How to take action with employee engagement survey results

TL;DR: Employee engagement ties up closely with performance, productivity, and profitability — and this means you shouldn’t overlook the potential impact of engagement survey results on a winning HR strategy. But without a solid action plan, it can be hard to show your colleagues (and business leaders) that an engagement survey is more than a compulsory exercise. With the right processes, stakeholders, and tools, your survey results can yield tangible company-wide benefits, even as employee engagement wanes worldwide.

What are employee engagement survey results?

Employee engagement survey results are the quantitative and qualitative data you receive after conducting an employee engagement survey. They support any people-centric HR strategy by allowing managers and People Ops professionals to understand how team members think, feel, and behave at work. 

Conducting engagement surveys at least quarterly makes it easier to spot trends, predict employee engagement, and take action in real time. 

The importance of analyzing employee engagement results

There hasn’t been a more critical time to prioritize employee engagement data than now. Employee engagement just hit an 11-year low in the US, and sunken engagement costs the global economy an estimated US$ 9 trillion annually. While the US just avoided a major economic recession, the resulting market turmoil has impacted how employees feel about their work. 

Whether you’re aware of it or not, employee engagement affects almost every area of your business. According to Gallup’s 2024 Q12® Meta-Analysis, engagement levels are directly linked to business performance. The report points to strong correlations between employee engagement and performance metrics like well-being, safety, absenteeism, work quality, customer loyalty, and productivity.

What’s more, highly engaged business units lose 43% fewer employees. Reducing turnover makes organizations more efficient; turnover costs can add up quickly, as new team members need training. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) estimates that employee turnover can cost up to one-third of the departing employee’s annual salary. Other studies point to an even grimmer scenario: replacing one person could cost you up to two times their annual pay.

Considering how employee engagement affects turnover and performance, it’s no surprise that so many organizations choose to track this metric through surveys. Still, it’s not enough just to run engagement surveys: you also have to use the information you gather.

Acting on employee engagement survey analysis is critical to achieving better business outcomes and building team member trust. Employees appreciate when their concerns are listened to; those who feel heard are almost five times more likely to feel empowered to do their best work. Conversely, when team members don’t feel heard, this can quickly create an engagement problem: 64% of professionals say “leaders making decisions without seeking their input” is their biggest problem at work.

Acting on employee survey data also makes team members more willing to participate in future surveys. According to McKinsey research, the number one cause of “survey fatigue” is the perception that organizations won’t act on the results.

“Leadership is the biggest blocker to turning survey results into action. It doesn’t take a lot of money to implement change, but it does take time and commitment. Issuing the survey is the easy part, but being willing to internalize the feedback and turn it into action, for some reason, is nearly impossible for some organizations.

Before issuing the survey, leadership must commit to each other and its employees that the survey won’t be a bunch of talk, but lead to actual change.


Catharine Montgomery, social causes communications leader, speaking on the power of diversity surveys


So, how do you leverage survey results and use them to boost engagement? Read on to learn how to get the most from your employee surveys.

💡 Analyze survey results faster with Leapsome AI

With Leapsome’s AI-powered surveys, you can summarize survey results quickly, extract key themes, and even generate action plan recommendations.

👉 Explore what Leapsome Surveys can do for you


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Wann Sie dieses Playbook verwenden sollten

When to use this playbook

You can start acting on employee engagement survey results as soon as you receive them. You should use this playbook if you’ve recently completed an employee engagement survey, have pulse survey data that you’ve been aggregating over time, or intend to start running surveys.

Reviewing engagement survey results can help you deal with immediate problems and identify long-term trends. In other words, measuring engagement will allow you to pinpoint current issues and spot changes in company-wide engagement levels year over year.

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Was Sie für dieses Playbook benötigen

What you’ll need for this playbook

An employee survey program

To run this playbook, you’ll need an employee survey program to collect data.

If you don’t yet have a process for running surveys, or if you think your existing program could use improvement, check out our playbook on running an employee engagement survey for helpful tips on how to get started.

Defined goals for your survey program

Your survey program should have a set of defined goals. Why are you running employee engagement surveys? What do you hope to get from them?

This will help you understand how to act on the surveys and what results you should work towards. 

Hints & tips

Hinweise & Tipps
  • Before kickstarting an employee survey program, create a strategic plan outlining the process, your primary goals, and how you’ll measure success.

  • If you decide to run anonymous surveys (which we recommend), make sure employees understand that their privacy is preserved. Anonymous surveys often lead to better data, as it makes employees feel more comfortable sharing sensitive concerns.

  • Follow best practices when creating survey questions. Leapsome offers professional questionnaire templates developed by organizational psychologists.

  • Consider the unique needs of remote teams when creating survey questions.
  • Use engagement data to understand other important metrics, like performance and employee churn.
  • Along with engagement surveys, you can also run diversity surveys and pulse surveys to better understand the employee experience.
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Frequently asked questions

How to communicate employee engagement survey results?

When communicating employee survey results, remember that your people appreciate transparency. If you’re planning to make major changes, discussing these with employees at a meeting may be best rather than over email. That way, employees can ask questions, share feedback, and clarify any doubts.

When sharing results, be sure to respect anonymity and privacy. Avoid sharing detailed comments that could be traced back to an individual — especially on sensitive topics.

‍How to run an employee engagement survey?

To run an employee engagement survey, start by defining your survey goals and deciding who will participate. Then, create your employee engagement survey questions. Finally, send out the survey at regular intervals according to your preferred schedule. Don’t forget to send reminders to encourage responses!

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