The Summary Report in Engagement Campaign Reporting offers a high-level snapshot of how your employees are feeling—making it a great starting point for understanding engagement across your organization. From key metrics like engagement score to AI-powered insights and recommended next steps, this report helps you diagnose what’s working, where to improve, and how to take meaningful action. Learn how to access this report.
In this article, you’ll learn how to interpret each part of the Summary report:
- Engagement Score, Level, & Comparison
- Areas to Improve & Celebrate
- Engagement Percentile
- Participation Rate & Comparison
- Recommended Areas for Action
You'll also find a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) section at the end of the article to support deeper understanding.
Access and availability
⛔️ Required access to Engagement campaign results.
👥 This article is relevant to HR admins and individuals who are assigned engagement results visibility.
📦 This feature is available in the Engage, Total Platform, and Legacy Perform pricing packages.
Note
By default, reports show company-wide results. If you’re assigned Full or Limited + Groups results visibility, you can use filtering options to explore results for more specific segments—based on the access you've been granted. Learn more.
Engagement Score, Level, & Comparison
At the top left of the Summary report, you'll see a visual displaying your organization's engagement score, engagement level, and engagement comparison. Together, these metrics provide a high-level snapshot of how engaged your employees are.
Engagement Score
The engagement score measures your team's overall psychological state of engagement. Backed by a robust theoretical framework and validated through psychometric analysis, this score captures three key dimensions of engagement:
- 🚀 Force: Internal drive to contribute positively to the organization
- 💫 Feeling: Positive emotional state while working
- 🎯 Focus: Ability to work intensely without distraction
This score is calculated using responses to seven core survey statements, which employees answer on a 5-point Likert Scale (Strongly Disagree > Strongly Agree):
- The work that I do gives me a sense of pride.
- I feel a sense of happiness when I am working very hard.
- I find it very easy to stay focused on what is most important for me to accomplish at work.
- I find my work to be full of meaning and purpose.
- When I wake up, I feel like going to work.
- I am able to get into a state of complete focus while working.
- I love the feeling of working.
Tip
Want a deeper understanding of how this score is calculated? Click the "Explain this score" button in the app to view a step-by-step chat guide that covers the underlying philosophy, questions, and calculation. You’ll also find more details in the FAQs at the end of this article.
Engagement Level
Once your engagement score is calculated, it’s grouped into an engagement level—a category that helps contextualize how engaged your workforce is overall. Levels are determined by where your score falls within the 15Five engagement database:
- Disengaged (0-5th percentile): Organizations in the bottom 5% of the Engagement Score database have a high percentage of employees who are disengaged.
- Somewhat Engaged (5th-25th percentile): Organizations in this range have employees who are slightly more engaged but still display significant signs of disengagement.
- Moderately Engaged (25th-75th percentile): These organizations sit in the middle of the database, with employees who are moderately engaged in their work.
- Highly Engaged (75th-95th percentile): Organizations in the top 25% of the database have employees who are highly engaged and contribute significantly to the business.
- Extremely Engaged (95th-100th percentile): Organizations in the top 5% of the database exhibit exceptional employee engagement, with most employees being extremely committed to their work.
Engagement Comparison
Just below your engagement score, you’ll see a comparison metric showing how much your score has changed since your last engagement campaign. This quick snapshot helps you understand whether engagement is trending up, down, or holding steady.
Tip
For a deeper view into how your score and engagement level are evolving over time, head to the Engagement report.
Areas to Improve & Celebrate
[Available to users with Full or Limited + Groups results visibility]
The Areas to Improve and Celebrate sections in the Summary report use AI to surface high-impact insights from your survey data, highlighting where your organization has room to grow and where you’re already succeeding. Learn more about how these statements are determined in this article's FAQs.
These insights are designed to help you quickly identify:
- Areas to Improve: Survey statements that had the most negative impact on overall engagement
- Areas to Celebrate: Statements that had the most positive influence on engagement
Tip
Taking action on engagement results, like those indicated in the Improve section, is crucial to show employees that their feedback counts. Equally important is recognizing areas for celebration. Research indicates that celebrating progress— even small wins— can significantly boost motivation across your workforce.
Engagement Percentile
The engagement percentile shows how your organization's score ranks against other companies in the 15Five dataset over the past 12 months.
For example, if your score is in the 40th percentile, it means 60% of companies in the selected benchmark have higher engagement scores, and 40% have lower ones. This metric gives helpful context for how your organization stacks up against similar companies.
Tip
By default, the 15Five Global benchmark is applied, but you can use the “Benchmark group” filter at the top of the report to view your percentile against a more specific peer group.
Participation Rate & Comparison
This metric shows what percentage of your employees submitted the engagement survey. It’s a helpful indicator of survey reach, trust, and communication effectiveness.
15Five’s global average participation rate is around 82%, assuming the recommended reminder cadence is used. Rates can vary depending on:
- The quality of contact information
- Internal promotion efforts
- Industry norms
- How well employees believe action will be taken
Tip
Higher participation = better insights. Promote the survey clearly, and always follow up with visible action to build trust and drive future response rates. Check out our "Track engagement campaign response rates" article for steps & best practices.
Recommended Areas for Action
[Available to users with Full or Limited + Groups results visibility]
The Recommended Areas for Action section highlights your biggest opportunities to improve engagement through focused, data-driven steps. These recommendations are powered by 15Five’s Predictive Impact Model—a machine learning model that determines which survey statements have the strongest influence on overall engagement. By identifying the most impactful areas to address, this section empowers you to take targeted action that drives measurable results.
Note
This section is only available if you used the Total Engagement or Engagement Score + Drivers survey option for your campaign, as these surveys are the only ones that include access to the Predictive Impact Model.
Each recommendation includes:
- Predictive Impact Score: Quantifies how much the proposed action could improve overall engagement
- Target audience: The group(s) whose engagement data the recommendation is based on
- Engagement driver(s): The underlying theme or topic the action addresses
- # of impacted people: The number of employees the Action Plan will apply to
Tip
Ready to take action? Click “Draft Action Plan” within any recommendation to open the AI-powered Action Planner in your side panel. For step-by-step guidance, check out our "Create an Action Plan Based on Engagement Results" article.
What's Next?
Now that you’ve learned how to analyze results in the Summary Report, explore the articles below to learn how to use the other reports.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) ❓
The Engagement Score is based on 7 statements included in 15Five's standard engagement survey. Those statements are:
- The work that I do gives me a sense of pride.
- I feel a sense of happiness when I am working very hard.
- I find it very easy to stay focused on what is most important for me to accomplish at work.
- I find my work to be full of meaning and purpose.
- When I wake up, I feel like going to work.
- I am able to get into a state of complete focus while working.
- I love the feeling of working.
Employees are asked these questions on a 5-point agreement scale (strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, strongly disagree). Each response is then quantified into a value of 0-4 as follows:
- Strongly agree = 4
- Agree = 3
- Neutral = 2
- Disagree = 1
- Strongly disagree = 0
To calculate the Organization Engagement Score, we use the following formula:
Example:
Let's say you conducted an engagement survey in your organization, and 5 employees provided responses to the 7 engagement statements, quantified as follows:
- Employee 1: 4+3+4+3+2+3+4 = 23
- Employee 2: 3+2+3+2+1+3+3 = 17
- Employee 3: 4+4+4+4+4+4+4 = 28
- Employee 4: 2+3+2+3+2+3+2 = 17
- Employee 5: 1+2+1+2+0+2+1 = 9
The sum of all responses is 23+17+28+17+9 = 94
The number of responses is 5 employees * 7 statements = 35
((Sum of all responses / # of responses) / 4) * 100
((94 / 35) / 4)*100
(2.69 / 4)* 100
0.6725 * 100
Engagement Score: 67%
Once an engagement score is calculated, it’s categorized into one of the following engagement levels:
- Disengaged (0-5th percentile): Organizations in the bottom 5% of the Engagement Score database have a high percentage of employees who are disengaged.
- Somewhat Engaged (5th-25th percentile): Organizations in this range have employees who are slightly more engaged but still display significant signs of disengagement.
- Moderately Engaged (25th-75th percentile): These organizations sit in the middle of the database, with employees who are moderately engaged in their work.
- Highly Engaged (75th-95th percentile): Organizations in the top 25% of the database have employees who are highly engaged and contribute significantly to the business.
- Extremely Engaged (95th-100th percentile): Organizations in the top 5% of the database exhibit exceptional employee engagement, with most employees being extremely committed to their work.
How these areas are determined depends on the survey you used in your engagement campaign.
- If you used the Total Engagement or Engagement Score + Drivers survey, these insights are based on predictive impact scores, highlighting the statements that most influenced your team’s engagement.
- For other survey types, these sections will reflect the statements with the highest and lowest raw average scores instead.