The term “employee engagement” has been around for decades. Typically, companies measure it through an annual employee survey. The survey is designed to offer employees the opportunity to share their feedback about why (or why not) they are committed to an organization.

Traditional employee engagement surveys are not always accurate, though. If the management only administers them once a year, they miss out on all of the possible issues that lead employees to engage, or prevent them from it. And that might mean there are disengaged employees at the firm.

Disengaged employees are not productive. They are not focused on fulfilling corporate goals. Most importantly, they discourage engaged employees. Fortunately, there are steps you can take as a manager to fix this problem.

A traditional survey is no longer enough to measure how engaged employees are. Between one year to the next, there might have been a management transition, and the new leadership has not engaged employees. Or, there is no talent mobility, meaning that qualified people are stuck in jobs they have outgrown.

The idea of engaging employees itself has also changed. The goal is no longer to have employees who are happy about their jobs; instead, it should be to make them feel as though they are part of something bigger than themselves. They shouldn’t say, “I don’t feel like going to work today, but I have to.” What they should say is, “I’m so excited to go to work!”

To determine levels of employee engagement, you need to ask questions that will make it easy for you to get the answers you need. These queries should be as specific as possible. Furthermore, avoid questions with yes or no answers. They cannot provide depth and insight into how engaged an employee feels.

Although the content of the survey will vary from business to business based on a firm’s unique situation, there are some queries that are universal. One enlightening question to ask is, “How do you feel about getting up for work each morning?”

You could provide employees with a list of adjectives to describe their feelings about coming to work. Another query to ask would be, “What have managers done in the past year (or time period of your choice) to inspire you?” The follow up question would be, “What have managers done to decrease your motivation?”

So, with all of this knowledge, how do you measure employee engagement? 360 Degree Feedback offers a cost-effective web-based solution. There are hundreds of questions to choose from, and it’s easy to create, distribute and evaluate the surveys.

The 360 Degree System is used by businesses that belong to various industries. This includes Macy’s, Kapersky Lab, Husky Energy, Pandora Internet Radio and Thomson Reuters.

Call Grapevine Evaluations today at 1-866-386-0214 to schedule a demo and make disengaged employees a thing of the past.