Measuring Satisfaction or Engagement

​Many people use “employee engagement” and “employee satisfaction” interchangeably, but they are not the same.

Satisfaction describes how happy employees are.

Engagement is the emotional commitment employees have to a company.

An employee can be satisfied and not engaged. For some, satisfaction means collecting a paycheck, while not giving a minute longer to the job than they have to.

Being satisfied won’t lead to increased productivity and innovation.

On the other hand, engagement and the emotional commitment that employees feel, get to their motivation and involvement, and the level of discretionary effort they’re willing to put forth.

It drives productivity and performance.

Per Gallup, companies in the top decile of engagement outperform their peers by 147% in earnings per share, and have a 90% better growth trend than their competition. In short, engagement is a key differentiator, when it comes to growth and innovation. It also engenders loyalty, so:

• Employees stay longer
• Employees will talk about their great workplaces, so it's easier to hire
• Companies recover more quickly after financial setbacks

Measure engagement, not satisfaction.