Employee well-being is vital for the success of any company. It's a key factor for employee engagement and retention. To keep teams happy and productive, top companies are focusing on improving their employees physical and mental health.
Some companies offer unique employee well-being programs, such as companywide time off at Red Hat or peer recognition at First American Financial. But how do you measure employee well-being at your company?
We asked business and HR leaders how they keep a pulse on their teams' engagement and well-being. From participation in company events to a humble coffee breaks, there are different indicators to measure the overall well-being of your employees.
Here are 9 examples of how you can measure your team’s well-being:
- Presenteeism in Company Activities
- Average Number of Slack Messages Sent Per Week
- Employee Net Promoter Score (ENPS)
- Track Employees' Sentiments With Surveys & One-on-One's
- Mental Health Program Participation & Satisfaction
- Measure Absenteeism Against Healthcare Costs
- Usage of Anonymous Tip Line
- Taking a Personal Approach Brings Genuine Insights
- Through Bi-weekly Coffee Breaks
Presenteeism in Company Activities
One indicator of employee well-being is participation. Webris Managing Partner Ryan Stewart says, "Presenteeism in company activities helps us measure employee well-being."
Successively reaching more than the quorum number means we’re doing a great job in holding wellness sessions and training programs.
Whether held in-person or virtually, Webris conducts various initiatives such as fitness classes, meditation breaks, and channel check-ins to catch their employees interest to join.
Stewart suggests to strategically schedule the time of events. "Ensure that these do not coincide with important meetings. This way, our employees could have a sound, enjoyable, and pleasurable working experience."
Average Number of Slack Messages Sent Per Week
Though it might sound crazy, one way Test Prep Insight CEO John Ross tracks employee well-being is by looking at the average number of Slack messages sent per week.
Ross says. "When employees are engaged and happy, they send a lot of messages—business-related and personal."
Basically, happy employees are more outgoing and communicative.
Employees who are not happy or engaged exhibit the exact opposite. They tend to send few messages. They clam up and only respond to messages when necessary, and are not proactive communicators.
Ross suggests to periodically check the average number of messages sent on Slack on an employee-by-employee basis and look for dips. "When the number of Slack messages sent is high, I take that as a good sign of employee well-being," says Ross.
Employee Net Promoter Score (ENPS)
The Employee Net Promoter Score is a quick and easy strategy for measuring employee sentiment and well-being. GoodHire Chief Operating Officer Max Wesman explains, "It tells you how likely employees are to recommend working at your company, and does so with just one question: 'On a scale from 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our company to others?'"
Answers are divided on a numeric scale based on degrees of advocacy: those who rate the company from 0 to 6 are known as "Detractors", and signal a level of dissatisfaction that points towards low employee well-being.
Those who rate from 7 to 8 are known as "Neutrals", having no strong opinions one way or the other. Employees who rate the company at a 9 or a 10 are known as "Promoters" and tend to be the happiest and most satisfied.
After collecting the data, simply subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. Scores range from -100 to +100, and generally, high employee well-being is hallmarked by a positive score of at least 10-30.
Max Wesman, Chief Operating Officer, GoodHire
Track Employees' Sentiments With Surveys & One-on-One’s
We track our employees’ sentiments via surveys and one-on-one monthly interviews. Our open-door policy allows employees to request additional time for meetings, phone calls, or feedback.
We record employees’ sentiments to track their satisfaction and assess where we have room for improvement. Each role requires a balance that takes some fine-tuning. Over time, the prevalent pain points and issues we survey among employees find solutions through HR initiatives or team collaboration.
Give employees opportunities to share feedback and gradually change internal processes through collaboration. It is our mutual flexibility and accountability that reinforces the well-being of our teams and our company.
Kevin Miller, Founder, kevinmiller.com
Mental Health Program Participation & Satisfaction
After ramping up our mental health programs over the last few years, one of our most critical measures of well-being is the success of those programs with our team. We measure team participation, frequency of use, and overall satisfaction rates with the programs.
Our goal is to boost our staff participation rate as high as possible because we want to continue building an open culture surrounding mental wellness
Our goal is to boost our staff participation rate as high as possible because we want to continue building an open culture surrounding mental wellness and a team that feels empowered not simply to deal with mental health issues that arise but to educate and participate in behaviors that can prevent and reduce them.
Brian Dechesare, CEO, Breaking Into Wall Street
Measure Absenteeism Against Healthcare Costs
We analyze the number of sick days and reasons for absences against healthcare costs, and we do the same per employee. Because we do this before and after implementing a well-being program, we obtain quantitative data on the effectiveness of our well-being initiatives.
Couple this with employee surveys regarding the company wellness programs' usefulness to their well-being, and we get a clear and holistic picture of our employees' well-being. This data informs us of what improvements to make to our wellness strategies.
Generally speaking, if absenteeism decreases after implementing a new wellness program, we can infer that the program is effective.
Ruth Novales, Marketing Director, Fortis Medical Billing Professionals
Usage of Anonymous Tip Line
At our company, we take employee well-being very seriously. We want to ensure that our employees are happy and healthy, both physically and mentally. To do this, we have a few different strategies that we used to measure employee well-being.
One way we measure employee well-being is through regular surveys. We send out surveys to our employees quarterly, asking them about their satisfaction with their job, their workload, and their overall well-being. This helps us to get a pulse in how our employees are doing and identify any areas of concern.
We also have an anonymous tip line our employees can use to report any issues they are having. This is a confidential way for employees to let us know if they are facing any difficulties, whether it be with their job, their co-workers, or anything else.
Lastly, we encourage our employees to come to us directly with any concerns or problems they may be having.
Tzvi Heber, Founder, CEO & HR Head, Ascendant Detox
Taking a Personal Approach Brings Genuine Insights
Taking a more personal approach strengthens the bond we have with our employees
While we support a wide range of industries and business models, we're a tight unit at just under ten employees. For this reason, we simply ask our team members how they feel about their workloads and stress levels. But, to get genuine answers, it's best to ask pointed questions about specific projects.
Asking general questions like "Are you satisfied with your current work-life balance?" won't necessarily bring actionable insights. And performance metrics often misalign with employee well-being.
Taking a more personal approach strengthens the bond we have with our employees while also giving us the opportunity to find more immediate solutions that benefit our clients.
Daniel Kroytor, Founder & Director, Tailored Pay
Through Bi-Weekly Coffee Breaks
At Ling, we are big proponents of wellness check-ins, which we simply call coffee breaks. Each team manager holds one-on-one half-hour coffee breaks every two weeks.
During this time, employee well-being is measured, not through quantifiable data, but through human interaction.
It's an open and inclusive opportunity for everyone to share their achievements or deterrents to work. This information gets fed to upper management and within managers of teams to ensure team members' needs are being met.
Jarir Mallah, HR Specialist, Ling App