Employee engagement is tricky enough to measure in a regular office setup. And when you add deskless workers to the mix, it only gets trickier, right? This is where employee engagement benchmarks can come in to save the day. These numbers tell you the truth about what’s working and highlight areas where you need to step up with focused strategies.

In this blog, we’ll be breaking down employee engagement benchmarks, why they are essential, their limitations, and how you can use them to improve your frontline employee experience. 

What Are Employee Engagement Benchmarks?

Employee engagement benchmarks are numbers that explain how invested and motivated your team is. Think of them as a scientific way to track your company’s unique progress on the engagement front and even compare it with others in the industry.  Tracking these benchmarks let you bid adieu to all the guesswork and vague impressions around engagement with absolute clarity about where you stand. Once you’ve got this intel, you know what to do(or not to do!) to improve your employee engagement and experiences. 

Here are some popular Employee Engagement Benchmarks you can track:

• Employee Engagement Score: This metric summarizes how connected employees feel and reflects their motivation and commitment towards work as a score. The higher, the better.
  
  
• Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS): This measure captures employee sentiment and explains how likely employees are to recommend your workplace to outsiders.  A good eNPS means you’re in your employees' good books.
  
  
• Turnover rates: This benchmark shows the rate at which employees leave your company. Yep, high turnover signals potential disengagement.
  
  
• Absenteeism levels: This is a measure of how often absences occur in an organization. We all know this can be more than just the flu, right?

What are the types of employee engagement benchmark data?

Relying on employee engagement benchmark data is most useful when you take a holistic approach. What we mean is it is advisable to look at it from all angles by tracking different types of benchmarks, such as:

• Industry-specific benchmarks that help assess your performance compared to others in your industry. For example, say you’re in manufacturing and find out your company has an eNPS of +5. Compared with the industry benchmark of +11, you know there’s room to do better.
  
  
• Internal employee engagement benchmarks help assess how your company progresses over time. You can use them to compare how the performance of different teams varies over time. For example, are the frontline employees less engaged than their in-office counterparts now compared to years earlier, or are frontline employees in location A less engaged than frontline employees in location B?
  
  
• Demographic benchmarks that break down facts by demographic groups to identify employee engagement trends more easily. For instance, determine whether younger employees are less engaged or whether your new hires feel connected or not yet.
  
  
• Regional and global benchmarks which map employee engagement to locations. You can use them to identify instances of where engagement in one office might soar while another lags. You know, pinpoint precisely where support is needed.
  
  
• Leadership benchmarks that spotlight on the leadership impact. We all know how strong leaders drive engagement. So, if these numbers are off, you know it’s time to address the elephant in the room.

What are the benefits of using employee engagement benchmark data?

The main benefit of using employee engagement benchmark data is that it acts as a stepping stone to give real flight to your employee engagement strategy. When you know the real deal from the numbers, you get to position yourself best to deliver actual results. These metrics make it possible by enabling the following:

1. Realistic goal-setting: When you track them, you get a solid starting point for listing specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound goals (and crushing them).
2. Tracking progress like a pro: These metrics equip you to know the truth about whether your engagement strategies are hitting the mark or are in dire need of a revisit.
   
   
3. Comparing to the industry: These numbers also shine a spotlight on how you stack up compared to your industry peers. They tell you exactly where you shine and where you could(and must) do better. 

Therefore, tracking these holistically increases the likelihood of achieving enhanced engagement outcomes, leading to happier employees, lower turnover, and better business outcomes. Who doesn’t want that, right?  

But hey, while the employee engagement benchmark scores are helpful, it’s crucial to remember not to obsess over them as they’re not everything you must care about. 

Limitations of benchmarking & overcoming them

While you rely on employee engagement benchmarks, it’s best to exercise caution as they could:

• Create distraction: Sure, chasing industry averages and comparing yourself to the best is excellent. However, if you focus too much on external standards, you might get distracted by your internal progress. So, strike a balance out there while you compare.
  
  
• Suffer from bias: If your sample size is small (which can happen, say, if enough employees aren’t responding to your surveys), your employee engagement benchmark data might not tell you the whole story because your sample size is small and can suffer. This is statistically called small sample bias and you can avoid it by ensuring you collect as much data as possible to represent the different groups and follow up with non-responders.
  
  
• Mislead you: Sometimes, you may end up misreading the data. For example, you might see an above-average employee engagement score(say 75%) based on your historical data, which is about 68%. You get excited, as this seems like a win. Turns out, this is only half the truth. In reality, specific groups within your study pool(for instance, frontline workers in remote areas) have much lower engagement levels, around 50%, with the overall average inflated by the others.
  
  The best employee workforce analytics platforms help you dive deep into the data to avoid being mislead. They let you benchmark engagement data by location, department, or team. This tailored approach ensures you’re not just tracking generic metrics but can also compare meaningful, context-specific data to uncover actionable insights.
  
  
• Get caught in a maze: When you track employee engagement index benchmarks, you might feel you’re already doing everything that’s needed. However, it helps to remember that you won't see real change if you lack follow-through and don’t act on the insights. So that “action” part is super important!
  
  Using holistic employee experience platforms simplifies this “acting on” part. They are built with the tools you need to implement targeted strategies for specific groups to address issues or replicate success. 

4 tips for using employee engagement benchmark data

1. Be consistent with tracking and acting upon the benchmarks. Relying on pulse surveys and real-time feedback tools can help you ensure you’re always in the loop.
   
   
2. Prioritize the engagement drivers that matter the most. For example, recognition, career development, and leadership communication.
   
   
3. Make sure you align with big-picture goals. There can be a problem of plenty when you’re tracking these benchmarks. So, focus on the metrics that reflect your company’s mission, whether retention, productivity, or employee advocacy.
   
   
4. Swear by smart tools to simplify benchmarking. Using dependable platforms like Speakap will make analyzing and acting on employee engagement benchmarking data a breeze.

Ready to use employee engagement benchmarks? Let's go!

Employee engagement benchmarks are the secret sauce to a thriving, motivated workforce. They’re powerful metrics for understanding your team, setting meaningful goals, measuring employee engagement progress, and moving towards the dream destination of a highly engaged workforce. Using support from the right tools can make employee engagement benchmarking a breeze.

Take a moment and reflect: Are you making the progress you aim at with your current engagement strategies? Are they giving you the clarity and results you need? Would you be better equipped to connect with your team and drive the change you’d like using smarter tools? If your answer is yes, it’s time to explore ways to simplify benchmarking and make it more insightful and actionable. Your team and business deserve this!

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