u/FicOff

Since it's We're Listening time again and people are asking the usual "What's the point, nobody's listening" questions, I thought I'd explain the part of We're Listening that managers actually pay attention to: Engagement Score. If you're new to the company many large companies use a similar measure, so it's worth learning about.

What is "Engagement Score", and why do they care about it?

Most people don't realize that it comes from just two questions, and there's some research backing it.

1. How happy are you working for X?
2. Would you recommend working for X?

That's all. Just those two questions determine the score you see on the poster. It's not a percentage. A score of 70 doesn't mean 70% of colleagues are happy. It means, on a scale of 1-5, the average rating on those questions was 3.8/5. A store can be a mixed bag of miserable and happy and still score 70. The formula used is (Avg - 1)*25 if anyone wants to test it out.

Why is it important?

Because Glint\Microsoft "claim" that based on their research those two questions are a strong predictor of employee turnover and business performance in the coming year. That's the most important thing about the score. If this "engagement index" gets too low it's a potential warning that turnover will be high and business performance impacted.

If it stays around the same or goes up there's not a lot of incentive to address employee problems.

Comments don't contribute to the engagement score, and sometimes aren't even visible to stores. All other questions might help to explain the engagement score, but they don't contribute to it.

So why should anyone care?

Well, it's your workplace and understanding how it all works is useful if you want to have an impact on what happens there. Whether you think it's a waste of time or worthwhile, at least you know what the number on the poster means and why it matters.

Some people will refuse to fill it out as a form of protest, which is understandable. However, not responding doesn't count as a negative response, and a lack of participation is to be expected.

It just means your opinion isn't included in the overall Engagement Score.

Hope this gives people a better understanding!