Measuring what matters at year-end

The year-end is a popular time for reflecting. 2026 planning is already underway. Budgeting, forecasting and inventory management might be on your radar, but don't overlook one important metric when closing one year and planning for another: employee satisfaction.

A recent And So It Flows Podcast conversation with Spencer Pope, Bradford White’s manager of technical training at Bradford White, prompted me to write about this topic. When speaking on employee retention, specifically in the service and trades realm, Pope brought up the Gallup Q12 as a helpful tool for employers.

At its core, the Gallup Q12 is a simple but research-backed engagement survey built around 12 statements that measure the emotional and practical connection employees feel to their workplace. It asks fundamental questions such as whether employees know what is expected of them, whether they have the tools to do their job well, whether their opinions seem to count and whether they see opportunities to learn and grow. On the surface, it can seem almost too basic for today’s complex supply-chain businesses. In practice, that simplicity is exactly what makes it powerful.

In distribution, manufacturing and the trades, retention is rarely driven by compensation alone. We all compete on wages and benefits, but the deeper drivers of loyalty are often less tangible: clarity, trust, recognition, development and belonging. What the Gallup Q12 does remarkably well is quantify those “soft” drivers in a way leaders can actually manage.

Why does that matter at year-end? Because most organizations are already in a strategic mindset. You’re analyzing what moved, what stagnated, where margins held and where they compressed. The Q12 offers a parallel diagnostic tool for the human side of that same equation. It moves employee engagement out of the realm of gut feeling and into measurable performance data.

One of the most valuable aspects of the Gallup Q12 is that it does not just measure happiness; it measures conditions that predict performance and retention. Decades of Gallup research have linked higher Q12 scores to lower turnover, fewer safety incidents, higher productivity and better customer engagement. In supply houses and manufacturing plants, where institutional knowledge, safety and customer relationships are mission-critical, these outcomes are not abstract ideals — they are bottom-line issues.

For trades and service organizations, the stakes are even higher. As Pope noted in our conversation, the skilled labor pipeline remains tight, and the cost of losing even one trained technician or warehouse associate extends far beyond the expense of backfilling an open position. There is lost knowledge, lost productivity, pressure on remaining staff and often a ripple effect on service quality. When viewed through that lens, an engagement survey is not an HR exercise — it is a risk-management tool.

What also makes the Q12 effective as a year-end initiative is that it naturally leads to conversation and action. The survey itself is not the goal; the dialogue that follows is. When leadership reviews results and discusses them openly with teams, it sends a powerful signal that employee feedback is not only collected but valued. For many organizations, that act alone begins to strengthen trust.

Equally important, the Q12 offers a baseline. You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Taking the survey at the close of the year creates a snapshot of organizational health at a specific point in time. From there, improvement plans can be tied directly into 2026 operational objectives: leadership development, training investments, safety programs, communication efforts and succession planning.

There is also an accountability component that makes the Q12 particularly useful in multi-branch distribution and large manufacturing environments. Because results can be reviewed at the team or location level, leaders gain insight into where engagement is strong and where it may be fraying. That visibility allows for targeted intervention instead of broad, unfocused initiatives that consume time without producing results.

Perhaps most importantly, the Gallup Q12 reframes retention as a leadership responsibility rather than a labor-market inevitability. In a challenging hiring environment, it is easy to accept turnover as unavoidable. The data behind the Q12 suggests otherwise. Engagement, when managed with intention, is highly influenceable. People stay where they feel equipped, valued and developed. Those conditions do not happen by accident; they are built.

As we close out the year and look ahead to 2026, most companies will refine their purchasing strategies, renegotiate vendor relationships and recalibrate inventory turns. All of that matters. But none of it functions without the people who execute those strategies every day — the counter teams, drivers, warehouse associates, customer service reps, technicians and managers who carry the weight of the operation.

The Gallup Q12 offers a disciplined, proven way to bring employee satisfaction and retention into that same planning framework. Used thoughtfully, it becomes less about surveying and more about stewardship — stewarding talent, culture and long-term organizational health.

Year-end reflection should not only ask how the business performed, but how the people inside the business experienced that performance. The answers to those questions may be the most powerful forecasting tool you use this season.