The term employee engagement is thrown around a lot these days, but what does it really mean?
Is it about happy employees?
Motivated employees?
Employees, who are ready to go the extra mile for their company?
The answer to all these is yes — employee engagement encompasses all these things and more.
For example, did you know that companies with high levels of employee engagement see double the revenue growth rate of their competition? Or that engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave the company than their disengaged counterparts? Engaging your people isn’t just a nice metric to share, it’s critical for business success.
If you’re looking for an easy way to measure your own organization’s level of commitment, check out these three metrics:
Excessive Absenteeism
I’m sure you have experienced a situation where an employee is absent from work frequently. This can be due to illness, family emergencies, or other personal matters. But sometimes excessive absenteeism could be due to disengaged employees who would rather stay home than work.
One way to counter absenteeism is actually having a one-on-one meeting with the employee. Ask them what issues they’re facing and how can the business address them.
It’s not enough to simply ask them if they’re coming to work or not. You have to get under the surface and find out why they’re not coming in, what is keeping them from being there, and what it will take for them to come back.
You can also offer incentives for employees who meet or exceed their attendance goals and penalties for those who don’t comply with those goals. This encourages employees to show up regularly and increases productivity overall because there are no distractions due to absences.
In addition, for employers to reduce excessive absenteeism by creating an engaging work environment that encourages employees to show up on time each day.
To create an engaging environment you should:
- Set clear expectations for attendance through a proper policy and follow through on consequences for non-compliance.
- Make sure that your employees have access to all the tools they need to do their jobs effectively, including equipment and information about company policies/procedures that may impact their performance (e.g., wellness programs).
- Offer opportunities for professional development by providing training opportunities at least once per year
Pulse Surveys
You know that feeling you get when you walk into the office? The one where you’re excited to be there and see your coworkers, even if it’s just a Monday morning? That’s employee engagement.
It’s important to measure employee engagement because it can help you make sure that your employees are happy and feel supported in their work. It can also help you identify problem areas in your workplace culture or management style so that you can make changes that will lead to happier employees, higher productivity, and better retention rates.
One of the easiest ways to measure employee engagement is through pulse surveys. These surveys ask questions about how people feel about their job, their employer, and their coworkers. While they are not the only tool you can use to measure employee engagement, they are one of the most effective. They provide an accurate picture of how your employees feel about your company and its culture, as well as how they feel about their own job satisfaction.
Turnover Rate
The turnover rate is the percentage of employees who leave a company within a certain time period. To calculate turnover, add up the number of people that have left over a certain period of time and divide that by the total number of employees at the start of that same time period.
For example, if there were 100 employees at your company on January 1st and five people have left by March 31st, then your turnover rate would be 5%.
Turnover can be extremely useful when it comes to measuring employee engagement levels because it gives you an idea about how many people are leaving your organization each month—and why they’re doing so.
If you notice an increase in turnover over time, this could mean that something isn’t working for your new hires and they’re looking for opportunities elsewhere. This could indicate issues around compensation or career development opportunities; however, it’s worth noting that sometimes employees simply want more out of their work than what their current position offers.
One way to find the reasons for employees leaving an organization is to conduct an exit interview. An exit interview is a good way of finding out what the reasons for employees leaving may be.
It’s important to be sure that your company is not losing employees because they feel undervalued, or because they don’t feel supported by management. A lot of times, people leave because they aren’t being met where they are. If you can get them to open up and tell you what their needs are, then you can do something about it and keep them around.
When analyzing employee satisfaction surveys from year to year—or even from week to week—you may find yourself wondering why some departments seem happier than others despite having similar responsibilities within the same organization (and vice versa).
Turnover rate is a key metric used to explain these disparities among teams within organizations because higher rates generally correlate with lower levels of satisfaction among those who remain behind while low rates indicate higher levels.
AttendanceBot for Absence Management
AttendanceBot is a simple, easy-to-use attendance tracking software that allows you to apply and approve time off, track hours and timesheets.
It’s got features like:
- A calendar that allows you to see when employees are scheduled for work, and what days they’re taking off.
- An approval system where managers can approve or deny requests for time off. Employees can request leaves that are instantly sent to managers for approval.
- An online timesheet system that lets users record their hours worked in real-time.
- Lastly, you can customize the approval workflow to let leaves get auto-approved or require multi-level approvals.
Through these features AttendanceBot can help you counter excessive absenteeism:
- By empowering your team to manage their own time and time off without invasive activity monitoring.
- Through manager-level approvals, so the system can automatically flag time off beyond a certain threshold.
- Through the custom leave types and quotas for categories like mental health days can indicate to the manager that the employee is struggling and may need extra time off.
Conclusion
One of the keys to effective employee engagement is knowing what metrics you should be tracking, and how exactly they can help. If you’re looking to give your company’s engagement a boost, these three are great places to start.
By keeping an eye on absenteeism, performance surveys, and turnover rates, you’ll have a better idea of where your team stands as well as areas for potential growth.
