Employee engagement is more than an HR metric, more than a company culture marker; it's a direct investment into your organization's bottom line.
Most companies intuitively understand the importance of HR activities: employee surveys, engagement initiatives, and cultural programs.
But it's almost like we keep failing the marketing plan and changing the brand!
And you get the sense each time our audience may be tuning us out.
CHRO: Great new tool my team has reviewed that’s going to be a game changer for employee experience?
CFO: You want to spend what on what again? why?
The concept of understanding and improving the relationship between employees and their work has evolved significantly over the past century.
Here's a decade-by-decade breakdown of how this focus has developed, along with the terminology that has been used:
I share this not because we all needed a history lesson but to emphasize that we keep pushing this concept, refining it but if you look at the last 100 yrs it wasn’t until the 2000s did we return to measuring the impact.
That’s just amazing to me, Frederick Taylor is often admonished for looking at humans as machines and insisting measurements of productivity be precise.
Well we need to insist the outcome measures of engagement be measured and precise.
But how often are these activities measured by their actual business impact?
Too frequently, organizations execute HR strategies without defining or measuring their true return on investment (ROI).
Simply conducting an employee engagement survey and ticking the box won’t transform your business.
The real impact comes from measuring outcomes and strategically investing based on these insights.
I have never, having worked or consulted to many blue chip fortune 500 companies, witnessed a great employee culture without also experiencing an organization that won!
These companies adhere to best processes, discipline towards measurement and metrics, performance meritocracy and strong, unwavering commitment to leadership at every level.
Engagement is not the ping-pong tables or the food courts or the masseuse on site or the company values printed on the back of employee badges.
The best cultures are winning cultures, they beat their competitors, they delight customers, they drive value to shareholders and they foster this engagement principle as a virtuous cycle.
Conducting an engagement survey is a valuable first step, but it's exactly that (a first step).
To truly reap the rewards of engagement, you must invest intentionally and track measurable results.
When you successfully link HR actions to clear outcomes, here’s what your organization stands to gain:
Engaged employees stay longer. Lower turnover directly translates to fewer disruptions, fewer replacement hires, and greater organizational stability.
Each employee replacement costs significantly more than their salary alone. Recruitment fees, onboarding costs, lost productivity, and training all add up. Engagement reduces these hidden, substantial expenses.
A revolving door of talent means ongoing cultural turbulence and continuous integration challenges. Stable engagement creates a consistent workplace culture, allowing teams to thrive without constant recalibration.
Engaged employees invest extra discretionary effort. Higher productivity naturally boosts organizational efficiency, innovation, and profitability.
Employees who feel valued provide better customer experiences. This creates loyal customers who drive growth and positively impact your brand’s reputation.
Moving from activities to outcomes requires clarity and discipline. Here’s how your organization can bridge the gap:
Start with meaningful, actionable surveys. This identifies strengths and weaknesses clearly and objectively.
What does success look like for you? Define measurable KPIs such as retention rates, cost-per-hire, employee productivity, customer satisfaction scores, and revenue per employee.
Use your engagement data to inform targeted investments: employee training, leadership development, recognition programs; and link these directly to your business outcomes.
Don't stop at the initial results. Continuously measure, iterate, and refine your strategy, ensuring your HR investments remain tightly aligned with business performance.
Simply conducting HR initiatives without measuring their impact is like running a business blindfolded.
You need clear, measurable insights to ensure your activities yield true organizational value.
By actively measuring the ROI of your HR efforts, you empower your team, stabilize your workforce, and strengthen your bottom line.
And most importantly, you reduce resistance to investing more, you reduce objections, you supercharge leaders to own and foster Engagement and the culture and values you say you want!
We understand the challenges of attracting, retaining, and developing the right talent through effective company culture strategies. That’s why we built Commix.io, a Culture Engagement Platform (CEP) software that empowers leadership with the essential tools to identify gaps and strengthen organizational culture in a digital landscape.
Deploy data-informed engagement programs and culture initiatives twice as fast compared to traditional methods.
Reduce the 20+ hours spent on manual reporting and employee feedback analysis.
Strong company culture drives up to 4x better revenue growth. See the measurable impact.