What is the Happy Index?

The Happy Index is a unique index that has become an evolution of engagement survey technologies. Thank to such index you may identify the company's "golden asset" and define your HR strategy.

The Happy Index is calculated by summing highly and moderately engaged employees with highly and moderately loyal employees.

Why to use the Happy Index

You can use the index to characterize the relationship between loyalty and engagement. Understanding this relationship allows for an objective assessment of the company's atmosphere and the implementation of solutions and practices that can improve the productivity and business performance of any organization.

An employee may be loyal but disengaged. For example, he/she wants to stay with the company for the next few years, hope for a promotion, and recommend the company to their friends seeking employment. However, he/she does not strive to exceed expectations, perform poorly, and lack initiative.

Or, conversely, an employee may be engaged but not loyal. For example, he/she may be excellent at his/her job and exceeding KPIs, but is planning to leave for a competitor in the near future.

Loyalty is an index that gauges an employee’s attitude to the company, his/her energy and willingness to change.
Engagement is an index that gauges the motivation of employees to work toward a result and the productivity of their work environment.

Thus, the loyalty index indicates whether employees feel pride in the company, will support organizational and strategic changes, and will remain loyal to the company even in difficult times.

The engagement index shows whether employees feel their work is a calling and are willing to invest time and effort in professional development. It also indirectly indicates whether the company itself creates a comfortable work environment allowing employees to easily engage in their work.

Loyalty and engagement indices cannot provide managers with comprehensive and accurate information for decision-making. Therefore, a new HR index was needed that would combine both loyal and engaged employees.

Happy Index Matrix

The Happy Job platform allows you to not only gauge the Happy Index, but also divide employees, depending on the results of the loyalty and engagement survey, into 9 groups that make up the Happy Index matrix.

The matrix was generated based on surveys results conducted in the company and allows one to evaluate which groups of employees predominate.

High engagement and high loyalty
The most valuable human resource. Such an employee is both highly productive and loyal to the company.
High engagement and medium loyalty
Such employee works in a productive environment but doesn't share the company's values. Passionate about his/her work but lacks loyalty to the employer.
High engagement and low loyalty
Such employee works in a productive environment, does his/her job well and on time, but does not strive to do more than is required.
Medium engagement and high loyalty
Such employee is committed to the company, but the lack of a productive environment does not allow him/her to fully utilize his knowledge and skills
Medium engagement and medium loyalty
Such employee works in an unproductive environment and does not show high results. He also does not share the company's values.
Medium engagement and low loyalty
Such employee works in an unproductive environment and is not engaged in the process. He/she is disloyal to the company and does not recommend it as a place to work to a friend.
Low engagement and high loyalty
Such employee is a victim of circumstance: a critically unproductive environment and surroundings prevent him from working effectively, but he/she nevertheless remains loyal to the company.
Low engagement and medium loyalty
Such employee works in a critically unproductive environment, is not productive, and does not share the employer's values.
Low engagement and low loyalty
This is the worst of all combinations. Such employee is ineffective and disloyal to the company. He/she will hinder the team and drag it down.

In reports for Happy Job platform users, the matrix looks like this:

Matrix in reports for Happy Job platform users

How to use the Happy Index

With the Happy Index matrix in hand, a manager can focus on those measures that will improve the situation.

In this case, it is necessary to rely on the personnel policy and the tasks facing the company. For example, if the HR strategy in a company is consumer-based and many employees are low-engaged and low-loyal the following measures should be a priority to develop a productive environment:

  • improvement of working conditions;
  • operational excellence;
  • conducting trainings for managers on managerial expertise;
  • frequent, regular and competent feedback;
  • recognition of merit;
  • conducting 1-on-1 meeting, including discussion of the career path and professional development of each employee;
  • events to maintain a healthy work-life balance;
  • improving team psychology.

A consumer-based HR strategy assumes that an employee's life cycle in a company is short, so the first priority is to achieve maximum productivity from them.

If an HR strategy is aimed at long-term cooperation, partnership and retention of valuable specialists, the following measures are to prioritize to increase loyalty:

  • identifying reasons for low employee loyalty holding proper of 1-on-1 meetings;
  • analysis of criticism, ideas and suggestions received as a result of engagement and loyalty surveys;
  • joint problem-solving;
  • implementing proposed solutions;
  • regular meetings with employees to discuss the measures taken and plans for the implementation of further changes with specific deadlines;
  • keeping employees informed about company successes, challenges, and management decisions;
  • creating workplace traditions and competent, unobtrusive team building.

On our platform, you will find recommendations from our experts to improve your metrics. These recommendations are complemented by a built-in Action Plan and self-monitoring tools helping managers achieve their company's goals without significantly increasing their management workload.