Something feels off. Turnover isn’t skyrocketing, but your turnover rate and absenteeism rate are slowly rising. Conversations that used to feel collaborative now feel tense. You’re hearing more frustration, fewer new ideas. The number of employees leaving may be small, but the energy loss across teams is unmistakable. The work is getting done, yet the level of engagement has dipped, and it’s showing up in your people and culture systems.
For mission-driven leaders, these shifts influence employee performance, retention, and even organizational sustainability. But before rushing to restructure teams or launch new initiatives, pause to understand what’s really happening.
That’s where a diagnostic approach to measuring employee engagement becomes essential. Gathering employee feedback through employee engagement surveys, pulse surveys, and employee net promoter score (eNPS) questions helps uncover what’s driving—and eroding —employee satisfaction.
Using the right employee engagement metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs), such as absenteeism, employee recognition, and turnover rate, allows you to connect the dots between engagement and outcomes. These insights reveal patterns in your employee experience, identify where trust has broken down, and provide the data you need to design more equitable, sustainable workplace culture systems.
Start by hearing from everyone, not just the most vocal staff. Conducting employee engagement surveys or short pulse surveys provides a baseline for measuring engagement across the organization. This kind of employee engagement measurement builds a clear picture of where your engagement strategy is strong and where it needs attention.
At Edgility, we encourage organizations to evaluate their Total Value Proposition (TVP), the complete picture of what your organization offers employees. It includes the factors that influence employee satisfaction, job satisfaction, and employee retention:
Brand: Is what we stand for clear and well-received by our stakeholders?
Impact: Is what we stand for clear and well-received by our stakeholders?
Strategy: Is what we stand for clear and well-received by our stakeholders?
Alignment: Do employees feel their daily work is meaningful, has impact, and motivates them to perform at their best?
Inclusion: Does our organization invite peers of all different identities to contribute and be heard?
Wellness: Is there evident respect for the physical and mental health of our organization’s employees?
Accountability: Does our leadership own up to the organization’s shortcomings and resolve issues efficiently?
Evaluation: Are performance evaluations accurate, and do they allow staff to articulate strengths and areas for improvement?
Goals: Is the criteria for success straightforward, and can it be applied to our team and our organization as a whole?
Development: Do our managers actively promote a culture of feedback and provide meaningful support to their teams?
Investment: Are our training and professional development opportunities effective in helping employees succeed in their roles?
Support: Do our managers foster safe spaces that help staff feel connected to the organization and their work?
Salary: Are salaries equitable, and do employees feel their pay fairly reflects their contributions to the organization?
Benefits: Are our organization’s benefits (health insurance, retirement, etc.) fair, accessible, and aligned with employee needs?
Recognition: Are the expectations and processes for promotions and pay increases transparent and easy to understand?
When you “pressure test” these areas, engagement data begins to form a story. You might find that highly engaged employees rate purpose and culture highly, while disengaged employees cite unclear expectations or lack of growth. Identifying these engagement trends provides critical benchmarks to guide your next steps.
No two employees experience your company culture the same way. When reviewing employee engagement metrics, disaggregate the data by department, tenure, demographics, and/or level.
Maybe newer team members show strong job satisfaction, while long-tenured employees express frustration. Maybe frontline staff have higher absenteeism rates while managers report greater employee satisfaction. These differences highlight inequities that can impact employee retention and business outcomes.
By breaking the data apart, you move from assumptions to insights, understanding who is thriving, who is struggling, and why.
To gauge engagement and loyalty across your organization, include a question that measures your employee net promoter score (eNPS). This score helps reveal how likely your team members are to recommend your organization as a great place to work—an indicator of trust, satisfaction, and connection to your mission.
Ask: “How likely are you to recommend our organization as a great place to work?”
This simple measure helps you quickly gauge overall engagement levels and identify your strongest advocate groups and biggest detractor groups. Then, look for patterns. What do employees who rate your organization highly also value most? Where do lower scores cluster?
Not every low score needs immediate intervention. Sometimes dissatisfaction points to communication gaps, not broken systems. That’s why it’s important to go beyond measuring satisfaction to understanding awareness, accessibility, and equity.
A well-designed employee engagement survey should help you prioritize. Ask employees to rank what matters most, what would entice them to stay, what might cause them to leave, and what changes would have the greatest impact on their employee experience. This kind of insight allows you to focus your engagement strategy where it will make the biggest difference.
For example, we have seen organizations with highly competitive salary scales, generous professional development stipends, or wellness benefits that staff simply don’t know exist. In one case, a client offered gym reimbursements and flexible scheduling options, but employees only found out through word of mouth. In another, pay ranges were equitable and data-informed, yet were never clearly communicated to the organization. By keeping them hidden, the organization unintentionally created the very sense of unfairness it sought to avoid.
These examples show why it’s not enough to collect engagement data; you have to ask the right survey questions about clarity and access.
Sometimes the problem isn’t what you offer; it’s how well it’s communicated. Even the best benefits, recognition programs, or training opportunities can lose their value if employees don’t know about them or don’t feel included in them.
Transparency and communication are vital parts of a sustainable engagement strategy that builds trust, fairness, and connection across your people and culture systems.
Surveys tell you what is happening; focus groups tell you why.
Invite staff to check-ins or facilitated discussions based on survey findings. Group participants by similar roles. Avoid combining supervisors and direct reports in the same group—psychological safety is key to encouraging open dialogue and honest employee feedback.
This more in-depth exploration often uncovers stories that metrics alone can’t capture: frustration with unclear communication, lack of employee recognition, or misalignment between personal values and organizational priorities. When integrated with your engagement data, these insights build a richer understanding of your employee experience—revealing not just what’s happening, but also hearing what solutions could look like and what changes might truly improve the experience for your staff.
Once the data is clear, engage your staff in creating solutions. Hold a staff retreat or workshops where respondents review findings and help prioritize next steps. In larger organizations, establish cross-functional task forces to guide the process.
This shared ownership boosts engagement levels because staff see their voices driving real change. When employees co-create solutions, retention improves, absenteeism drops, and workdays feel more productive and connected.
You can even link these changes to KPIs or dashboards that track employee engagement metrics, helping you measure progress toward a more equitable and sustainable workplace culture.
Implementation is where listening turns into action. Once you’ve identified key priorities, move quickly to demonstrate progress, especially on areas that surfaced repeatedly in your employee engagement surveys or pulse surveys.
One of the most common pitfalls organizations face is inaction. Asking employees for feedback and then doing nothing with it can erode trust faster than not asking at all. Staff want to see that their input mattered, which is why visible follow-through is critical.
Start with a few quick wins and tangible steps that show the organization is listening and responsive. Maybe it’s revising outdated policies, improving meeting structures, or clarifying pay transparency. Small, visible improvements build confidence in the process and signal that leadership is serious about creating a better employee experience.
At the same time, design your long-term goals thoughtfully. Engage employees in shaping solutions and tracking progress. When staff participate in implementation through task forces, working groups, or regular check-ins, they feel ownership of the results, which increases engagement and long-term retention.
Keep communication consistent throughout. Share updates on what’s changing, why it matters, and how feedback continues to inform decisions. Transparency sustains trust, even when larger initiatives take time to roll out.
Remember: building trust is key. Listen, then act. Every survey or eNPS result is an opportunity. Acting on the data, showing early progress, and involving staff in the solution-building process turn that opportunity into practice, and ensure your people and culture systems truly reflect your organization’s values.
Even the best employee engagement surveys can fall flat if staff don’t believe their voices will lead to change. The key is not just to listen, it’s to listen, act, follow up, and measure over time. Employees need to see the through line between what was heard and what decisions were made. Without visible follow-through, even the most well-intentioned surveys become like a vending machine in the basement, technically there, but forgotten and unused.
That’s where partnering with a third-party consultant can make a real difference.
Because a third-party partner approaches your data with both distance and expertise, the resulting recommendations are clearer, more comprehensive, and tailored to your culture. They can help you link engagement data, retention, and employee performance outcomes to meaningful next steps that sustain change over time.
Engaging a trusted external partner doesn’t remove leadership responsibility; it strengthens it. It shows your staff that their voices are valued, their input is being handled responsibly, and their feedback is shaping real, lasting improvements in your people and culture systems.
Listening isn’t passive; it’s the foundation of a healthy, equitable organization.
By integrating employee engagement metrics, pulse surveys, and eNPS tracking into your people and culture systems, you can spot engagement trends, reduce employee turnover, and enhance employee satisfaction long before problems escalate.
Before overhauling your systems, pause to listen. Diagnose before you design. Measure, act, and communicate consistently. That’s how you move from disengagement to highly engaged employees, from data to direction, and from intention to impact.
Ready to understand what your staff are really telling you?
The default approach to assessing your people practices often overlooks equity and real organizational impact. Relying on traditional evaluation methods won’t deliver the insights or accountability needed to address today’s complex challenges.
Our Talent Equity Assessment is designed to help mission-driven organizations pause, listen, and evaluate their people and culture systems through an equity-centered lens.
Use this survey to:
Ready to build a high-performance culture that reflects your mission? Read and download High Performance, Shared Purpose: A Leader’s Guide to Building the Culture Your Mission-Driven Organization Needs, and learn how equity, accountability, and growth come together to strengthen your people and purpose.