Employee Engagement Metrics and Employee KPIs for HR Leaders [Updated for 2024]

6 min read

After recently reviewing thousands of Annual Plans and Quarterly Plans, I can say without a doubt that improving Employee Engagement Metrics and KPIs employee engagement seems to be top of mind for everyone this year. How on earth do you keep today's dynamic and diverse employees happy, engaged, and productive? It's the million-dollar question that we ask ourselves year after year.

According to Gallup, companies with highly engaged workforces outperform their peers by 147%. Gallup also concluded that 87% of employees worldwide are not engaged. So, how do you know if your company is on the right side of those statistics? You need to start measuring employee engagement KPIs this quarter to keep your A Players and reduce employee turnover. This is not just a function for the human resources department; the best team managers measure employee satisfaction KPIs on their teams.

Employee Engagement Metrics

As with most things, the first step is to start measuring so that you can determine the baseline of your employee engagement and work on the biggest areas for improvement first. This isn't about just creating and sending out employee engagement surveys, but that certainly may be part of your overall employee engagement project. Effective employee engagement metrics are best derived by starting where you are at, and the best way is to determine a baseline for business leaders. Every company is different, and each company can vary from year to year - For example, your team might get burned out during the holidays if that is the peak season for your merchandise. Ensure you measure your baseline employee engagement metrics with any seasonal adjustments in mind.

Glassdoor.com Rating - GlassDoor is a website that allows employees to write reviews of their employers. Reviews are evaluated, and companies are rated 1-5 stars. For larger organizations, watching this rating can provide insight into how current employees feel and how those who have left feel. Also, it's great to know what is being said about your organization in the marketplace from a recruiting standpoint.

Vacation Days Used - On the surface, the value of this measurement may not seem very insightful; however, a healthy work-life balance promotes employee engagement. Vacation Days Used can also be an indicator of your culture. For example, do people not feel comfortable taking time off? Are they so overloaded a vacation just isn't possible? Do they feel no one has their back if they were to take a few days off? If people aren't using them, there's usually a reason.

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New Hire Failure Rate - Engagement is a mindset. However, employees can become engaged if given the proper tools and training. If new hires leave in the first 90 days, they either weren't the right hire from the beginning, or the onboarding process didn't set them up to be engaged. High levels of failure should have you invest more time in the hiring process to ensure you are getting A-Players.
Customer Happiness—This one follows the logic that happy employees equal happy customers. Measure Customer Net Promoter Score. If it's low, consider the possible impact of low employee engagement on customer happiness. Low customer engagement is often a sign of low employee engagement. This data point seems to cut both ways. The higher the customer happiness, typically, the higher the organizational performance.
Strategy Execution KPI and OKR Software Usage - For those of you using Rhythm software, measure employee engagement with the tool. Are they statusing and commenting on their priorities? Are they collaborating with the team and problem-solving in weekly meetings? If they aren't excited about the strategy and supportive of the execution of the strategy, they aren't an engaged employee. This will show you how to align employees with company goals.

HR Employee Engagement Metrics YouTube Video

I know many of you are also using OKRs, which are similar to KPIs. To learn more about the difference, you might be interested in reading OKRs vs. KPIs to ensure that you have the right metrics to help you improve your productivity.