The Essential List of Employee Engagement Benchmarks for 2023

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When you’re running an employee engagement survey, one of the first items on your to-do list should be sourcing employee engagement benchmarks to put your teams' scores into context. Benchmark scores give you a number to aim for when setting employee engagement-related goals, and, once your scores are ready, help you digest and react to your people’s responses.

Benchmark data can highlight, for example, when a low score is likely not an indicator of major problems, while pointing you towards scores that signify a real need for change. In short, these benchmarks help you identify when you need to be concerned about employee engagement levels on your teams.

Today we’re sharing up-to-date employee engagement benchmarks by industry, role, tenure, region and function together in one handy downloadable. But first, let’s talk about how to use these benchmarks to better understand your survey responses.

How to Use Employee Engagement Benchmarks: Our 3 Top Tips

1. Don’t Settle for Broad Averages

When researching employee engagement benchmark scores, many people stop once they find a global average for their industry. But the available data is actually much more detailed. For example, we know that a score of 7.2 is average for a 24-year-old employee who’s been in their role for 2 years, almost 2 points lower than the average for a 40-year-old executive who’s new to their job (8.9). If you’re looking to make real, measurable improvements to employee engagement, it makes sense to look at engagement levels by region, role, tenure and function.

2. Don’t Get Too Hung Up on the Numbers

It’s easy to get fixated on employee engagement benchmark, but remember that this is just one piece of the puzzle. To build a meaningful picture of how your employees feel about the company and their work, you need to combine engagement surveys with other meaningful, people-focused rituals, like holding regular 1:1s between managers and employees, and involving your people in influential conversations on company culture.

3. Look for Benchmarks that Reinforce Company Values

It’s important to consider your company values when analysing employee engagement survey responses, too. Rather than aiming for an above-average score on every single survey question, we should be looking at the questions that are strategically important for our people and our company goals. For example, you might find that improving an already-high score around goal setting is more important to you than addressing a low score relating to systems and processes. To understand this better, we recommend asking yourself the following questions;

• What matters most to my people?

• What does the ideal work environment at my company look like?

• Which areas of employee engagement can give us a competitive advantage?

How Do I Use Employee Engagement Benchmarks to Create a Goal?

Benchmarks can be really useful when creating a goal around employee engagement, because we know that, to gain a competitive advantage, you’ll need to reach a higher-than-average score. That said, it’s important to remember these survey responses are just one piece of the engagement puzzle - your people strategy shouldn’t be based on survey scores alone. At Frankli, we simplify this process by providing sample goal templates for employee engagement.

So, for example, you might set an objective to “Improve internal employee engagement” with “Reach average employee engagement score of >= 8” as one of the key results, alongside targets for holding 1:1 meetings and interviewing employees on their experiences. Or you might set an objective to “Boost manager development and success” with “Increase manager engagement scores by 10% to 8.1” as a key result, alongside targets around new manager training and mentoring programs.

Frankli helps you understand the needs of your people through survey, feedback and 1:1 meeting tools.

Employee Engagement Benchmarks for 2023 by Industry, Role Tenure and More:

The benchmarks listed in our download are average global scores out of 10, based on the latest research (1). You'll find a list of survey questions to use these with here.

‍**It takes just 30 seconds to create and publish an employee engagement survey through Frankli. Get started today

1. Heartbeat by Workday, True Benchmark