Measuring engagement: How you can get a better feel for employees

At a time when finances are tough and many companies are striving for efficiency, employee engagement has become especially prevalent. Many businesses no longer have the ability to offer regular pay raises and other benefits because they simply don't have the required resources. One way they are trying to make up for that is by bolstering employee engagement.

As Forbes contributor and business guru Kevin Kruse notes, one of the best ways for businesses to improve employee engagement is through measurement. Regular surveys and studies can help companies accurately assess how engaged and happy their workers are and may offer insight into how organizations can improve the employer-employee relationship.

Engagement surveys should:

1. Be annual: Many businesses are under the impression that surveys can be done once and then extrapolated to improve engagement. However, what companies really need is a variety of data points that they can then use to determine if they are progressing in the right direction with their engagement initiatives.

Surveys should be conducted regularly – at least once per year, but perhaps even more frequently than that. The more data sets a business has, the better it is able to identify trends and discern whether engagement initiatives are going as planned.

2. Be accountable: Kruse also asserted the importance of accountability. Once businesses see mistakes, they need to be able to correct them, and that means sharing survey results with managers. That could lead to further discussions to help improve problem areas.

“Most of the emotion of employee engagement comes from one’s relationship with their manager; not informing each manager of their own individual results … takes away the important tool of self-awareness,” he wrote for Forbes. “Without an individual score, engagement becomes some abstract company initiative … instead of an everyday metric for improvement.”

3. Move forward: Once everyone knows where they stand, businesses can work on moving forward and developing responses to the results. Whether employees complain about the work-life balance, their relationships with supervisors or the company as a whole, managers can work together to create a solution.

Engaging employees is critical to establishing a successful company. By regularly assessing engagement efforts with studies and surveys, businesses will be able to test new strategies that are supported by real data.