Employee engagement is tremendously important, but it is, unfortunately, a nebulous concept. Many executives and managers have a difficult time measuring levels of engagement within their workforces. This is particularly problematic when these leaders are making active efforts to boost engagement because they have no way to tell if their efforts are working. The engagement survey is still one of the best tools in the managerial arsenal for getting the pulse of the workforce, but many strategies surrounding this practice make the use of surveys less effective than it could be. The best way to measure engagement is with short surveys, conducted on a frequent basis. They should take no more than a few minutes to complete, and should provide an ongoing look at employees’ attitudes about their jobs and their workplaces. Additionally, meetings should be scheduled frequently for employees to speak with leadership, to ask open-ended questions, vent frustrations, and confirm what’s going well. At these meetings, it’s important for communication lines to be open, and for the employees to do the majority of the talking.