Employee engagement is one of the key elements of building a successful and thriving business. It’s the bed-rock of getting things done, great customer service, repeat business and sustainable growth.

This post started out as as an answer to a question on Linked In. The question was:  What are the leading and lagging indicators of employee engagement you / your company uses? Why did you chose them? and which ones (if any) did you decide against using?

Some of the responses point to different methodologies for measuring engagement but I think, like measuring customer satisfaction and engagement, we can tend to overthink and over measure stuff from time to time. I also think we all realise that when it comes to surveys there is a marked difference between what we say and what we do. That reminds me of the old saying:

Actions speak louder than words

Therefore, if you want to get some insights into how engaged your team are then how about using the following indicators:

• Level of absenteeism
• Staff turnover
• Participation in meetings
• Projects getting completed on time
• Team members coming up with new ideas
• Team hitting targets
• etc

Not all are perfect but will give you a good idea, i would suggest, of the levels of engagement that you have with your employees. After all, it’s about what gets done rather than what gets said.

What do you think? What else would you add to this list?

Thanks to tam_oliver for the image.