Measuring Employee Engagement with HR Tech

What is HR Tech? 

Human Resources (HR) Technology refers to the various software and hardware technologies that are used to automate and enhance HR functions such as employee management, employee engagement, recruitment, payroll, performance management, training, and development… the list goes on. In other words, HR tech provides the tools to help managers make better decisions. 

In this blog, we explore HR-tech categories and a suggested employee-feedback measurement plan for managers.

The Importance of Employee Engagement

As managers start to realize the relationship between an engaged workforce and performance, employee engagement has come to be a critical factor for the success and growth of organizations. 

Naturally, employees are more energized and excited when they are engaged at work, let it be the job itself, the different tasks and projects, or the colleagues. This is important because it directly affects job satisfaction which determines performance and productivity. 

Benefits of having high employee engagement:

• Increased productivity
• Higher retention rates
• Low turnover
• Enhanced innovation and creativity 
• Better collaboration 

Why do we measure Employee Engagement?

Collect and review employee feedback to understand employees’ experiences and choose concerns to follow up on.

A suggested employee-feedback measurement plan

1. Define what you want to learn: for example, do employees feel clear about priorities and supported at work? Choose a brief question set.
2. Illustrative prompts: “I know what is expected of me” and “I have the support I need.” Use a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). These are examples, not a validated engagement scale.
3. Decide whom to invite, who can see individual responses and summaries, and when to repeat the survey. Explain these settings to respondents; keep repeated question wording and the response scale fixed.
4. Record survey dates, invitations sent, replies received and baseline response summaries by question, such as mean scores and counts at each scale point.
5. Compare responses to the same questions, noting changes in who replied. Do not treat differences as proof of what caused them. Keep performance metrics, wellness-app usage and game activity separate from these feedback scores; do not combine them into an engagement measure.
6. Choose one follow-up action, assign an owner and set a review date.

Employee engagement proves to drive success, and at its core, it’s fueled by motivation. The more engaged your employees are, the more motivated and willing they are to perform and strive for excellence. 

Benefits of measuring employee engagement:

• Valuable insights into employee well-being
• Strategic decision-making
• Early warning system and problem-solving 
• Identify company strengths and weaknesses
• Building a stronger team culture 

HR Tech Tools for Better Employee Engagement 

When it comes to enhancing employee engagement, HR tech is your best friend. There is a wide range of HR tech tools that offer innovative solutions to measure, manage, and improve employee experience. 

1. Employee Pulse Surveys 

For pulse surveys, choose a short set of employee-feedback questions and plan when to repeat them. Keep the wording and response scale consistent across rounds.

Providing your employees the chance to speak on their experience and hearing their feedback is a great way to let your employees know you care. Using employee engagement survey tools to collect employee feedback can help organizations identify areas of improvement, make more informed decisions, build trust, and facilitate communication, especially when done regularly. 

Some of the top-rated pulse survey tools for higher employee engagement are CultureMonkey, SurveySparrow, Vantage Pulse, and Lattice.

2. Performance Management and Analytics

Gone are the days when performance management was strictly based on annual evaluations. It is important for managers to conduct regular check-ins to ensure employees receive proper guidance and are on the right track. 

For better employee engagement and effective results, analytics play a key role in performance management. Data-driven insights provide organizations the ability to identify employee performance and productivity, areas of improvement, and affecting factors. 

Effective performance management is essential to organizations. Some of the most popular tools to manage and track performance are Trakstar, PerformYard, and Connecteam.

3. Wellness and Health Apps

Employee well-being and employee engagement go hand in hand. It only makes sense for companies to invest in technology that supports the physical and mental health of employees. 

In efforts to foster a healthier and more engaged workforce, it is important to find a balance between our work and general well-being (some may call this “work-life balance”) in order to increase productivity. 

With the increased prioritization of digital well-being, there has been an increased amount of wellness and health apps on the Internet. Some of the top digital well-being applications for better employee engagement are Wellable, Virgin Pulse, Wellbeats, and Calm.

4. Gamification Tools 

Gamification refers to the integration of gaming elements into non-game contexts (your workplace!) to make daily tasks more engaging and rewarding. Gamification has become a common HR tech tool used for many different aspects such as training and development, employee onboarding, workplace simulations, and friendly competitions. 

Similar to how marketers use gamification to boost customer experience, HR managers can do the same with employee engagement. As much entertainment as it is, leveraging gamification tools promote workplace innovation and continuous learning.  

Some of the top HR gamification software that targets employee engagement are Engagedly, Influitive, Spinify, and Trivie.