Your Engagement Score and Level in 15Five offer a quick, powerful snapshot of how connected and motivated your employees feel. In this article, we’ll break down how your Engagement Score is calculated, what it means, and how it fits into a larger view of organizational health. You’ll also learn how your score translates into an Engagement Level—a percentile-based category that shows where your organization stands relative to others in the 15Five database.
In this article, you will learn...
- Before You Begin: What You Need to Know 📌
- What is the Engagement Score? 📈
- What Engagement Levels correspond with Engagement Scores? 📊
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) ❓
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.
Before You Begin: What You Need to Know 📌
Your Engagement Score and Level offer a powerful snapshot of how connected, motivated, and focused your employees feel at work. But these metrics are only available when specific conditions are met. Here’s what you need to know before diving in.
Surveys that calculate Engagement Score & Level
To see these metrics, your engagement campaign must include one of the following surveys: Total Engagement (recommended), Engagement Score, or Engagement +Drivers. These are the only surveys that contain the validated statements required to calculate your score and level. Learn more about survey options →
Where to find your score
Once your campaign closes, your Engagement Score will appear in the Summary Report and the Engagement Report. Both reports offer helpful context for understanding and sharing your results.
Note
If your organization is on 15Five’s Total Platform plan, your Engagement Score will populate the Engagement tile on your HR Outcomes Dashboard. This allows you to compare engagement to powerful outcomes like performance, retention, and manager effectiveness. Learn more about populating the Dashboard →
What is the Engagement Score? 📈
The engagement score measures your team's overall psychological state of engagement. It's 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
How it's calculated
This score is calculated using responses to seven core survey statements:
- 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 Likert Scale (Strongly Disagree > Strongly Agree). Each response is then quantified into a value of 0-4: Strongly Disagree (0) → Strongly Agree (4).
To calculate the Engagement Score, we use the following formula:
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%
What are Engagement Levels? 📊
Once your engagement score is calculated, it’s grouped into an engagement level to help contextualize your results.
Levels are based on where your score falls within the 15Five 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.
These levels make it easier to benchmark your organization, communicate results to stakeholders, and identify how much room there is to grow.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) ❓
You can view your Engagement Score in two places: the Summary Report and the Engagement Report within your engagement campaign results. Both reports provide helpful context for understanding how your score was calculated and how it compares across teams or demographics.
If you run an engagement campaign using one of the qualifying surveys (Total Engagement, Engagement Score, or Engagement + Drivers), you can also view your Engagement Score in the Engagement tile on your HR Outcomes Dashboard. Learn how to use the HR Outcomes Dashboard →
Individuals who are assigned results visibility to engagement results can see these metrics.
To access both the Engagement Score and Engagement Level, you must use one of the following surveys in your campaign:
- 🌟 Total Engagement (Recommended)
- Engagement Score
- Engagement + Drivers
Other survey types (e.g., Manager Effectiveness, eNPS, or custom surveys) do not contribute to this score. Learn more about available survey options →
Yes! While the Total Engagement survey offers the richest insights, you can still receive your Engagement Score using the shorter Engagement Score survey, which includes only the seven core statements used in the calculation. Learn more about available survey options →
Don’t panic—use it as a starting point. We recommend pairing your Engagement Score with statement-level data (available in the Total Engagement or Engagement + Drivers surveys) to pinpoint what’s influencing your score and where you can take action first.