How to Measure Employee Engagement (Metrics and Tools)

What gets measured gets done.

It’s a famous line that makes a lot of sense when it comes to improving anything in business today. And for organizations that really want employee engagement to improve, the best option is to start by measuring where you are, then plot the path for change.

What Is Employee Engagement?

Employee engagement is the emotional and psychological connection employees feel toward their work, their team, and the organization. When that connection is strong, it drives a host of benefits – higher performance, more collaboration, and stronger retention.

Engaged employees are more likely to look forward to work, feel their contributions matter, and see their role as meaningful. They show up with energy, creativity, and a desire to go above and beyond – not because they have to, but because they want to.

Why Measure Employee Engagement

Employee engagement might feel intangible – but the business case for measuring it is anything but. When we take time to understand how employees are feeling, what’s driving disengagement, and where there are opportunities to do better, we unlock a clearer path to building stronger teams and better results.

1. We’ve Got an Engagement Problem

The top reason measurement matters is that worldwide, employee engagement is at historically low levels.

U.S. employee engagement fell to its lowest level in a decade in 2024, with only 31% of employees engaged, according to the latest research from Gallup, which has tracked engagement for decades.

An alarming number – 17% of employees – are “actively disengaged,” Gallup’s research finds. The numbers reflect a growing trend of employee detachment from organizations, particularly among workers under 35, Gallup says.

2. Employees Are Burned Out and Checked Out

Our own recent research study finds more than 75% of employees and 63% of managers feel burned out or ambivalent in their current position.

Our study, conducted in partnership with The Harris Poll, also concludes that managers aren’t recognizing just how overwhelmed their employees feel – a clear case for the need to measure what’s going on.

In our study, 89% of managers assert their employees are thriving, yet only 24% of employees say they are actually thriving – a more than 3-to-1 discrepancy.

3. Engagement Drives Organizational Success

All of the dismal engagement statistics come at a time when research tells us engagement is a key driver of organizational success. And disengagement comes at a huge cost – in retention, productivity, creativity, and overall well-being.

The global employee engagement decline of two percentage points in 2024 cost the world economy an estimated $438 billion in lost productivity, according to Gallup’s 2024 State of the Workforce report.

To make our organizations thrive, improving the employee experience deserves our full attention. Naturally, we have to start with knowing how our own employees feel and what they need to get jazzed up about the work they do.

4. Measurement Drives Leader Accountability

If leaders and managers know they’re being judged on their engagement efforts (and their improvements), they’ll start paying more attention to how and when they engage employees. Tracking engagement sends a clear message: engagement isn’t just HR’s job, it’s a leadership responsibility. When leaders see how their teams are responding, it creates both urgency and opportunity to lead differently.

How to Measure Employee Engagement

Measuring employee engagement isn’t just about sending a survey. It’s about adopting a consistent and intentional approach to listening, learning, and taking action. Below are key steps to help you get started – and make sure your efforts lead to real change.

1. Communicate to employees why you’re measuring engagement.

The act of measuring itself is a symbol of openness to feedback and a desire to do better for employees. It’s important to share that you not only want employee feedback but that you want to take action on their input and make meaningful changes.

2. Define your desired outcome.

It’s important for top leadership to start with some simple questions. One starting point: What do you want to achieve in employee engagement? In other words, what are the tangible things you want your employees to know, feel, and do, leading to a highly engaged team? When you define those things, you’ve pinpointed what you’re measuring against.

For example, here’s a sample chart defining three engagement goals for an organization:

3. Start with a baseline.

All data collection needs to have a beginning point from which to measure progress. The baseline comes from an initial assessment of problem areas, such as surveys or focus groups, that can then be benchmarked against future data. This allows you to get a clear handle on what’s working well and what to adapt and change.

4. Ask the right questions.

When formulating your employee engagement questions, carefully consider what matters most to employees. This can include such items as:

• The quality of their work
• Satisfaction with pay and level of pay fairness
• The effectiveness of their manager
• How well the team works together
• How meaningful work feels to them
• How they rate career development programs and opportunities for advancement
• Whether they feel a sense of belonging
• Feelings of fair treatment at work
• How well the company manages work/life balance
• Evaluation of well-being programs, including mental health resources, health care options, etc.
• Evaluation of recognition and rewards programs

5. Look for key issues to pinpoint and critical areas for action.

The initial data can help you know where to start to have the most impact to improve a specific problem or concern. Naturally, you can’t take on all issues at once, so targeting the most important areas is the best way to start.

6. Response rates tell a story.

Consider the data itself and your response rates. We often hear a lot about employee survey fatigue, but the bigger problem is likely to be a lack of action. For instance, low response rates are often a sign that employees feel management never acts on their input. If that’s the case, leaders need to reinforce how much their responses matter and that leaders are sincere about wanting to make changes.

7. Make measurement sustainable.

Use measurement strategies that can live on after the initial communication metrics are complete. The tools you use need to be easy to use and easy to repeat over time.

8. Encourage candid feedback.

Employees need to feel comfortable sharing how they really feel. For instance, if low engagement levels are because of a bad manager, employees aren’t likely to say so. Consider some tools for guaranteeing anonymity and allow for both quantitative and qualitative data tools. There’s nothing like a focus group for gaining an in-depth understanding of what’s on employees’ minds.

9. Establish the cadence of measurement you’ll apply.

Will you conduct annual all-employee surveys and also “pulse” surveys with fewer questions at other points during the year? Regular feedback is critical as research from Achievers finds a clear connection between the frequency of surveys and engagement and retention. Employees who say their company gathers feedback are almost 2x less likely to leave compared to the average, Achievers says.

Types of Employee Engagement Metrics

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to measuring engagement. But the right mix of metrics, used consistently, can give you a clear picture of what’s working, where to dig deeper, and how to track progress over time.

Annual Employee Satisfaction and Engagement Survey

This is an all-employee survey distributed once per year (or sometimes more frequently) to measure employees’ engagement, satisfaction with their jobs, feelings about the company culture, and a range of other factors related to the employee experience. It is typically a multiple-question survey that’s used as a benchmark of employee sentiment and to track improvements over time.

Study of Demographic Trends in Employee Engagement

This is a tool that looks at trends in satisfaction based on age, location, and type of role, and the levels of engagement that each of those groups experience. This can help managers see how their teams or locations feel or identify concerning trends within a specific demographic group (such as new employees or younger employees). It may also help identify whether there are concerns specific to the role, such as employees working in remote roles or in scattered locations.

Employee Turnover Rates Survey

If turnover is high, it’s likely an indication that engagement has dipped. This helps employers figure out what might be done to reverse negative trends or identify leaders with problems related to high turnover on their teams.

Organizational Performance and Productivity Trends

This kind of tool dives into factors driving high performance and productivity within teams. High-performing teams might then be used as models for the entire organization, or low-performing teams can be targets for extra support.

Benchmarked Data

As previously highlighted, benchmarking data over time can help a lot in tracking progress on a number of fronts, such as a leader’s effectiveness at Town Hall meetings (as rated by employees) or a team’s productivity improvements under a new manufacturing system.

Employee Advocacy Rates

One key sign of engagement is the time team members spend promoting the brand online. Tools that measure this over time can be a great way to see whether employee engagement and advocacy efforts are picking up steam. Additionally, you can track the number of employees referring new candidates for open positions. Highly engaged teams tend to have large numbers of internal employees recruiting top talent.

Pulse Surveys

In addition to running an annual survey, many more organizations conduct pulse surveys of a representative sample of employees. Asking this targeted group a few critical questions can help get a “pulse” on whether employee concerns have bubbled up, rather than waiting an entire year to respond to an emerging crisis.

This can be done in a variety of ways, including via conference call, email, or an intranet posting. AI-powered analysis has made pulse surveys even easier to accomplish, quickly summarizing feedback and critical insights.

Employee Listening Sessions or Focus Groups

Gather employees to participate in an interactive discussion for specific questions on your engagement concerns. These small group sessions allow leaders to gain deeper, qualitative insights into the employee experience. There’s nothing like a quality conversation for leaders to get more context and understanding.

It’s often helpful to bring in an outside group to conduct these meetings. We hold numerous focus groups for our clients, as clients find employees are typically more open in sharing feedback with an objective third party.

Leader Listening Sessions

As we do with employee listening, we often work with our clients to facilitate leader listening sessions. From there, we synthesize themes, core takeaways, or develop an action plan based on the findings. This exercise can also identify opportunities for leaders to work on their communication capabilities to better connect with their team.

180-Degree Communications Effectiveness Survey for Leaders

Through survey tools such as LeaderCommCheck™, leaders get important feedback from their direct reports on their communication, which helps them know how to lead and communicate even more effectively to boost employee engagement.

Informal Employee Advisory Boards

Want to know how employees really feel about existing and new engagement plans and strategies? Appoint a group of employees you know are well-connected with their teams and confident enough to share positive and negative feedback on how things are going.

Performance Conversations and Individual Leader Check-Ins with Employees

Leaders should take the time to regularly check in with their teams and ask open-ended questions to identify what’s going well and where employees could use help. Employees want to feel that their manager cares about their progress.

Exit Interviews and Stay Interviews

Exit interviews are often underused opportunities to track concerns and trends in what makes an employee want to leave an organization. Leaders should be sincere in asking for honest feedback from exiting employees. At the same time, “stay interviews” are quite helpful for employees who might be considered flight risks.

Sometimes, just being asked what can be done to improve an employee’s experience can mean all the difference in their decision to stay.

Next Steps After You’ve Done Your Measurement

Measurement is only as powerful as what you do with it. Once you’ve gathered feedback, it’s critical to close the loop – by sharing what you learned, taking meaningful action, and continuing to listen.

1. Communicate

Including about what you’ve found. The first step is caring about the employee’s feedback in the first place and making sure you’re reaching out in multiple ways for their input. This is especially important because research shows companies that communicate effectively are much more likely to report high levels of employee engagement.

The second step is communicating what you’ve found. Often, organizations fail to share key takeaways from employee surveys, which can lead to employees feeling like information is either guarded or ignored. If concerning trends surface, leaders should be open to discussing them, acknowledging that employees have been heard and offering their ideas for a path forward. Similarly, good news and good feedback deserve to be celebrated.

2. Take Action

Make adjustments where you can. One of the best ways to disengage a team is to ignore the team’s feedback. Naturally, not all suggestions can be acted on, but employees deserve to know what can be done to address obvious pain points. When you take action on employee feedback, tie it back to their input so they make the connection and know their input was not only valued but implemented.

3. Keep Measuring

A regular commitment to measuring and a strong plan of measurement across a variety of tools is essential for employers to know how the culture is doing. Once again – what gets measured gets done.

How The Grossman Group Can Help

For 25 years, we’ve helped organizations solve their toughest business challenges through strategic leadership, culture, and change communications. We help leaders meaningfully engage and activate employees at every level – so people know what’s happening, why it matters, and how they fit in. Our outcome-based approach meets employees where they are and mobilizes them into high-performing, aligned teams.

If you’re seeing signs of burnout, quiet quitting, high turnover, or low engagement, you’re not alone. We work closely with leaders to uncover what’s truly driving disengagement and help translate insight into action – improving engagement, performance, and results.

Here’s how we help:

• Lead employee and leader listening efforts – through focus groups, interviews, and surveys – to understand what’s working, what’s missing, and where trust is breaking down
• Analyze feedback and engagement data to identify themes, friction points, and opportunities for change
• Develop internal communication plans that clarify what employees need to know, feel, and do, and bring those plans to life across the right channels
• Coach leaders to engage more effectively from everyday interactions to high-impact moments like Town Halls, restructures, or strategy rollouts
• Prioritize what to act on first, then build a communication cadence that builds momentum and strengthens connection

When leaders communicate effectively and with care – and show employees they’re truly listening – engagement improves. We help you get there.

Ready to go beyond the survey and drive real engagement? Let’s talk. Whether you need help designing the right measurement strategy, facilitating meaningful conversations with employees, or coaching leaders to connect more effectively, we’re here to help.

Contact us to start building a more engaged and high-performing workforce.

The Bottom Line

The evidence is overwhelming: engagement levels among employees are at historic lows.

At the same time, it’s abundantly clear what works. When companies commit to truly listening to employees, gathering their feedback, and making employees part of the solution, engagement levels grow. And when employees feel motivated and excited to come to work, businesses succeed.

Culture is everything in business today, and organizations that take employee engagement seriously are going to have a real edge.

Which traits do you think define a highly engaged team?

—David Grossman

Get insights that you can use to show your team they genuinely matter. When you do, those employees will be more engaged, producing stronger results for the business. Download your free copy of the eBook, A Persona of Today’s Employee, today!