measure employee engagement, but for now we’ll continue to explore Gallup’s findings as reported in their State of the Workplace Report 2013. Since 2000, Gallup has asked millions of employees across the globe 12 questions designed to determine employee job satisfaction and its correlation to engagement, known as their Q12. Gallup declares that these are “the best predictors of employee and workgroup performance.” Once analyzed, employees are categorized into 3 distinctions, actively engaged, not engaged, and actively disengaged.

They are:
I know what is expected of me at work.

I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right.

At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.

In the past seven days, I have received recognition or praise for good work.

My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.

There is someone at work who encourages my development.

At work, my opinions seem to count.

The mission or purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important.

My associates or fellow employees are committed to doing quality work.

I have a best friend at work.

In the past six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress.

In the past year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow.

Ideally, employees always check “true” but the “false” answers are more revealing. How do you – and your employees – stack up to these simple 12 questions? What else do you think would measure employee engagement? Is there a better way to assess engagement in your specific workplace? In the coming weeks, we’ll dig in more to employee engagement and look at what drives engagement, what barriers your workplace may have, and several other factors that affect engagement in the workplace. I’m looking forward to exploring this critical topic with you! For more insight on employee engagement, from more of a front line employee perspective, please read Muriel Call’s blogs on the 16 Percent.

Written by:
Heather Harrison
Development Manager
governmentresource.com