Employee engagement is influenced by eight key drivers in Ennova’s GELx framework: Reputation, Senior Management, Immediate Manager, Cooperation, Job Content, Working Conditions, Remuneration, and Learning & Development.
The drivers help explain why engagement is strong or weak and where leaders should focus their efforts. Their importance can vary between teams and organizations, which is why the goal is not to improve all eight at once, but to identify the drivers with the greatest impact and act on them.
In this article, we take a closer look at each driver, what it means in practice, and the questions you can use to evaluate it.
Jump to:
- What Is an Employee Engagement Driver?
- Why Employee Engagement Drivers Matter
- The 8 Key Drivers of Employee Engagement
- How to Prioritize the Right Engagement Drivers
- How to Measure Employee Engagement Drivers
What is an Employee Engagement Driver?
An employee engagement driver is a factor that influences employees’ motivation and commitment. Driver analysis helps organizations understand which parts of the employee experience have the strongest relationship with engagement and where improvements are most likely to make a difference.
In Ennova’s GELx framework, we work with eight key engagement drivers. Their relative importance can vary between organizations and teams, which is why driver analysis should be used to identify priorities rather than treating every driver equally.
Employee engagement is one outcome of the broader employee experience, which is shaped by leadership, culture, work environment and technology.
Why Employee Engagement Drivers Matter
In one anonymized Ennova case, an analysis combining 45,000 employee responses with financial data over three years found 38% higher profitability associated with high employee engagement compared with low engagement.
The 8 Key Drivers of Employee Engagement
Ennova’s GELx framework identifies eight key drivers that help explain differences in employee engagement. The relative importance of each driver can vary between organizations and teams, so the goal is to identify which factors matter most in your specific context.
Below, we explore each driver and provide example questions that can help you assess it.
1. Reputation
The reputation driver is largely driven by the immediate feeling an employee has when thinking about the organization. This also means, that if an employee is personally dissatisfied with being a member of the organization, it will influence the sense of organizational pride negatively. Also, this score is typically influenced by the perception of the Senior Management of the organization.
Example Questions to Measure This Driver:
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I am proud to tell other people where I work.
- Other people consider the company to be a good place to work.
- The company has a good image.
2. Senior Management
Senior Management acts as the captain(s) steering the ship that is the organization. The confidence in them determines how you respond to the decisions they make. If the confidence is high, you will follow their directions, even if you do not always agree or understand them fully.
Senior Management is very dependent on managers at all levels to bring forward the voice of the employees, and in this way, there may be steps you can take in relation to your own team to improve the scores on this driver.
Example Questions to Measure This Driver:
- Senior management clearly communicates the company’s strategy and goals.
- I have confidence in the decisions made by senior management.
- Senior management sets a good example for others to follow.
3. Immediate Manager
The Immediate Manager is one of several engagement drivers, but managers can influence many parts of employees’ everyday experience. Leadership behavior can affect areas such as cooperation, job content, learning and development, and working conditions.
This means that improvements in leadership behavior may influence more than the Immediate Manager driver alone. Leaders should therefore focus on the behaviors they can adjust and connect those changes to the engagement areas that matter most to their team.
For leaders, the most important thing is to focus on the leadership behavior and make behavioral adjustments in the way the leader works with the actions planned.
Example Questions to Measure This Driver:
- My immediate manager creates a work culture in my department characterized by trust and openness.
- My immediate manager motivates the department to exceed expectations.
- My immediate manager provides me with the constructive feedback I need to do my job well.
4. Cooperation
Cooperation depends on a valid and active norm of reciprocation in the team. Team members should feel confident that an effort on their part will be reciprocated by other team members.
Example Questions to Measure This Driver:
- In my department, we respect and trust each other.
- In my department, we all pull in the same direction to reach our department’s goal.
- In my department, everyone takes the initiative to get the job done.
5. Job Content
In Ennova’s experience, Job Content is frequently among the strongest drivers of employee engagement.
Normally, this is also an area with a lot of opportunities for the manager, the team, and the individual team member to make an impact together.
Example Questions to Measure This Driver:
- My job is highly interesting to me.
- My job makes the best use of my skills.
- My job gives me sufficient challenges.
6. Working Conditions
Working conditions are all conditions that surround the work itself that enables the employees to perform their jobs. It ranges from the actual physical surroundings to the mental perceptions of the surrounding environment.
Overall, this driver concerns the prerequisites we have for doing a good job and feeling good while doing it. Working conditions are often highlighted as a focus area for the team, even if the score is not particularly low.
This happens when the data shows that this driver has a significant impact on the engagement of your team and that there is potential to achieve even better results.
Example Questions to Measure This Driver:
- The physical work environment at my place of work.
- I feel good about the workload in my job.
- The company has clear processes and tools enabling me to carry out my job efficiently.
7. Remuneration
It is important to remember that the remuneration score covers more than just salary.
While some organizations choose to invest mainly in monetary rewards such as the monthly base pay, pension, and bonus schemes, others will instead focus on softer benefits like flexible working arrangements, vacation days, health and life insurance, or the opportunity to do volunteer work with pay.
The remuneration driver covers both areas, as well as the feeling of job security.
Although salary and bonuses are commonly used as motivators, remuneration is often not among the strongest drivers of engagement compared with factors such as job content, leadership and development.
Studies carried out across industries and organizational levels show that employees who feel they are treated fairly by their organization, superiors, and colleagues are more motivated and perform better than employees who perceive their working environment as unfair.
Example Questions to Measure This Driver:
- My salary compared to what I could get in a similar position elsewhere.
- My nonmonetary benefits compared to what I could get in a similar position elsewhere.
- My job security.
8. Learning & Development
It is not uncommon to think back to our last classroom training when we evaluated the level of learning and development in our job. But most learning happens on the job, and everybody has a responsibility to be proactive about their own development.
Leaders should aim to establish a good environment for learning and feedback while expanding the understanding of the many shapes and forms of learning. One way to foster a learning environment is to work with “Action Learning.”
Example Questions to Measure This Driver:
- It is clear to me where I need to develop in my job.
- I actively seek out opportunities that help me develop in my job.
- I often receive constructive feedback from my colleagues.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to employee engagement. The importance of each driver varies across organizations and teams. The key is to use employee feedback and driver analysis to identify where improvements are most likely to strengthen engagement, and then focus action where it matters most.
How to Prioritize the Right Engagement Drivers
Employee engagement is shaped by the conditions organizations create and by how leaders translate those conditions into everyday work. Managers play an important role, but engagement is not theirs to create alone. Senior leadership, HR, team dynamics, job design, development opportunities and working conditions all influence whether employees feel motivated and committed.
The practical challenge is therefore to identify which engagement drivers matter most in your organization or team and focus improvement efforts where they can make the greatest difference.
How to Measure Employee Engagement Drivers
An employee engagement survey can help you measure engagement and identify which drivers require attention. Driver analysis can then show which factors have the strongest relationship with engagement in a specific team or organization, helping leaders prioritize where to act.
Want to understand the measurement process in more detail? Explore how to measure employee engagement.
Measurement should be followed by focused action and appropriate follow-up.
Pulse surveys can then be used selectively to track whether important priorities are moving in the right direction without creating unnecessary survey fatigue.
