Defined as “demonstrating constant support to an institution”, company loyalty is a hard concept to measure. Humans are complex creatures who have sporadic feelings of loyalty – we’ve all be there, one day you’re in a great mood and love your company, the next is another story.

Paired with the zero hour contracts and the ever-growing gig economy means loyalty schemes can be difficult to implement, let alone measure. That doesn’t mean loyalty schemes aren’t important, they have just changed shape. Plus, measuring loyalty can help you minimise employee turnover and improve productivity. So, this begs the question, how do you measure employee loyalty?

1. Awards and Surveys

Can’t afford a third party surveyor and don’t have the time to do it yourself? No problem! There is an abundance of awards that help you measure loyalty. Admittedly, you will have to write the award submission but the questions will help you think about your employee loyalty schemes and measures.

Some awards will even conduct surveys for you! We’ve entered the Great Place to Word award twice, which includes a Trust Index; a survey consisting of 58 statements which assess employee experience. They also provide benchmarking which helps compare your organisation’s culture against a range of profiles. Fundamentally, these surveys help you understand your employees a bit better.

If a third party surveyor cannot be used, the company must reassure participants that their responses will remain confidential and anonymous. Without this, employees won’t have confidence in the survey and it is likely to negatively affect loyalty.

2. Find your Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Ranging from -100 to +100, your net promoter score measures the willingness of employees to recommend your organisation. You ask employees how likely they would recommend your company to a friend or colleague on an 11-point scale. Your results will show you whether your employees are promoters, passives, or detractors. Net Promoter note:

• Promoters are loyal enthusiasts who will keep buying and refer others, fueling growth.
• Passives are satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are vulnerable to competitive offerings.
• Detractors are unhappy customers who can damage your brand and impede growth through negative word-of-mouth.

While NPS doesn’t predict loyal behaviours, it can give you a good guess on how loyal your employees are. Plus, it is only one question so finding your NPS is cheap!

3. Engagement in the Office

How committed are your employees to their work and the company? How willing is your team to go for drinks together after work? Does everyone look forward to group incentives? These are the kind of questions you could be asking yourself when it comes to trying to gauge how engaged your workforce is. Good engagement is when everyone trusts both each other and their management and appears to be working towards a shared goal. A good sense of direction, motivation and friendship is key to strong employee engagement, and the best way to assess this, believe it or not, is to just ask them! This can be either asking them in their 1:1 or in an anonymous survey.

The key to continually growing and improving as a company is to use the data and your newfound knowledge and reassess this annually or 6-monthly.

One last thing…

These 3 areas will help you measure that all important employee loyalty, but let’s not forget something hugely important. Happiness! Surely the key to your employee loyalty, stems from their happiness?

It appears other people share our view- 92.1% of people believe that happy employees are more engaged, and 97% of people think there’s a correlation between happy/engaged employees and better retention (medium.com). But how do you measure something like happiness?

Here at ISL, we’ve given it a go! Each month we ask every employee to rate their happiness on a scale of 1-10 during their 1:1 meeting with their manager or director. It gives such a valuable opportunity for employees to talk about their emotions and how they feel, rather than focusing on results and performance, and gives our Managers an opportunity to address any problem areas. Talking about happiness in this way allows us to gauge our employees levels of happiness and engagement, which correlates with their loyalty towards us.

Happiness at work is key, so let’s ask those all important questions! Perhaps give it a try in your next employee review or 1:1 meeting?

If this was of interest, you may find our blogs about the value of employee surveys and what you can learn from losing an employee useful.