Employee engagement is the degree of emotional commitment and enthusiasm an employee feels toward their work, team, and organization.
It goes beyond simple job satisfaction, reflecting an employee’s willingness to exert extra effort—going above and beyond their basic job requirements—to help the company succeed. Engaged employees are psychologically invested, feeling connected to the organization’s mission and values, and this typically drives higher levels of motivation, a sense of purpose, and a positive outlook toward achieving business goals. This deep connection makes workers more productive, innovative, and significantly less likely to leave a company.
Measuring employee engagement in the context of performance management
For performance management purposes, measuring employee engagement requires tracking a combination of attitudinal and performance-related metrics.
Attitudinal measurements rely on employee engagement surveys (like the Employee Net Promoter Score or eNPS) and pulse surveys that gauge commitment, satisfaction with growth opportunities, and feelings about the work environment. Performance-related metrics connect engagement to concrete outcomes, including lower voluntary turnover rates, reduced absenteeism, higher quantitative and qualitative productivity scores, and success rates on key objectives, all of which are used in performance reviews to correlate an employee’s level of psychological investment with their actual contributions and organizational impact.