Most companies intuitively understand the importance of HR activities: employee surveys, engagement initiatives, and cultural programs. But what we aren't always good at is sticking to our gameplan and in this case it seems to be a bad case of naming ping-pong.
"Its this, no its this; measure this, this is really it; nope, its really this, seriously."
And you get the sense each time we shift our definition of "engagement" 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?
And concepts must evolve, that's good science meets practice and thus, terms and means of measurement change. My point is I am not sure everyone we has HR professionals sell our wares care to indulge us on the journey.
In my experience, strong employee engagement means more discretionary effort (e.g., I work hard because I care more), less transactional effort (e.g., I work because you pay me) and better outcomes (e.g., productivity, product quality, innovation, etc.), but none more important than outcomes for your customers.
As a company leader, I want every employee walking on to the "shop floor" (be it a contact center, a plant, a warehouse, a customer site, a corporate office, a data center) absolutely on fire with their faith towards their jobs and our customers. The companies that achieve that can not lose, and yet, this is one of the most difficult things to achieve. I think it's because we don't do enough to show the real-time outcomes of strong engagement. We put too much of the engagement "problem" at the feet of HR who touch 10% of the employees 10% of the time instead of the hands of managers who touch 100% of the employees 100% of the time!
A Century of Changing Terms
Over the decades, we've labeled employee motivation/satisfaction differently:
Despite new terminology, the fundamental challenge remains: clearly measuring and leveraging the value of these activities and showing how they impact the top and bottom line. It's very interesting that Frederick Taylor who had been admonished as “inhuman”, in fact it spurred “humanistic” views and theories of human behavior and psychology for the next 100yrs (that again is a whole different article about “taking theory to its logical conclusion” and what happens when you do). And yet, here we are, 100yrs later emphatically stating everywhere, in every application we use to be metric and measurement oriented…OKRs, KPIs, “what gets measured gets done!”, workforce planning and dashboards and so on….
Why It Matters
At Commix.io We Increase Your Chances of Accomplishing Outcomes: Measure to Manage
Moving from activities to outcomes requires clarity and discipline. Here’s how your organization can bridge the gap using Commix.io tools powered by Mira:
1. Survey & Listen
Start with meaningful, actionable input from your team. This identifies strengths and weaknesses clearly and objectively. Commix.io has hundreds of pre-populated survey campaigns to keep the pulse on teams throughout your organization and measure any time you make a new effort to enhance the employee value proposition. And here's the beauty of this platform, it's a leadership platform, you don't need to deploy it to every employee, only leaders (your employee census is utilized) but this isn't a traditional SaaS PEPM model with a long deployment and change management implementation schedule. We believe culture belongs to the leaders in your company and we seek to empower them to craft and influence that culture every day!
2. Define Clear Metrics
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. With Commix.io we can easily import your key workforce metrics and analytics to create the outcome dashboards for engagement that work very much like "eyes on glass" you might find in computer networks or aviation control.
3. Analyze & Act Strategically: Enter Mira!
Mira takes your engagement data and coaches leaders on targeted investments they can make: employee training, increased skill building, building "special" project teams, specific recognition programs beyond pay; and links these directly to your business outcomes. This isn't skirting HR, its helping HR become that strategic partner we want it to be. All of this data leverageable to HR as it looks to drive enterprise programs and initiatives that will have enterprise impact.
4. Track ROI Continuously: Mira and More Mira!
Don't stop at the initial results. Continuously measure, iterate, and refine your strategy, ensuring your human capital investments remain tightly aligned with business performance. The more each individual manager interacts with Mira the smarter it gets around that manager and across your organization, so we can start suggesting best practices from one team to another.
📍Tip
Turn company culture into your competitive advantage. Here’s a good read on how to make it into a business case.
Takeaway
Don't just perform engagement activities—measure them. Real growth happens when engagement translates into measurable outcomes.
Ready to turn your HR insights into measurable ROE?
At Commix.io, powered by Mira, our AI Culture Copilot, we help you do exactly that.
After the smiley faces, kudos and high fives—How are You Measuring ROE (Return on Engagement)?
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.