Here are the Top 10 Employee Engagement

Metrics and KPIs I've seen from Rhythm

clients:
1. Employee NPS - Determine your Employee Net Promoter Score (NPS). The Net
Promoter Score is a method developed by Fred Reichheld and explained in his book, The
Ultimate Question. In a nutshell, it’s based on a direct question and the scoring is on a 0-
10 scale. Ask your team if they would recommend a job at your company to a friend or
family member.  Improve employee NPS and you'll reduce your employee turnover rates
and keep your labor costs down.

2. Absenteeism - If not showing up is an issue at your company, engagement is

suffering for sure!  And not just for the person that called out sick, it also affects other
team members that need to cover for their work.  This leads to a bad employee
experience all the way around and often becomes a self fulfilling cycle.  

3. Turnover/Retention - Employees who are not happy will simply leave to find a place
where they can be happy. Pay close attention to the tenure of employees who quit. Are
you losing A players who have been there a long time?  

4. Production/Profitability - Quite simply, if employees aren't engaged, the proof will be

in the pudding. If sales are slow or production is down, consider low engagement as a
possible cause.  Research shows that an engaged workforce is a productive workforce.

5. Employee Health Index - This one is interesting. It's simply a "gut-check" KPI that
each employee statuses each week. As an example, I'll share our Red-Yellow-Green
success criteria for the Rhythm Consulting team. SuperGreen means "Bring It On" or I
have the bandwidth to take more clients or help another consultant. Green is "Balanced"
or I feel full but it's just the right amount of work. Red means "I need help" or I don't have
the bandwidth to take on additional clients or projects right now. As a team, we discuss
our Employee Health Index in our weekly meeting to make sure everyone gets the
support they need to remain engaged at work.

6. Glassdoor.com Rating - GlassDoor is a website that allows employees to write

reviews of their employers. Reviews are evaluated and companies are rated 1-5 stars.
For larger organizations, watching this rating can provide insight not only to how current
employees feel, but how those who have left feel. Also, it's great to know what is being
said about your organization in the marketplace from a recruiting standpoint.  

7. Vacation Days Used - On the surface, the value of this measurement may not seem
very insightful; however, a healthy work-life balance promotes employee engagement.
Vacation Days Used can also be an indicator of your culture. For example, do people not
feel comfortable taking time off? Are they so overloaded a vacation just isn't possible? Do
they feel no one has their back if they were to take a few days off? If people aren't using
them, there's usually a reason.

Download Our Comprehensive List of KPI Examples

8. New Hire 90-Day Failure Rate - Engagement is a mindset. However, employees can
become engaged if given the proper tools and training. If new hires are leaving in the first
90 days, they either weren't the right hire from the beginning, or the onboarding
process didn't set them up to be engaged.  High levels of failure should have you invest
more time in the hiring process to make sure that you are getting A-Players.
9. Customer Happiness - This one follows the logic that happy employees equal happy
customers. Measure Customer Net Promoter Score. If it's low, consider the possible
impact of low employee engagement is having on customer happiness.  Low customer
engagement is often a sign of low employee engagement.  This is a data point that
seems to cut both ways.  The higher the customer happiness, typically the higher
the organizational performance.

10. Rhythm KPI and OKR Software Usage - For those of you using Rhythm software,
measure employee engagement with the tool. Are they statusing and commenting on
their priorities? Are they collaborating with the team and problem-solving in week
meetings? If they aren't excited about the strategy and supportive of the execution of the
strategy, they aren't an engaged employee.  This will show you to how to align employees
with company goals.

Turn Your Onboarding Process Into a

Competitive Advantage
 Tue, Nov 13, 2012 @ 10:53 AM  Annual & Quarterly Planning, Accountable Leaders &
Teams

So, you take Jim Collins’ First Who, Then What principle seriously.  You invest a tremendous amount of time
sourcing and selecting the right candidates using Topgrading methods.  Now that you’ve handed out golden tickets
to get the right people on the bus, how seriously are you taking their initiation into your organization? You’ve sold
them on your company’s culture and invited them to join the family, but are you intentional about the very first
impressions you make on them as they begin this new journey with you? It’s quite possible to have an
overwhelmingly positive, thriving, high-performing culture that isn’t instinctively welcoming to newcomers. And as
the competition for talent increases, and the investment you’re making in the recruiting and selection process
grows, it’s probably worth it to make sure you give these A-players every opportunity to get off on the right foot.

Onboarding actually starts the day someone accepts your offer, so it makes sense to consider what you can do to
make them feel good about their decision, even before they start. And you will definitely want to give some thought
to what their first day should be like. Put yourself in their shoes.

 What basic tools will they be using? 

 What information will they need?

 Who do they need to meet?

 Have their business cards ready for them.
 Have a special lunch planned for the first day.

Then, don’t forget about them after the first day. A-players are certainly self-directed and don’t need to be closely
monitored, but they also don’t usually appreciate working in isolation. Plan a calendar of events and milestones for
the first week, month and quarter that will give this new team member a picture of what to expect over time. Create
opportunities for regular check-ins. With each new hire, you have the opportunity to learn something about your
onboarding process and improve it for the next new hire. And, gaining a new perspective on your internal work
processes can lead to breakthroughs in efficiencies. Ask your new hires to share their observations. What doesn’t
make sense to them? Where do they perceive waste? What impresses them most?
Just like growing your business, growing your people is a path of progress. And if you’re intentional about the way
you approach every step in the employment cycle (recruiting, selecting, onboarding, developing and retaining),
you’re sure to develop a high performing team of A-players, which truly is a competitive advantage. What creative
ideas have you implemented or will you implement to welcome your new employees?

How to Align Employees with

Company Goals in 2023 Strategic
Plans
 Wed, Aug 31, 2022 @ 11:03 AM  Strategy Execution, Accountable Leaders & Teams

As the dust settles on the Annual Planning season, many mid market CEOs now face the
challenge of how to achieve and maintain alignment to the company goals across the
organization for the entire year. For everyone on your executive team, this job should
never end. And, as CEO, you are the driver, the one person who can have the single
greatest impact on your team’s focus and alignment throughout the year. Aligning
employee goals with company goals is a continuous process to ensure that you don't
have wasted, or duplicate, effort when running your business.
How do you align employees with
company goals?
1. Share the Story. In order for employees to get excited about company goals, they
must understand why the goals are what they are with complete organizational
alignment. As CEO, it’s your job to tell the story. People remember stories, not
numbers or out-of-context phrases. If your theme for the year is around customer
retention, for example, tell a customer story that really hits home. It has to be
memorable and give great context as to why the goal is important.
2. Follow a Process. To achieve alignment of goals across the organization, there
has to be a planning process that every department uses. It needs to be systematic,
routine and drive the proper flow of information. For example, the exec team should
plan first. Then, the company plan should be communicated to departments.
Departments plan next. Finally, all plans should be shared across departments to
work out dependencies and conflicting priorities. Plans should also be shared
across the company so any priorities that are not aligned to the company plan can
be challenged. The Plan Rhythm should happen the same way, for every team,
every quarter.
3. Go for Extreme Clarity. No plan is complete without clear expectations. For every
priority at every level, there should be precise Red Yellow Green success criteria.
For example, if your goal is to “Implement the New ERP System,” everyone should
be aligned around what is going to be considered success and failure of that goal. It
should be crystal clear. In this example, green might be: “All weekly reports are
being pulled from the new ERP by end of quarter,” which is much more specific than
“System implemented.”
4. Connect with Strategy. The most happy and productive employees understand
how their daily work drives the company’s long-term strategy. This is true for
everyone in the organization, no matter how small their role. As CEO, you should
constantly share the long-term vision and paint a picture for your employees of
where the company is going. If your Core Purpose is to “Positively impact the life of
every student and set them on a path for life success,” the person answering your
front-line phone should convey that with every interaction. If your Winning Move is to
“Launch in a new international market,” your marketing team will understand why
localized translations are so important.
5. Drive Weekly Accountability. Team alignment doesn’t end once you have your
quarterly plan. An effective Weekly Meeting Rhythm is the glue that keeps everyone
aligned as they execute throughout the quarter. Similar to the planning process,
there should be a routine, systematic approach to having effective weekly
meetings across the organization. For example, the departments might all have their
weekly meetings on Monday morning, and the executive team might meet on
Monday afternoon. This allows for the flow of information to come up to the exec
team. Any issues around stuck priorities, priorities that are competing for shared
resources, or priorities that need to be stopped altogether, will come up for
discussion with the exec team. This provides the opportunity to have those
discussions cross-functionally.
6. Be Relentless. Really, be relentless. Be that person who never shuts up about the
company’s strategy & execution plans. Your team should know your Theme and
Priorities because you constantly talk about them. It’s up to you to keep it front and
center of every meeting and discussion. For some high-growth companies, you
might hire 50 new people this quarter. Remember, they’ve never heard it before.
You have to constantly evangelize and be an advocate for your strategic plan. As
CEO, it should be your primary function.
I hope that you enjoyed the goal alignment example in the blog.  It is a process to align
employee goals with company goals that needs to be repeated day after day and quarter
after quarter to ensure they stay aligned. In order for the company to function we need to
know how to align personal goals with organizational goals.

How to Win with Red-Yellow-Green

(Slideshare)
 Sun, Dec 8, 2019 @ 09:00 AM  KPIs & Dashboards

In working with thousands of companies around the world, our consultants have learned

that for most  companies the weakest link in

executing business plans is not having clear success criteria. Often, companies will invest
the time and resources to create a solid plan for the quarter, complete with Key
Performance Indicators and Priorities. However, if they stop here, these companies could
run hard and fast all quarter only to find that they were not aligned on what the objectives
were for the plan. This is the pitfall we want to avoid - unless you set aside the time to
establish and agree upon clear success criteria for your quarterly plan, you could work
very hard and still not accomplish much. 

We recommend using a simple yet powerful Red-Yellow-Green method of setting

success criteria. This will help you execute your plan with precision and alignment so you
can win as team.
A Players: Attracting, Engaging and
Keeping Topgrading A Players
 Wed, Mar 31, 2021 @ 12:00 PM  Accountable Leaders & Teams

If you read our blog often, you know that we are fans of Topgrading, and we frequently talk about hiring and
developing A Players. In a previous post, I gave an example of one of our clients who did an audit of all of their
employees and created a KPI for “% of A Players.” If you aren’t familiar with Topgrading, you might be wondering
about this term - “A Players.” What does it mean?

One definition of A players is your team members who are performing very well and living the company's core
values. A more technical definition is that they are the top 10% of talent available in the pay range for that position.
If you decide to use this term in your organization, get clear about your own definition so that everyone can be on
the same page when you talk about A Players.

Even if you’re familiar with A Players, you may not be familiar with the different types of A Players. Topgrading
expert Jenny Vargas taught our consultants these levels in one of our weekly Keep Smart sessions: 

 A1: These team members have very high potential. They could be promoted 2+ levels in your organization.
 A2: These players are also performing well and promotable, but probably only one level up from
their current position.
 A3: These are your team members who are a great fit for their current position. Maybe they have no desire
to be promoted to a different role because their current position suits them perfectly.
 A Potential: This is someone who has the potential to function at an A level in the foreseeable future, like
within the next 6-12 months, depending on the situation. This might be the case for brand new hires still
training for their new positions. 
 Non-A Player: These are team members who do not exhibit the potential to function at an A level in the
foreseeable future.

For all the types of A Players, it is critical to provide ongoing developmental opportunities to keep them engaged
and happy and give them the skills to attain their career goals. It is especially important to provide the right training
and resources to team members who have “A Potential.” These people need coaching and support to function at
their highest level.  A players always want an employee scorecard (or job scorecard) so that they know how their
work will be evaluated.

What about these non-A Players?

 C players are not performing and not living the core values. Ideally, these should be screened out in the
interview process and never make it to your team. If you conduct an audit of your talent and find that you do
have C Players on your team, it is usually best to “free up their futures” so that they can pursue other
opportunities that could be a better fit for them.
 B+ players are living the core values but not performing well. Dig in a little to find out what’s going on here.
Is it a skill gap; do they genuinely not know how to perform well in their current role? Do they love the
company but find the work draining, tedious, etc.? These team members may need to switch to a different
role in the organization that they have the skill and desire to master. With some coaching and skill
development, some of these players may actually have “A Potential” in their current role.
 B- players may be highly skilled and top performers, but they don’t live your core values. It can be
especially challenging to work with these people because culture is far more difficult to change than skill.
And, it is usually very difficult to let go of someone who is performing well and producing results.

While it is pretty clear what to do with A Players (grow them) and C Players (fire them), it can be tricky determining
the right path for B Players. B Players are what Jenny called “Revenue Vampires” because it takes two B Players
to do the work of one A Player. B Players also suck a lot of time and energy from the A Players around them.

Here’s what to do with your B Players:

 Address the problem quickly. According to an HBR article by Sull, Homkes and Sull, "A majority of the
companies we have studied delay action (33%), address underperformance inconsistently (34%), or tolerate
poor performance (11%).” Waiting to address issues with team members only compounds the problem by
negatively impacting the A Players who work with these B Players and by making the conversation more
difficult.
 Have an honest conversation about the specific results they are not delivering successfully. Clarify your
expectations about their performance, and assess for a skill gap that could be causing them to under-
perform.
  Coach them to develop new skills or habits that will make them more successful in their current role.
 Determine whether their current role is a poor fit not because of skill but because of the person’s particular
strengths and interests.
 If the person is a good fit culturally, you may be able to move them to a different position that is a better fit
for them where they would have A Potential.
 If you don’t have a performance issue, but you do have a culture fit or core values issue, have an honest
conversation about that, too. (You may find Crucial Conversations skills helpful in initiating a difficult
conversation like this one.) Having a Job Scorecard that includes your Core Values may make a
conversation like this one easier.
 Determine whether the person is willing and humble enough to work on the specific issues that are clashing
with your core values. With an awareness of exactly how their behavior does not match your expectations
based on core values, the person may be able to work on developing some interpersonal skills to help them
fit better in your company culture.
 If the core values misfit is not one that can be remedied with coaching and skill development, then it is
usually best to let this person go, even though it can be difficult to say goodbye to a top performer. The good
news is that if you replace them with an A Player, that person will be twice as productive without harming the
morale of the rest of the team.

If you do audit your team and find that you have mostly A Players, that’s great! Prevent your A Players from
becoming B Players by creating a safe way for them to talk about skill, knowledge, and leadership gaps that could
arise as your company grows. We all have strengths and weaknesses, and it is best to be open with each other
about what those are.  This way, we can be able to give each other feedback on potential blind spots so that we
are constantly improving and sharpening our saws as Stephen Covey taught. Commitment to ongoing
development is the only way to avoid becoming a B Player over time as the company grows and your role within it
changes.

How to Keep Your Top Talent: 12

Actionable Tips for Engaging Talent
 Tue, Apr 26, 2022 @ 11:00 AM  Accountable Leaders & Teams

Many successful mid-market companies have cracked the hiring code. Perhaps you use
a hiring method like Topgrading to ensure that you bring in only the best people - the
ones who are superstar contributors and a good fit for your culture and Core Values. But,
then what?  How do you win the talent war?

In our current economy with the extremely low unemployment rate and the rise in
popularity of contract work, your top talent has more options than ever. And, according to
Gallup's latest State of the American Workplace Report, 51% of employees say that they
are actively looking for other opportunities. You have to give them compelling reasons to
stay, or you will just keep wasting resources to hire and train for the same positions over
and over again.
12 Ways to Engage Employees and Keep Top Talent