How Companies Use Employee Engagement Data to Drive Change

Having engaged employees is a must in the 21st century. Engaged teams have higher productivity levels, which leads to a 23% increase in profitability compared to their less engaged counterparts. Having an engaged workforce is also associated with lower absenteeism and lower turnover rates.

Unfortunately, most companies today aren’t taking advantage of the benefits of having an engaged workforce. 

Employee engagement in the U.S. hit an 11-year low, with 4.8 million fewer employees engaged in Q1 2024 versus Q4 2023. A whopping 79% of employees are not engaged or are actively disengaged at work, which ultimately cost the world economy $438 billion in 2024.

Collecting data is often touted as the solution, but collecting data isn’t an effective strategy on its own. The only way to increase engagement in the workplace is to collect the right data and then act on the insights you uncover.

Here’s everything you need to know about what data to measure, how to measure it, and how to use it to drive change in your organization so you can create a workplace environment that keeps all of your employees engaged.

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The Evolution of Engagement Measurement

Traditionally, engagement surveys were sent out on an annual basis. Surveys were long and attempted to gather a wide range of data. Some companies still send annual surveys attempting to demonstrate their commitment to feedback, but dealing with so much survey data and only doing it once a year means that meaningful change is unlikely. That’s why only 52% percent of employees believe change will actually happen as a result of a survey.

That’s no longer the case today. Forward-facing companies are approaching employee engagement feedback differently to encourage participation and provide employees with the meaningful change they want to see in the workplace.

“In 2025, companies are adopting real-time feedback tools, like pulse surveys and in-email feedback forms, to track engagement in the moment.”

-Contact Monkey

Pulse surveys and in-email feedback forms

Instead of sending out an annual review, pulse surveys are being used to gather real-time feedback throughout the year. Instead of featuring dozens of questions, a pulse survey targets a specific area with just a few questions to gain quick insights about how employees are feeling in the moment. It's a great way to evaluate a team's feelings after a project is completed or assess well-being and morale after a process change.

Organizations are also rethinking how to gather survey data to increase participation and make it simpler to send out smaller surveys more often. Teams are using Google Forms, SurveyMonkey, and other specialized tools, but some are making it even easier with in-email feedback forms.

In-email feedback forms make it easy for employees to spend just a few minutes answering questions, enabling leadership teams to address concerns and make changes in real time. For example, you might ask just one or two questions in an email and allow employees to hit reply when responding.

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You can also embed a survey directly in an email. The process is different depending on what kind of survey program you're using, but it means employees can open their email and click on a response without having to hit reply and type in their answers. This approach can help you get instantaneous feedback, and because it only takes a few seconds, more employees will be willing to answer, increasing participation and giving you more complete feedback.

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Five Key Areas Where Engagement Data Drives Change

Engagement data needs to be targeted according to the unique needs and challenges of your organization. By focusing on just one or two key areas at a time, you can create more meaningful questions, gather more meaningful responses, and uncover key trends that empower you to make meaningful changes.

Here are five key areas where you can use engagement data to drive change in your organization.

Leadership and management development

Many organizations focus on employee development, but leadership and management development is just as, if not more, important. Nearly 60% of employees are not getting on-the-job coaching or support with critical skills that are relevant to their position. Not getting support to develop relevant skills negatively impacts engagement, but it can also cause high employee turnover rates as employees look for mentorship opportunities elsewhere.

Employee engagement surveys can help identify management effectiveness gaps that can inform leadership training programs. Some simple yes or no employee engagement questions you can ask include:

• My manager provides the support I need to succeed in my role.
• My manager communicates expectations and goals.
• I feel comfortable approaching my manager with questions or concerns.
• My manager offers constructive feedback that helps me improve my performance.
• I trust my manager to make decisions that are in the best interest of the team.

Based on the answers to those questions, you can determine what kind of support to provide leadership managers. For example, if employees report a lack of constructive feedback that helps them improve performance, you can provide managers with training on how to give effective feedback.

It’s also true that members of the leadership team and management are also unengaged. Manager engagement fell from 30% to 27% in 2024. It’s more important than ever to support leadership and management development so they can mentor and support employees.

For example, some open-ended questions you might ask managers include:

• How confident are you that employees understand the company’s vision and how their roles support it?
• What challenges do you face when trying to engage your team?
• How do you ensure your team members have access to professional development?
• How is success recognized on your team?

Based on the responses you receive, you can figure out how to better support your leadership team by providing them with the training they need to address the challenges they are facing.

Culture and collaboration

Culture and collaboration are sometimes overlooked because measuring them can be difficult, but they are extremely important. In a recent study by Gartner of nearly 18,000 employees, only 29% reported being satisfied with the level of collaboration they experience at work.

Supporting a culture of collaboration requires collecting engagement data on collaboration pain points. Here are some questions you can ask:

• The company fosters a collaborative and inclusive work environment.
• My work location (remote or in-office) does not negatively impact my ability to collaborate with my team.
• The company encourages open communication and transparency at all levels.
• What improvements would you suggest to enhance communication between leadership and employees?

The feedback you receive can be used to modify workspaces and communication strategies depending on whether employees work in person or remotely. For example, if you find that your remote team struggles to collaborate effectively with their team, be willing to dig deeper to find out what challenges they’re facing. You might discover that teams need support to create boundaries and expectations around response times.

Collaboration is a good place to start, but you should also ask employees broader questions that relate to other aspects of company culture. You might ask about inclusivity, whether company values are reflected in their daily work, or whether they trust the leadership team to make the right decisions. Keep answers anonymous to get the most accurate information possible. Then, assess the data and be prepared to make changes according to the information you uncovered.

Learning and development

Learning and development is important to employees. In one survey, 45% of respondents reported that they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their learning and development, while a whopping 92% said that well-planned training programs have a positive effect on their engagement.

That’s not all. The World Economic Forum predicts that 50% of all employees will need reskilling by 2025. Providing employees with the learning and development to acquire those skills means finding out which skills they have and which ones they don’t. Engagement surveys are a great way to do that.

You should also ask questions that can uncover learning desires. You could ask what skill or certification would make it easier to do their job well. Or where do they see themselves in 10 years, and what kind of training can help them get there?

Individual responses can be used to develop targeted learning and development programs to help employees reach their goals and become more effective in their roles. Analyzing groups of responses can help develop broader learning and development programs. For example, a particular team might need training in a specific skill, while the entire organization might benefit from AI training.

Compensation and benefits

Over 80% of global workers rank good pay and benefits as very or extremely important job features, but many aren’t getting the compensation and flexibility they need. Pay was the biggest reason workers quit a job in 2021, with 63% citing it as a deciding factor for leaving. A further 94% of respondents in a Deloitte survey reported that they would benefit from work flexibility. But knowing what workers consider good pay and benefits isn’t self-explanatory. You have to know what employees truly value.

Instead of making guesses about what you think employees want, actually ask them with a survey. You can ask yes or no questions like:

• I feel adequately compensated for the work I do.
• The company’s compensation structure is fair and transparent.
• The company provides flexibility that supports my work-life balance.
• I am satisfied with the options available for remote work or flexible scheduling.
• Remote work policies allow me to be productive without compromising my well-being.

Allowing respondents to add comments can also be helpful, especially when the survey is anonymous. Ask employees to tell you what kinds of benefits would enrich their lives, as well as which benefits they have access to but aren’t using.

Then, be ready to act on their feedback. Offer new benefits, remote work, and flexible policies that are driven by engagement insights. You may even be able to remove one or two benefits that employees aren't using and replace them with benefits they will appreciate.

Transparency can be very helpful here. If a certain benefit, level of compensation, or flexible working option isn’t available, be honest about why and if there are conditions where it could be an option in the future. Be willing to answer questions and work with employees to achieve a sense of fairness. For example, a raise may not be an option, but you might be able to compromise on a more flexible working arrangement.

Communication and transparency 

Engagement data is an effective way to reveal communication breakdowns that might otherwise go unnoticed. It isn’t uncommon for employees to quietly manage poor communication between employees and managers, but frustrations can build over time. One statistic shows that 86% of employees and executives believe a lack of effective communication is the main cause of workplace failures. That can negatively impact engagement, with 43% of people in one study reporting that they have suffered from burnout, stress, and fatigue as a result of communication issues at work.

Survey data is an effective way to uncover communication breakdowns. That includes asking questions about the platforms and processes used to communicate, but questions should also go deeper by asking:

• Leadership communicates important company updates.
• My job expectations are well-defined and communicated by my manager.
• The company encourages open communication and transparency at all levels.
• The company offers sufficient resources to help me manage remote work challenges (e.g., technology and communication tools).
• What improvements would you suggest to enhance communication between leadership and employees?

The information you uncover may help you restructure internal communications by switching to an all-in-one platform where messages can be found in one place, or you might find that everyone prefers email to Slack. However, you might also discover that your crisis communication plan needs to be rethought or a more streamlined performance management process is needed to enhance communication between managers and employees.

Case Studies in Action

The key to collecting employee engagement data is to use it to drive organizational change. Here are a few examples of organizations that have used engagement data to uncover actionable insights that transformed their business.

Aero Simulation Inc.

Aero Simulation Inc. is a rapidly growing aviation and aerospace company that scaled from startup to nearly 200 employees in just three years. Despite their explosive growth across diverse workforce categories including direct employees, union workers, consultants, and subcontractors, ASI maintained a strong commitment to employee engagement through creative approaches like suggestion boxes and informal polling. When they hired Dr. Sherry Mathews as their first dedicated HR Manager, she inherited basic feedback systems that needed to evolve to support the company's continued expansion and sophisticated workforce management needs.

Dr. Mathews implemented PerformYard's integrated performance and engagement platform to replace manual processes with strategic pulse surveys every 3-4 weeks, advanced cohort analysis across multiple dimensions, and a unified employee database for all worker categories. The comprehensive system enabled extensive segmentation by functional groups, demographics, work arrangements, and recruitment sources, while providing board-ready analytics without requiring specialized data analysis skills.

The results were transformative, with one struggling department achieving a remarkable 91-point improvement in Employee Net Promoter Score through targeted interventions guided by PerformYard's real-time analytics. The platform enabled Dr. Mathews to identify trends rather than relying on point-in-time snapshots, leading to proactive interventions and transparent communication that rebuilt trust across the organization. ASI now conducts regular board-level reporting with comprehensive insights, maintaining their culture of employee engagement while supporting scalable systems designed for continued rapid growth.

The Arnold Group

The Arnold Group is a human resource recruiting company with a strong employee culture and high retention rates in a high-turnover industry. Although proud of their culture and work environment, Katie Gibson, the Director of Operations, understood how important remaining proactive is in maintaining engagement and smooth operations.

Using PerformYard, she was able to improve engagement tracking by quickly and easily sending out monthly check-ins that enabled the team to identify trends and address concerns. More frequently measuring engagement uncovered communication issues that were going unnoticed. As a result, Katie was able to implement new systems for enhancing internal communication and accountability.

The process also included dividing employees up into cohorts to better understand engagement across different groups. This enabled Katie and the rest of the team at The Arnold Group to differentiate the needs of new hires and long-term employees.

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Leading NYC law firm

A leading NYC law firm's philosophy that the best client experience stems from engaged, supported employees who feel meaningfully connected to the organization's mission led them to develop an enhanced employee engagement process using PerformYard's platform.

Using standard and custom questions with open-ended prompts while excluding questions about policies that weren't under consideration, they were able to develop department-specific insights rather than the firm-wide averages they were focusing on before. The process was able to confirm suspected issues, providing the evidence they were looking for in order to continue rolling out planned initiatives.

The new survey process was able to leverage internal expertise in creating enhanced client journey maps to not only improve the client experience but also the employee experience without the need to rely on an outside subject matter expert.

"You don't need an outside subject matter expert. You have your subject matter experts in-house. You just have to ask them in a safe place."

-CHRO

As a result of their initial success, the law firm conducts follow-up surveys semi-annually to track improvement initiatives that were rolled out as a result of the first survey. They also used surveys to measure the impact of a recent reorganization, with more ways planned to leverage employee feedback to further support the positive company culture they have created.

Grand Thornton

Grant Thornton is backed by 100 years of experience and is guided by its CLEARR values (Collaboration, Leadership, Excellence, Agility, Respect, and Responsibility), but maintaining a culture driven by those values means continuously committing to enhancing the employee experience. 

They are able to attract and retain top talent by supporting a robust employee feedback system. They use strategically designed pulse surveys to gather relevant, actionable data, then use analytics tools to develop deeper insights into the feedback they receive. This process enables them to identify trends, figure out which initiatives to prioritize, and measure the impact of previous strategies.

This dedication to employee feedback improved employee engagement and satisfaction because workers could see how their input helped drive the decision-making process with tangible results that positively impacted their daily lives. This greatly reduced Grant Thorton's turnover rates, enhanced employer branding, improved internal communications, and positioned the firm as a top employer in the accounting industry.

Additional case studies

First Advantage transformed employee feedback into organization-wide changes that resulted in a 22.4% increase in their favorability rating among workers.

Early Warning, a finance technology company that creates industry payment, risk, and fraud mitigation solutions, was able to increase manager effectiveness, communication, and overall success with employee engagement surveys.

Both Disney and Virgin Mobile are known for prioritizing employee engagement with fun, supportive programs and systems of rewards and recognition that make employees feel valued and empowered.

The Technology Advantage

Analyzing employee engagement data used to be a complex process, so even the companies that took the time to crunch the numbers were often left with an incomplete picture of engagement. That’s not the case today. With PerformYard, you’re able to get the most out of the data you collect.

Uncover actionable insights in real time

With PerformYard, you’re able to uncover actionable insights in real time instead of waiting and missing in-the-moment opportunities like you would with an annual survey. You can discover exactly how employees feel and why in the moment, giving you the ability to make meaningful changes that are relevant to the employee experience.

With a dedicated platform and modern online dashboards, employees can also keep track of their responses and see what kinds of insights the survey has identified in real time. This keeps employees informed and makes them feel like their participation in the process is important, which can boost engagement.

Analyze open-ended feedback

Surveys were once relegated to yes or no questions and rating skills because they collected data that could actually be measured. AI and machine learning will soon have the power to analyze open-ended feedback, giving your employees more freedom to share detailed information that you can actually measure.

This can be helpful from a performance review standpoint, giving managers and their employees the ability to analyze individual responses over time. It also gives you the power to divide employees by different cohorts so you can compare responses between departments, new hires and established employees, and more to create a fuller picture of engagement at your organization.

Best Practices and Implementation

Developing employee engagement surveys and collecting data can be time-consuming. If it’s something your organization is committed to doing, it’s important to make sure you're armed with tips and best practices for implementation.

Collecting data versus acting on data

Before you send out the first survey, make sure you have a plan in place for acting on the data you collect. Source platforms that will help you extrapolate insights from the data and make sure there’s time in your schedule to brainstorm with other team members on the best way to address the findings that were uncovered. That way you ensure the survey data you collect leads to action, making it well worth your time.

Preventing survey fatigue

Employee participation in surveys can plummet when employees don’t think their feedback leads to change. The average response rate for surveys is 30%, with 29% of employees believing that surveys are pointless.

You can prevent employees from feeling survey fatigue by making sure they can see that their feedback actually results in change. That might include sharing the results of a survey and what’s happening as a result or rolling out a change and tying it to survey feedback. On a smaller scale, it could mean having a manager make adjustments based on a particular employee’s feedback.

Not only are employees more likely to answer surveys when they know their feedback matters, it also increases trust in company leaders by 75%, which can have a huge impact on engagement.

Other tips for preventing survey fatigue among respondents include:

• Make sure respondents know the survey is anonymous and take care to make sure their answers actually are anonymous.
• Make it easy to take the survey by scheduling it during a slow season, using an in-email poll, or using a platform employees are already familiar with.
• Abandonment rates increase for surveys 7-8 minutes long, so aim to create short surveys that take less than 6 minutes to complete.

Leadership buy-in

Employee engagement surveys can encourage leadership support for change when those changes are grounded in data. Surveys are a great way to build leadership buy-in for changes because it enables them to see what has been measured, what impact it has on ROI, and how changes can improve those numbers. Well-designed employee engagement surveys and data analysis can bridge the gap between HR and strategic planning, showing leadership how engagement strategies can inform business strategy.

Getting leadership buy-in when the numbers have rolled in can facilitate positive changes in your organization, but getting leadership support ahead of a survey rollout can be equally as impactful. When senior leaders promote the survey and make it clear that they believe in its importance, employees are much more likely to complete it, with response rates that can average 85% or higher.

Looking forward to future trends in engagement data usage

AI will continue to be a driving force in how organizations collect, measure, and extrapolate employee engagement data. In the near future, AI will be able to create more personalized survey experiences and measure individual data more deeply over time, enabling companies to create specific engagement programs that are catered to each employee.

Those that take advantage of more deeply understood data stand to gain the most in regard to retention improvement, productivity gains, and customer satisfaction increases while increasing employee engagement at the same time.

It can be helpful to choose an employee engagement platform with an eye toward the future so you can take advantage of technology as it evolves. PerformYard offers specialized employee engagement tools and is mindfully developing safe, secure, and effective AI capabilities that are rolled out to support the performance management process.