Available Benchmarks & Best Practices

Benchmarks provide context and insights into how your organization’s survey responses compare to the performance of other similar organizations. On an annual basis, WorkTango refreshes the data and calculates benchmarks by averaging survey responses from numerous organizations segmented by industry, size, and region. These benchmarks offer a point of reference to evaluate your organization’s performance and can help guide your efforts to enhance employee engagement and create a positive workplace culture.

Read more about how to use Benchmarks in the platform here.

Available Benchmarks

WorkTango offers Benchmarking for four program areas.

1. Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion questions
2. Onboarding questions
3. Exit questions
4. Engagement questions (new: expanded to all questions in 2024)

Benchmark-supported survey questions are marked with a “B” in the Question Editor within the “Build” section of your survey creation page. Include these questions in your surveys to enable Benchmarking.

Benchmark Data Association

WorkTango indicates the number of companies used to calculate the benchmark score directly beside the percentage value. This is represented by the n-value. The platform will only show benchmarks when the number of companies used to compile the benchmark value (N-value) is five or more.

For effortless comparison, WorkTango will automatically link survey questions that match benchmarkable library questions and will automatically link benchmarked questions from cloned surveys, enabling you to compare them against Benchmarks.  For complete flexibility, custom questions created by your organization can be manually linked to a Library question for benchmarking. Contact the Surveys & Insights Consultant team (surveysandinsights@worktango.com) or support (support@worktango.com) and they will be happy to assist you in this. Keep in mind that we can’t support linking survey questions to WorkTango’s Benchmark questions if they convey different meanings. 

Benchmark Best Practices

Building a fantastic employee experience through the rapidly changing state of the workplace is challenging. While leveraging Benchmarks to measure the success of your employee experience initiatives is a great practice, it’s not the only piece of information that should be considered. 

No two companies share the exact same traits, and employee engagement drivers can vary drastically between them. With that in mind, organizations shouldn’t solely focus on benchmark data, as this can stifle action. If your organization scored higher than the benchmark in a certain area, would you no longer seek to improve it? Of course not. Every organization is focused on continuous improvement in its people strategy. 

WorkTango recommends using Benchmarks as part of your decision-making process, but it should be accompanied by a strategy that: 

• Places more emphasis on internal benchmarks: Understanding engagement levels by region, department, and team offers a more valuable view of the data and supports targeted action. 
• Measures the impact of individual drivers of engagement: Drivers such as leadership, work environment and more help to see the bigger picture to understand what’s influencing your engagement scores. 
• Monitors internal trends over time and makes leaders accountable: Leaders have a large influence on their team’s engagement. Frequent engagement measurements enable organizations to understand their workplace sentiment in real time and build leader accountability. 

Benchmarks are one of many valuable tools in defining what a competitive workplace experience looks like. WorkTango empowers your organization for both present and future success by providing benchmarks through a survey platform that actively listens throughout the entire employee lifecycle. World-class companies are focused on listening and acting on matters that contribute to employee engagement through internal measurement and diagnostic feedback rather than solely fixating on external “best practice” benchmarks. WorkTango recognizes that everyone is at a different stage in their employee engagement journey, so we’re equipping you with all the tools needed to truly move the needle on employee engagement now and in the future.

FAQs

Q: If my organization wants to see specific benchmark calculations, or multiple segments combined, can WorkTango compile those calculations? 

A: Yes, WorkTango’s Professional Services team can support custom Benchmark reports and presentations. Reach out to customersupport@worktango.com for more information. 

Q: Are the benchmarks based on real-time data from current surveys or historical data from previous years?

A: Benchmark data is calculated at the end of each calendar year, based on the data from that year.  

Q: What time period do benchmarks cover? 

A: Benchmark data is refreshed annually. When interacting with Benchmark data, you are comparing your current survey results to Benchmarks in the previous calendar year.  

Q: If my organization falls under the “Medium” bucket, can I still compare my survey results to benchmarks from large or small organizations? 

A:  No, for the Size segment organizations can only compare against other organizations of the same size.  If you would like to change how your organization is categorized, reach out to your customer success representative. 

Q: What is a statistically significant sample size? 

A: The platform will only show Benchmarks when the number of companies used to compile the benchmark value is five or more.

Q: Are there any additional costs required to access the benchmarking feature?

A: Benchmarks provided within the platform are complimentary to all WorkTango customers. 

Q: Why is the data in the platform different from what WorkTango has delivered in previous custom presentations?

A: The WorkTango Benchmark previously provided by Professional Services may differ due to differences in time periods and in analysis. Our platform assesses data by singular segments. The Professional Services team analyzes multiple segments together to tell a more holistic story of engagement. 

Q: Can we export benchmark data for further analysis and internal reporting?

A: Yes, you can include benchmarks in your survey export file. Read Exporting Survey Results article for more information.

Q:  What security measures are in place to protect our survey data?

A: Similar to our anonymity threshold, each question must be used by at least 5 companies in a year for the Benchmark score to be available in the platform. WorkTango’s promise to employee confidentiality  is upheld and maintained at all times. 

Q: Can we benchmark our historical survey data, or is this feature only applicable to new surveys going forward?

A: Any survey, historical and new, can be compared against Benchmarks. Benchmarks are calculated annually for the previous calendar year.