One question, scored: does the organisation motivate and enable contribution? The Engagement Index measures the conditions the employer controls — enablement, leadership, growth and connection — and it is deliberately framed as a property of the organisation rather than of the employee.
The Engagement Index answers one question: does the organisation motivate and enable contribution? The subject of that sentence is deliberate. Engagement here is not a personality trait or a measure of individual enthusiasm — it is a measure of the conditions an employer creates.
That framing matters practically. If engagement is treated as something employees either have or lack, the response becomes exhortation. If it is treated as a set of conditions — clarity, trust, a path forward, belonging — the response becomes something leadership can actually change.
Each is scored independently, so a single index score never hides which condition is missing.
Each domain is scored 0–100 from the same universal statement set that produces the Capacity Index, in the same survey window, for the same employees. The four domain scores combine into the Engagement Index.
Running both halves on one instrument is what makes them comparable. Measuring engagement in March and capacity in September produces two numbers that cannot be read against each other — and the relationship between them is the finding.
The statement set and completion flow: the Employee Capacity Survey.
A high Engagement Index is usually treated as the finish line. On its own it is not, because it says nothing about whether the contribution it describes is affordable.
High engagement with low capacity is the at-risk state: committed people absorbing more load than they can recover from, where performance looks strong right up to the point it stops. An engagement survey alone reports that state as a success — which is the single strongest argument for scoring capacity beside it.
Which state a team is in, and what each implies: the Thrive Matrix.
Across our validation study the Engagement Index moved 48.0 to 97.5 — +50 points — between the bottom and top decile of the Thrive Index, the wider of the two halves.
Figures on this page come from thrive at work’s own validation study (n=10,000+, 2025–26), fielded across the US and Europe. Comparisons are bottom decile versus top decile of the Thrive Index unless a figure states otherwise — the leadership cascade is measured by management layer.
These are associations measured within a single cross-sectional study, not causal claims. No score is displayed for any group of fewer than five people.
A 30-minute call with the research team covers what a first measurement would surface, and how your sector compares.