3 Ways to Measure Employee

Engagement
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JUN 19, 2017

By Marc Maloy

With a direct correlation to profitability and innovation, the case for investing in employee
engagement is undeniable. But once you invest, how do you know how youre doing?
Methods of measuring employee engagement can range from a 12-question annual survey
to daily monitoring of online behavior and time spent in meetings.

Here are three key ways employee engagement can be measured and analyzed:
1) Surveys
Employee surveys seem to be the most widespread method for measuring engagement. On
the plus side, youre showing employees you care enough to ask their opinion. On the flip
side, you better have a plan in place to address any negative feedback you may hear from
them.
Likert-scale Based Surveys: We Strongly Agree These Are The Most Popular
Many surveys are designed using the Likert scale, which provides five answers for each
question: strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree and strongly disagree. Bridge and
Qualtrics offer popular survey tools that implement the Likert scale plus the analytics to
quickly compare different departments and determine where alignment and misalignment
occur. If survey results reveal areas where additional training could improve engagement,
Bridge, the learning and engagement platform, also allows you to quickly create a training
course and deploy it to those employees or departments.
Gallups popular Q12 survey also uses the Likert scale, but asks the same questions no
matter the organization to measure engagement and compare results to industry
benchmarks. Questions include:
Do I know what is expected of me?
At work, do my opinions count?
This last year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow?
These types of surveys are a good indicator of how employees feel, but only if they feel
comfortable (and care enough) to answer honestly. Too many neutral responses could
muddy the water, so be sure to phrase questions carefully.
eNet Promoter Score (eNPS): On a Scale of 0 to 10, How Hot is Your Organization?
Much like the consumer version of Net Promoter Score, the eNPS system hinges on a short
list of questions like: On a scale of zero to 10, how likely is it you would recommend this
company as a place to work? How likely would you be to recommend this companys
products or services to a friend or colleague? While these questions are valuable, the three
categories of detractors, passives and promoters are quite polarizing. There is no middle
ground here, really. And maybe thats the idea. The real challenge is what to do next to keep
the conversation going and try to convert passives and detractors into promoters.
2) People Analytics
Volometrix: Calendars and Emails Speak Louder Than Words

Other methods of measuring engagement employed by companies like Volometrix

use people analytics to monitor certain types of employee behavior. Security parameters
can be put in place to ensure employee privacy, but its still best to make employees aware
of whats being monitored to avoid a 1984-esque working environment.
These metrics include tracking and analyzing everything from how much time is spent in
meetings, checking email, collaborating with internal and external teams and work done on
nights and weekends. While these metrics can be helpful, working overtime or on weekends
doesnt necessarily equate to engagement. It could equate to overload at work. Either way,
its best to supplement these tactics with a survey to ask employees how they feel, and
maintain total transparency in disclosing the information that will be monitored using this
type of software.
3) Online Reviews
Glassdoor: Spiteful, Insightful and Eye Opening
This isnt an official measure of employee engagement, as many respondents are
disgruntled ex-employees, looking to bash their previous managers. Glassdoor allows users
to provide anonymous reviews of a company in categories including compensation and
benefits, work/life balance, senior management, culture and values, and career
opportunities. Similar to the eNSP mentioned above, theres also a rating for recommending
to a friend. These comments provide valuable insight into the shortcomings of an
organization, and can also act as a deterrent or recruiting tool for prospective employees.
To keep things fair and balanced, companies can respond to negative comments.
No matter which method you choose to measure engagement, you should always
follow best practices and have a follow-up plan in place.
Which engagement tools have given you the most traction? Feel free to share any
successes or horror stories in the comments below.
 A Likert scale (/lk.rt/ LIK-rt[1] but more commonly pronounced /la.krt/ LY-krt) is
a psychometric scale commonly involved in research that employs questionnaires. It is the most
widely used approach to scaling responses in survey research, such that the term (or more
accurately the Likert-type scale) is often used interchangeably with rating scale, although there are
other types of rating scales.
The scale is named after its inventor, psychologist Rensis Likert.[2] Likert distinguished between a
scale proper, which emerges from collective responses to a set of items (usually eight or more), and
the format in which responses are scored along a range. Technically speaking, a Likert scale refers
only to the latter.[3] The difference between these two concepts has to do with the distinction Likert
made between the underlying phenomenon being investigated and the means of capturing variation
that points to the underlying phenomenon.[4]
When responding to a Likert item, respondents specify their level of agreement or disagreement on
a symmetric agree-disagree scale for a series of statements. Thus, the range captures the intensity
of their feelings for a given item. [5]
A scale can be created as the simple sum of questionnaire responses over the full range of the
scale. In so doing, Likert scaling assumes distances between each item are equal. Importantly, "All
items are assumed to be replications of each other or in other words items are considered to be
parallel instruments"[6] (p. 197). By contrast, modern test theory treats the difficulty of each item
(the ICCs) as information to be incorporated in scaling items.

Contents
[hide]

1Composition
2Scoring and analysis

o 2.1Visual presentation of Likert-type data

3Level of measurement

4Rasch model

5Pronunciation

6See also

7References

8External links

Composition[edit]
An example questionnaire about a website design, with answers as a Likert scale

A Likert scale is the sum of responses on several Likert items. Because many Likert scales pair each
constituent Likert item with its own instance of a visual analogue scale (e.g., a horizontal line, on
which a subject indicates his or her response by circling or checking tick-marks), an individual item is
itself sometimes erroneously referred to as a scale, with this error creating pervasive confusion in
the literature and parlance of the field.
A Likert item is simply a statement that the respondent is asked to evaluate by giving it a quantitative
value on any kind of subjective or objective dimension, with level of agreement/disagreement being
the dimension most commonly used. Well-designed Likert items exhibit both "symmetry" and
"balance". Symmetry means that they contain equal numbers of positive and negative positions
whose respective distances apart are bilaterally symmetric about the "neutral"/zero value (whether
or not that value is presented as a candidate). Balance means that to the distance between each
candidate value is the same, allowing for quantitative comparisons such as averaging to be valid
across items containing more than two candidate values. [7] Often five ordered response levels are
used, although many psychometricians advocate using seven or nine levels; an empirical
study[8] found that items with five or seven levels may produce slightly higher mean scores relative to
the highest possible attainable score, compared to those produced from the use of 10 levels, and
this difference was statistically significant. In terms of the other data characteristics, there was very
little difference among the scale formats in terms of variation about the mean, skewness or kurtosis.
The format of a typical five-level Likert item, for example, could be:

1. Strongly disagree
2. Disagree

3. Neither agree nor disagree

4. Agree

5. Strongly agree
Likert scaling is a bipolar scaling method, measuring either positive or negative response to a
statement. Sometimes an even-point scale is used, where the middle option of "Neither agree nor
disagree" is not available. This is sometimes called a "forced choice" method, since the neutral
option is removed.[9] The neutral option can be seen as an easy option to take when a respondent is
unsure, and so whether it is a true neutral option is questionable. A 1987 study found negligible
differences between the use of "undecided" and "neutral" as the middle option in a 5-point Likert
scale.[10]
Likert scales may be subject to distortion from several causes. Respondents may:

Avoid using extreme response categories (central tendency bias), especially out of a desire
to avoid being perceived as having extremist views (an instance of social desirability bias). For
questions early in a test, an expectation that questions about which one has stronger views may
follow, such that on earlier questions one "leaves room" for stronger responses later in the test,
which expectation creates bias that is especially pernicious in that its effects are not uniform
throughout the test and cannot be corrected for through simple across-the-board normalization;
Agree with statements as presented (acquiescence bias), with this effect especially strong
among persons, such as children, developmentally disabled persons, and the elderly or infirm,
who are subjected to a culture of institutionalization that encourages and incentivizes eagerness
to please;

Disagree with sentences as presented out of a defensive desire to avoid making erroneous
statements and/or avoid negative consequences that respondents may fear will result from their
answers being used against them, especially if misinterpreted and/or taken out of context;

Provide answers that they believe will be evaluated as indicating strength or lack of
weakness/dysfunction ("faking good"),

Provide answers that they believe will be evaluated as indicating weakness or presence of
impairment/pathology ("faking bad"),

Try to portray themselves or their organization in a light that they believe the examiner or
society to consider more favorable than their true beliefs (social desirability bias, the
intersubjective version of objective "faking good" discussed above);

Try to portray themselves or their organization in a light that they believe the examiner or
society to consider less favorable / more unfavorable than their true beliefs (norm defiance, the
intersubjective version of objective "faking bad" discussed above).

Designing a scale with balanced keying (an equal number of positive and negative statements and,
especially, an equal number of positive and negative statements regarding each position or issue in
question) can obviate the problem of acquiescence bias, since acquiescence on positively keyed
items will balance acquiescence on negatively keyed items, but defensive, central tendency, and
social desirability biases are somewhat more problematic.

Scoring and analysis[edit]

After the questionnaire is completed, each item may be analyzed separately or in some cases item
responses may be summed to create a score for a group of items. Hence, Likert scales are often
called summative scales.
Whether individual Likert items can be considered as interval-level data, or whether they should be
treated as ordered-categorical data is the subject of considerable disagreement in the literature, [11]
[12]
with strong convictions on what are the most applicable methods. This disagreement can be
traced back, in many respects, to the extent to which Likert items are interpreted as
being ordinal data.
There are two primary considerations in this discussion. First, Likert scales are arbitrary. The value
assigned to a Likert item has no objective numerical basis, either in terms of measure theory or
scale (from which a distance metric can be determined). The value assigned to each Likert item is
simply determined by the researcher designing the survey, who makes the decision based on a
desired level of detail. However, by convention Likert items tend to be assigned progressive positive
integer values. Likert scales typically range from 2 to 10 with 5 or 7 being the most common.
[13]
Further, this progressive structure of the scale is such that each successive Likert item is treated
as indicating a better response than the preceding value. (This may differ in cases where reverse
ordering of the Likert Scale is needed).
The second, and possibly more important point, is whether the "distance" between each successive
item category is equivalent, which is inferred traditionally. For example, in the above five-point Likert
item, the inference is that the distance between category 1 and 2 is the same as between category
3 and 4. In terms of good research practice, an equidistant presentation by the researcher is
important; otherwise a bias in the analysis may result. For example, a four-point Likert item with
categories "Poor", "Average", "Good", and "Very Good" is unlikely to have all equidistant categories
since there is only one category that can receive a below average rating. This would arguably bias
any result in favor of a positive outcome. On the other hand, even if a researcher presents what he
or she believes are equidistant categories, it may not be interpreted as such by the respondent.
A good Likert scale, as above, will present a symmetry of categories about a midpoint with clearly
defined linguistic qualifiers. In such symmetric scaling, equidistant attributes will typically be more
clearly observed or, at least, inferred. It is when a Likert scale is symmetric and equidistant that it will
behave more like an interval-level measurement. So while a Likert scale is indeed ordinal, if well
presented it may nevertheless approximate an interval-level measurement. This can be beneficial
since, if it was treated just as an ordinal scale, then some valuable information could be lost if the
distance between Likert items were not available for consideration. The important idea here is that
the appropriate type of analysis is dependent on how the Likert scale has been presented.
Notions of central tendency are often applicable at the item level - that is responses often show a
quasi-normal distribution. The validity of such measures depends on the underlying interval nature of
the scale. If interval nature is assumed for a comparison of two groups, parametric analyses such as
the independent samples t-test and the paired samples t-test are not inappropriate. [3] If non-
parametric tests are to be performed the Pratt (1959) [14] modification to the Wilcoxon signed-rank
test is recommended over the standard Wilcoxon signed-rank test.[3]
Responses to several Likert questions may be summed providing that all questions use the same
Likert scale and that the scale is a defensible approximation to an interval scale, in which case
the central limit theorem allows treatment of the data as interval data measuring a latent variable. [citation
needed]
If the summed responses fulfill these assumptions, parametric statistical tests such as
the analysis of variance can be applied. Typical cutoffs for thinking that this approximation will be
acceptable is a minimum of 4 and preferably 8 items in the sum. [15][16]
To model binary Likert responses directly, they may be represented in a binomial form by summing
agree and disagree responses separately. The chi-squared, Cochran's Q test, or McNemar test are
common statistical procedures used after this transformation. Non-parametric tests such as chi-
squared test, MannWhitney test, Wilcoxon signed-rank test, or KruskalWallis test.[17] are often used
in the analysis of Likert scale data.
Consensus based assessment (CBA) can be used to create an objective standard for Likert scales
in domains where no generally accepted or objective standard exists. Consensus based assessment
(CBA) can be used to refine or even validate generally accepted standards. [citation needed]
Visual presentation of Likert-type data[edit]
An important part of data analysis and presentation is the visualization (or plotting) of data. The
subject of plotting Likert (and other) rating scales is discussed at length in a paper by Robbins and
Heiberger.[18] They recommend the use of what they call diverging stacked bar charts.

Level of measurement[edit]
The five response categories are often believed to represent an Interval level of measurement. But
this can only be the case if the intervals between the scale points correspond to empirical
observations in a metric sense. Reips and Funke (2008) [19] show that this criterion is much better met
by a visual analogue scale. In fact, there may also appear phenomena which even question the
ordinal scale level in Likert scales.[20] For example, in a set of items A,B,C rated with a Likert scale
circular relations like A>B, B>C and C>A can appear. This violates the axiom of transitivity for the
ordinal scale.
Research by Labovitz[21] and Traylor[22] provide evidence that, even with rather large distortions of
perceived distances between scale points, Likert-type items perform closely to scales that are
perceived as equal intervals. So these items and other equal-appearing scales in questionnaires are
robust to violations of the equal distance assumption many researchers believe are required for
parametric statistical procedures and tests.

Rasch model[edit]
Likert scale data can, in principle, be used as a basis for obtaining interval level estimates on a
continuum by applying the polytomous Rasch model, when data can be obtained that fit this model.
In addition, the polytomous Rasch model permits testing of the hypothesis that the statements reflect
increasing levels of an attitude or trait, as intended. For example, application of the model often
indicates that the neutral category does not represent a level of attitude or trait between the disagree
and agree categories.
Again, not every set of Likert scaled items can be used for Rasch measurement. The data has to be
thoroughly checked to fulfill the strict formal axioms of the model.
Net Promoter Score Definition
The Net Promoter Score is an index ranging from -100 to 100 that measures
the willingness of customers to recommend a companys products or services
to others. It is used as a proxy for gauging the customers overall satisfaction
with a companys product or service and the customers loyalty to the brand.

Net Promoter Score Calculation

Customers are surveyed on one single question. They are asked to rate on an
11-point scale the likelihood of recommending the company or brand to a
friend or colleague.

On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this companys

product or service to a friend or a colleague?

Based on their rating, customers are then classified in 3 categories:

detractors, passives and promoters.

DETRACTORS
Detractors gave a score lower or equal to 6. They are not particularly thrilled
by the product or the service. They, with all likelihood, wont purchase again
from the company, could potentially damage the companys reputation
through negative word of mouth.

PASSIVES
Passives gave a score of 7 or 8. They are somewhat satisfied but could easily
switch to a competitors offering if given the opportunity. They probably
wouldnt spread any negative word-of-mouth, but are not enthusiastic enough
about your products or services to actually promote them.

PROMOTERS
Promoters answered 9 or 10. They love the companys products and
services. They are the repeat buyers, are the enthusiastic evangelist who
recommends the company products and services to other potential buyers.

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is determined by subtracting the percentage of

customers who are detractors from the percentage who are promoters. What
is generated is a score between -100 and 100 called the Net Promoter Score.
At one end of the spectrum, if when surveyed, all of the customers gave a
score lower or equal to 6, this would lead to a NPS of -100. On the other end
of the spectrum, if all of the customers were answering the question with a 9
or 10, then the total Net Promoter Score would be 100.
People analytics, also known as talent analytics or HR analytics, refers
to the method of analytics that can help managers and executives
make decisions about their employees or workforce. People analytics
applies statistics, technology and expertise to large sets of talent
data, which results in making better management and business
decisions for an organization. People analytics is a new domain for
most HR departments. Companies are looking to better drive the
return on their investments in people. The old approaches of gut feel is
no longer sufficient.

What Are the Benefits of People Analytics?

People analytics helps organizations to make smarter, more strategic

and more informed talent decisions. With people analytic,
organizations can find better applicants, make smarter hiring
decisions, and increase employee performance and retention.

Cornerstones suite of people analytics products apply sophisticated

data science and machine learning to help organizations more
efficiently and effectively manage their people. Cornerstones
analytics suite give organizations options for viewing, understanding
and acting on talent data across the entire employee lifecycle. This
includes Cornerstone View, an interactive data visualization
application that gives business leaders deeper intelligence about their
people, Cornerstone Planning, an intuitive workforce planning
application that helps organizations easily create, manage and
execute accurate hiring plans over multiple time horizons, as well as
Cornerstone Insights, its predictive and prescriptive analytics solution
that equips business leaders with the intelligence to better recruit,
train, manage and develop their people.