Measuring employee engagement in 2023: The latest methods

Measuring employee engagement will help you understand how people feel about working at your company, how likely they are to stick around and what can be done to improve things.  

When employees feel engaged they are more likely to work hard every day, suggest new ideas and commit to helping your organisation succeed. On the other hand, when employees are disengaged they get less done, take more sick leave and are unlikely to contribute ideas.  

It is important to regularly measure employee engagement to understand what factors are driving how people feel, where best to support employees, and how people feel about the overall employee experience. Levels of employee engagement can change over time and are influenced by internal and external factors. A significant change like a new CEO or a merger/acquisition might affect how people feel about their role for instance. Equally, external events such as the Covid-19 pandemic will have an impact on overall engagement.

In this article we share five strategies for 2023 to measure how engaged your people are. For more ideas to energise your people plans in 2023, check out our 2023 workplace trends report.

How should you measure employee engagement in 2023?

Below we share five proven strategies for measuring employee engagement and listening to staff. 

1. Employee Surveys: Great for a ‘deep-dive’ measure
2. Joiner Surveys: Start as you mean to go on
3. Pulse Surveys: Check in after change
4. 360 Feedback Surveys: Help leaders measure their impact
5. Focus Groups: Hone in on issue areas

1. Employee Surveys: Great for a ‘deep-dive’ measure  

Employee engagement surveys measure how people feel about different parts of the employee experience and whether this varies by team, line manager or demographic group. Equipped with your survey results, you can identify what factors are driving engagement or holding it back. Then, you can work on maintaining or improving these to create a more engaging place to work.  

In order to collect this valuable data you must base your survey on a comprehensive set of questions that are designed to drive action.  

At People Insight, we have created a robust employee engagement model called PEARL™ which provides a framework for employee survey questionnaires. PEARL™ is made up of 35 core survey questions that cover all elements of the employee experience. Your scores for these combine to provide a well-benchmarked employee engagement score that highlight which areas are most in need of attention.  

Read more: How PEARL™ can help you measure and improve employee engagement.  

2. Joiner Surveys: Start as you mean to go on  

When looking at how and when to measure employee engagement, it’s best to start at the beginning of the employee journey. From their first interview to when they start their new role, people will form an opinion of your organisation, culture and values. Joiner surveys, in the form of a short pulse survey, help you understand how these elements are perceived by new candidates. This data can in turn help you improve the recruitment process and create a more engaging and inclusive place to work.  

Importantly, this strategy for measuring engagement also measures how your company culture is perceived, compared to how you desire it to be. This is a metric you can track throughout the employee journey to understand where there are gaps between your target culture and what your employees see.  

Similarly, leaver surveys allow you to identify why employees have decided to leave your organisation and why they became disengaged. These results can be compared to data from earlier in the employee journey, shedding light on the point at which engagement may start to decline.  

3. Pulse Surveys: Check in After Change  

An employee pulse survey is a shorter, more frequent way of collecting employee feedback compared to an in-depth ‘annual’ survey. During Covid-19, many organisations used pulse surveys to keep up with the rapid changes to how we worked and explore specific areas such as Employee Wellbeing or Diversity and Inclusion.   

With remote and hybrid working here to stay, pulse surveys will continue to play an important role in measuring employee engagement. Pulse surveys allow organisations to quickly see how changes such as remote working, reduced office space, or new processes have been received by employees. This rapid feedback empowers line managers and leaders to act equally swiftly to make adjustments or resolve issues. This responsiveness can go a long way to improving the employer employee relationship – which in turn helps drive engagement levels. 

Whilst an important tool to check in on employees or measure the impact of change, it is important not to go overboard with pulse survey requests. People Insight’s rule is to only run them as often as you can act. This might be bi-annually, quarterly or whichever interval matches the pace of change in your organisation.  

Keep reading: Which is better? Pulse survey vs employee survey 

4. 360 Feedback: Help leaders measure their impact  

In addition to measuring employee engagement through surveys, 360 feedback surveys help leaders and managers understand how their behaviours affect engagement, and how aligned they are with your organisation’s culture and values. They also help develop desired behaviours and improve their blind spots. 

Research highlights the significant impact that leadership behaviours such as empathy have on employee engagement and retention. In fact, 76% of people with highly empathetic leaders report often or always being engaged compared to 32% of people with less empathetic leaders.  

Though insightful, receiving 360 feedback can be difficult so it’s important to support individuals through the process.  

Before running a 360 project, do these three things to help your people prepare:  

1. Use the right behavioural framework – Create a 360 feedback survey framework that reflects the behaviours relevant to your organisation. The more relevant it is, the more useful for participants.
2. Define and communicate the process – Help participants understand how 360 feedback will support their development and how the results will be used. People might feel daunted about hearing feedback from their peers or direct reports, so explain who will see this data.  
3. Ensure a follow-up is in place – 360 feedback is only as useful as the follow-up actions. Ensure a 1:1 session is booked in with a coach or employee survey consultant to help participants understand their report, reflect on the development opportunities and convert the feedback into actions.  

Keep reading: More advice to run a successful 360 feedback programme.  

5. Focus Groups: Hone in on key issues

Employee focus groups are another way to measure employee engagement by collecting employee feedback. Once your employee survey results are in, focus groups can help deep dive into burning issues, understand what’s driving employee survey scores, and crowdsource ideas for improvement. 

Importantly, focus groups are a chance for employees to contribute to the discussion and to be heard. Be sure to let people know that there will be no penalty for sharing their thoughts or opinions during these sessions. To further reassure employees, ask an external partner to organise and lead the discussions. 

Focus groups are not only useful after an employee survey. Use them to:  

• Discuss current business topics and use the insights to inform planning and processes 
• Prompt open conversations with leaders during change to share employee perceptions  
• Share ideas amongst teams about how to shape local change  
• Inform HR planning for the year ahead by learning what burning issues are impacting your employees

Whatever you use focus groups for, you must always follow up with swift action. Otherwise, employees will lose trust in your organisation and future listening activities.