Engagement Survey 2024 Results
In 2013, DHR implemented the first annual statewide survey assessing employee engagement in an effort to address the goal of developing workforce excellence using meaningful performance targets and measures. This survey process allows us to measure how employees feel about their daily work and about the State of Vermont as an employer, and to establish goals for improved engagement.
Analysis of State of Vermont Employee Engagement Survey Results - 2024 (pdf)
2024 Survey Results Dashboard
Survey results are also available on an interactive dashboard with visualizations. It is powered by a tool called Power BI.
Go to Survey Results Dashboard!
Brief instructions.
- Pages have filters on the upper righthand side of the screen, which defaults to statewide data for Classified and Exempt employees.
- Click on the down arrow in the dropdown boxes for Department to change the selection of data displayed in the visuals on that page.
- The pages within the dashboard are not “connected” so you will need to use the dropdown boxes to select Department on each page.
- Hover over a visual to see additional information.
- Click on any data element to update all visuals on that page. All visuals will then reflect the answers of respondents who also answered the selected data element.
- Navigate to other pages via the blue buttons in the left navigation bar.
Summary of 2024 Results
Key Findings
- The 2024 employee engagement survey occurred in June of 2024. There was an overall response rate of 67.2%.
- Engagement as measured by seven different components - Alignment, Communication, Satisfaction, Peers, Supervisor, Growth, Balance - found the highest level of agreement on items assessing Alignment (understanding the link between one's job and the organization's mission) at 91.8% as well as Peers (positive relationships in the workplace) at 80.9%.
- The lowest levels of agreement were on items assessing engagement components were for Growth at 60.7% (personal growth and development) and Communication (value employee voices, ideas, opinions) at 65.5%.
- The 2024 average employee engagement score was 3.95 out of possible 5. This was not significantly different from the 2023 survey (3.96). Historically, the overall engagement score has not changed meaningfully since the first survey in 2014.
- The 2024 engagement survey featured another popular approach to more directly measure the concept of engagement. This work engagement scale includes items measuring vigor at work, dedication and absorption. In general, the results show high levels of work engagement among respondents. Particularly high was a measure of dedication “I'm proud of the work I do,” which showed that 71.8% of respondents indicated they felt that way very often or always. This new measure shows great promise for future surveys.
- The Employee Net Promoter score, eNPS, which is another measure of employee engagement showed a statewide eNPS of .92, which was basically unchanged from the 2023 results (.90). eNPS is the difference between the percent of “detractors” who would not recommend the State of Vermont as an employer and the percent of “promoters” who would. The 0.92 eNPS indicates that there was a slightly higher percentage of promoters than detractors.
- Employee retention measures showed a high level of confidence that respondents felt they could find a job in another organization as good or better than their current one with nearly 55% confident.
- Nearly 57% indicated they were unlikely to be actively looking for a new job in the next year. On the other hand nearly 19% indicated that it was likely they would be looking for another job and nearly 25% were neutral.
- Engagement components that saw the greatest difference in agreement between those indicating they were likely to leave and those indicating they were unlikely to leave were organizational culture (-45.3%), satisfaction (-44.3%), communication (-42.2%), growth (-40.4%), and inclusive workplace (-35.5%). Departments wanting to address underlying causes that may be indicative of potential attrition can use these specific areas as targets for improvement.
- Respondents cited medical benefits as the top reason for staying with the State of Vermont by a wide margin (64.0%). To round out the top five reasons indicated for staying were retirement plan, workforce balance, telework/hybrid schedule, and pay/compensation.
- Respondents indicated compensation as the most important factor for potentially leaving state employment by a wide margin (74.5%). The rest of the top five include work life balance, medical benefits, telework/hybrid schedule, and doing work that they enjoy.
- For those respondents who had any amount of telework/hybrid schedule over 90% agreed that they can collaborate effectively with their colleagues while working remotely (92.1%) and that remote work positively impacts their work life balance (90.8%). In addition, 82.8% agreed that remote work positively impacts their individual performance.
- Respondents who indicated any amount of telework or hybrid schedule had higher levels of agreement across every employee engagement component compared to those for which a hybrid or telework schedule does not to their jobs.
- A sentiment analysis of the over 1,800 comments to the single open-ended question showed the overall sentiment was 46.5% negative, 34.1% neutral, and 19.5% positive.
- Over 70% of respondents indicated they had seen/read or otherwise been made aware of the results of the last employee engagement survey. However, only a little over 20% said they could identify a tangible change that was made because of the results of the survey.