In the world of organizational change management, getting your team on board with a new process or system is only half the battle. The other half? Figuring out if they are actually engaged. In Episode 121 of the Harmonious Workplaces podcast, hosts Rich Cruz, an organizational development consultant, and Ben Kleinman, a change management expert, dive deep into the real ways organizations can measure stakeholder engagement.
If you are tired of relying on basic email open rates to tell you how your team is handling a transition, this episode is a must-listen.
The Problem with Superficial Metrics
When rolling out a new initiative—like transitioning a sales team from manual “black notebooks” to a fully digitized customer relationship management (CRM) system—it is tempting to look at simple metrics. Many leaders rely on pulse surveys, email open rates, or system logins to gauge engagement.
However, as Ben points out, these are merely proxies. Just because an employee logs into a new system doesn’t mean they actually believe in the change. They might be doing the bare minimum to stay compliant and avoid getting fired, while covertly maintaining a “shadow system” of manual spreadsheets to do their real work. To truly measure engagement, organizations must look beyond superficial participation and evaluate whether employees are actively buying into the new way of working.
Establishing a Baseline for Change
Before you can measure how far your team has come, you need to know where they started. Surprisingly, many change initiatives are launched without ever collecting baseline data.
Rich and Ben emphasize that conducting a change readiness questionnaire early in the process is essential. A strong baseline survey should measure perceived need for change, executive support, capacity to change, and alignment with organizational goals. Without this initial snapshot, any measurement of progress relies entirely on assumptions, making it impossible to accurately calibrate your change management strategy.
Tracking Meaningful Behaviors and Business Outcomes
The ultimate goal of any change initiative should be sustained behavior change that is directly tied to a specific corporate metric, such as increased revenue or improved customer response times.
Instead of asking if people are simply using a system, ask if their use of that system is driving business results. For example, engagement metrics should look at whether customer issues are being resolved faster or if employees are identifying cross-selling opportunities more efficiently. You can also audit work products to see if the new process is resulting in fewer defects or faster production, similar to evaluating the quality output after introducing a new manufacturing tool or automated process.
Furthermore, true commitment predicts behavioral support. You can measure deep engagement by observing employees’ actions: are they volunteering to train new staff on the ins and outs of the system? Are they actively championing the change to their peers?. These observable behaviors demonstrate that a stakeholder is committed to the organization’s success, rather than just complying with a mandate.
Measuring the Unmeasurable: Trust and Psychological Safety
One of the most challenging aspects of engagement to measure is an employee’s internal state. Are they experiencing psychological safety? Do they trust their managers? Do they feel they have genuine, bounded influence over the change?.
When employees feel their input is devalued, it registers in the brain similarly to physical pain, increasing resistance and driving them to withdraw. To measure these critical internal states, leaders must move beyond standard surveys and incorporate structured and informal interviews. Looking at engagement quality metrics—such as the percentage of material design decisions that were actually changed based on end-user input—can reveal if employees truly have a voice. In the future, analyzing meeting transcripts for tone or utilizing a theoretical “conflicto-meter” to gauge friction during digital meetings could offer even deeper insights into team health and safety.
Leveraging Omnichannel Communications
Your employees consume content in different ways, so tracking engagement requires looking across all your communication channels.
Instead of just checking if an email was opened, measure click-through rates on calls-to-action to see if employees are taking the next step. Look at how long they are dwelling on internal SharePoint landing pages, whether they are progressing through Learning Management System (LMS) training modules, and how actively they are contributing to conversations on platforms like Slack, Teams, or even within an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.
Conclusion: The Need for Human Judgment
While gathering this rich “soup” of metrics is vital, it cannot replace human interpretation. Relying solely on hard data or algorithms can lead to missteps, as Ford Motor Company recently discovered when they had to reverse course on automated layoffs due to a drop in product quality. Leaders must use their expert judgment to synthesize these data points, understand the nuances of employee behavior, and continuously improve the change process.
To learn more about mastering change in your organization, be sure to listen to the full Harmonious Workplaces podcast and check out the free workplace culture scorecard and change process tools available at harmoniousworkplaces.com.
0 Comments