Is there a difference between employee commitment and employee engagement? Does it really make a difference? For most people, probably not. Part of the issue is simple semantics. Both are outcome measures and both will serve the needs of most organizations quite well, but it is interesting to examine them a little deeper.

When The Loyalty Institute created the “Workforce Commitment Index” back in 1997, we crafted questions that measured productivity, pride in the organization, and intention to remain with the organization. We felt that it was important to focus on behaviors rather than perceptions. One criticism of employee surveys has been that they are solely about perceptions and have little to do with reality. Now, of course, any employee survey is going to rely on reports made by employees and these are certainly affected by attitudes but we wanted to steer away from this as much as possible.

Interestingly, this measurement of commitment was challenged. Some thought that it was too focused on behaviors and that it needed to include employee’s internal motivations. You just can’t win. For years we worried about making our surveys more behaviorally based and now some said that we had gone too far. So, later, we added questions on trust, values, and felt responsibility, to complete the measurement, covering both behaviors and motivations. Although we continued to use word commitment in the title, the index really became a measure of engagement.

The way the term Engagement is used now it really is a measure of the behaviors of commitment plus the internal motivations of engagement. Clearly this is a better measure and really gives the organization a barometer of the health of the employee work environment.

So, while the commitment vs. engagement debate may be an issue of semantics for many, the difference does emphasize that we must look at both behaviors and motivations when we are creating an organizational work environment.