What is the difference between employee engagement and employee satisfaction?
The difference between employee engagement and employee satisfaction comes down to motivation.
Employee satisfaction is all about an employee’s happiness and contentment at work. While this is an important metric, it doesn’t always give a true indication of their motivation. For example, an employee may be happy and content, but they might not be performing to the levels they used to.
Employee engagement asks the question of whether someone is truly engaged and emotionally invested in your organisation – including your goals, values, building relationships with colleagues and their own personal development.
Why should you measure employee engagement?
You should measure employee engagement to get a better understanding of your employees and the way they feel about your organisation.
Over time, this data can be used to predict employee patterns and behaviours. Benchmarking data can help your organization better understand your employees’ tendencies, tracking data over time and how you can improve it.
For example, is there a point in an employee’s time with you where their engagement drops off? If you run these surveys regularly, you may see a consistent pattern of when engagement peaks and declines.
With this insight, you can put action plans in place. This may involve training and development or simply setting new objectives to keep employees motivated.
What should you do with employee engagement feedback?
You should use employee engagement feedback to find areas for improvement.
Employee engagement survey data should be reviewed and broken down for each business unit or department, allowing directors or managers to make changes that will affect engagement levels. It’s also a good idea to share (communicate) survey results with your own employees and create action plans to respond to survey recommendations.
If you see any red flags in the data, dig deeper to determine what is causing the engagement issue. Perhaps data indicates that employees don’t feel they have a connection to the business, or data shows employees don’t feel challenged by their work? The factors that drive employee engagement will vary by industry and within the organization.
Involve the entire management team in the action & strategy planning process based on the results to ensure that positive changes are made based on employee feedback.
Example questions for your employee engagement survey
- I enjoy my work and take pride in being the best that I can be
- My role plays a part in the company’s success
- I enjoy the culture and team spirit here – it feels like a family
- It’s important to me that the company takes social issues seriously e.g. reducing reliance on single-use plastics
- I can see myself working here in 3-5 years’ time
For more detailed examples, check out our blog titled 15 Questions For Your Employee Engagement Survey.
