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How well does your company engage its employees? Unless you’re running regular employee engagement surveys, you really can’t be sure.
Employee engagement is the process of ensuring your workforce feels invested in their work and your organization. It’s associated with a lot of business benefits, including better employee retention, performance, and productivity.
Regular employee surveys show you how you’re doing in terms of employee engagement. Surveys reveal employee sentiment and help identify areas for improvement.
Depending on the questions you ask, they can tell you how employees feel about their work-life balance and wellbeing. They can reveal insights into internal communications and your training programs. They can also shine a light on company culture.
Surveys are particularly important when we consider the issues many organizations have motivating and engaging their staff. According to Gallup research, only 23% of the global workforce is engaged at work.
For frontline teams, engagement can be an even bigger problem. Frontline employees are less trusting and more likely to experience burnout than their desk-based peers. According to Qualtrics research, they’re also less happy with pay and benefits, less satisfied with career development, and less trusting of leadership than non-frontline workers.
Engaging all employees — including those on the frontline — is a challenge. You’re better equipped to take on that challenge when you have the right data at your disposal. That means getting reliable insights with regular employee engagement surveys.
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Here, we take a look at how employee experience surveys benefit your business. We share some survey best practices and some employee engagement survey question examples, too.
We’ll be covering:
- Benefits of conducting regular employee engagement surveys
- Key ingredients for effective employee engagement surveys
- The three types of employee engagement survey question
- 46 employee engagement survey question examples
- Using technology to improve the employee survey process
Benefits of conducting regular employee engagement surveys
The annual employee survey is no longer enough.
82% of HR leaders consider it very important or important to increase the frequency of employee listening over the next three years. 57% say they’re running employee experience surveys every quarter at a minimum.
So should you follow suit? Here’s why taking the time to conduct regular employee engagement surveys is well worth your while.
- Track employee sentiment. Regular surveys help you keep your finger on the pulse of your organization. You see how your workforce views employee experience at your company at any given moment. This ensures engagement issues — like low morale and high turnover — don’t take you by surprise.
- Identify areas for improvement. Employee engagement surveys take guesswork out of the equation. By drilling down into survey data, you identify the departments, teams, and areas of employee experience that are most in need of work. You learn what motivates employees and which changes to company culture they want to see.
- Give all employees a voice. Frontline workers don’t tend to spend a lot of time working alongside managers. So assessing employee sentiment on an informal basis is difficult, if not impossible. A structured survey strategy ensures you hear voices from across the organization. This means more meaningful and valuable insights.
- Improve business performance. Higher levels of employee engagement lead to better employee performance, productivity, and loyalty. They also provide a host of other business performance benefits. By incorporating employee surveys into your employee experience strategy, you improve engagement and make your organization more successful, too.
Key ingredients for effective employee engagement surveys
Before you start putting together employee survey questions, it’s important to establish a few best practices. By incorporating these key ingredients, you create surveys that yield meaningful data and encourage employee participation, too.
To build surveys into your company culture, you need the following.
1. A selection of appropriate survey questions
Employee survey questions should be aligned with your organization and its goals. They also need to be worded in such a way that they produce reliable and significant data.
Each employee engagement survey question should be:
- Aligned with employee engagement KPIs — so you’re measuring the things that matter to your organization
- Based on something you’re prepared to take action on — employees will lose faith in the survey process if you fail to make changes in response to their constructive feedback
- Neutrally worded — an employee engagement survey question shouldn’t sway respondents in one direction or another
- Centered around one issue — ask about one thing at a time or you won’t be able to draw clear conclusions from employee answers
2. A survey communication strategy
As well as devising surveys with the right employee survey questions, you need to think about how you’re going to communicate with employees throughout the survey process.
Consider the communication channels you’ll use to reach employees, including those working on the frontline of your organization. Also, clarify which information you’ll be sharing with employees.
Regular, open communication is best. Tell employees why you’re doing the survey and what they stand to gain by filling it out. Explain how long the survey will take to complete and give assurances of anonymity. Also, tell them how you’ll inform them of survey results and any subsequent employee experience action plan.
You’ll need messages targeted at reluctant survey respondents, too. A schedule of gentle reminders can work. You may also like to get your leaders involved. When leaders promote surveys, employees see that their opinions are being taken seriously at the highest levels of your organization — and they’re more likely to take part.
3. Anonymity and confidentiality
Without the promise of anonymity and confidentiality, employees tend to get a bit cagey with their survey responses. They may end up telling you what they think you want to hear. Or they may fail to answer survey questions honestly out of concern for their career or workplace relationships.
To encourage employees to answer questions candidly, tell them how you’ll protect their anonymity. Also, use survey tools that make it easy to collect survey responses anonymously.
4. A suitable survey frequency
A lot can happen in a year and annual surveys are far too infrequent. But you don’t want to bombard your employees with survey requests either. It’s all about striking the right balance.
In our experience, the following schedule works well:
- an in-depth survey to track employee experience changes each quarter
- pulse surveys to gauge real-time employee sentiment each month
This approach doesn’t risk survey fatigue. Nor does it allow for employee experience blind spots to develop. Instead, it successfully makes surveys an integral and valuable part of company culture.
As well as considering how often you expect employees to complete surveys, consider how long you expect them to spend filling them out.
Busy frontline workers are often stretched for time. So surveys should take a maximum of 10 minutes for employees to complete. To ensure high-quality, constructive feedback you don’t want respondents to rush their answers or give up on a survey part-way through.
5. Analyzing and interpreting survey results
Once you’ve gathered survey responses, you can start analyzing and interpreting them.
You can use your data to identify your best and worst performing areas — and to establish benchmarks. You can also segment data, according to employee team, department, or tenure, to find variances in employee experience across your organization.
With the right survey tools, this process is quicker and easier. You get intelligent analysis and recommendations based on your survey findings, without having to process data manually.
The three types of employee engagement survey question
There are three different types of employee engagement survey questions you can ask. Using all three will help you to gather constructive feedback and useful insights.
Qualitative survey questions
Qualitative questions take the form of yes/no, multiple choice, or a rating scale (1 to 10).
Here are a few examples:
Rate the following statement on a scale from 1 to 10. 1 = strongly disagree. 10 = strongly agree.
I enjoy a good work-life balance.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
How often do you get constructive feedback from managers?
1. Once a week
2. Once a month
3. Once a year or less
4. Never
Quantitative questions are quick and easy for employees to answer. They also provide survey results that are easy to analyze. This type of employee engagement survey question is well-suited to both quarterly surveys and pulse surveys.
Quantitative survey questions
Quantitative questions are open-ended. They give employees the chance to write a response in their own words and can reveal unexpected perspectives.
Here are some examples:
- What is one thing you’d like leadership to know about your onboarding experience?
- What can we do to improve internal communication at [company]?
Qualitative questions give in-depth insight into what employees are thinking and feeling. While a quantitative question can tell you if someone is proud to work for your company, you need a qualitative question to explain why.
Results for qualitative questions are a little trickier to analyze. They also require more time and thought from employees. As a result, qualitative questions aren’t well-suited to short pulse surveys. Instead, they work best as part of your quarterly employee engagement survey — and even then, should be kept to a minimum.
Demographic survey questions
Demographic survey questions help you to segment your survey results while maintaining employee anonymity. Here are some examples:
- What team are you on?
- How long have you worked at [company]?
These demographic questions are relevant to all employee engagement surveys. They help you understand employee experience across your organization, drawing more detailed conclusions from your results and facilitating targeted interventions.
46 employee engagement survey question examples
Ready to put your first employee survey together? Then start by taking a look at these employee survey question examples.
Company culture questions
A strong company culture prompts high levels of employee engagement — and high levels of employee engagement help you foster a strong company culture. So finding out what employees think of your workplace culture is an engagement survey essential.
I would recommend [company] as a great place to work.
At [company] we value open and honest communication.
[Company] is a safe place to work.
[Company] cares about my wellbeing.
I am valued by [company].
I can raise problems and concerns with leaders and managers.
Leaders keep everyone informed about what is happening at [company].
What can we do to improve communication at [company]?
What could we do to improve company culture?
Morale and engagement questions
Employees are more likely to be engaged when they feel aligned with company goals. Here are some survey questions that help you to assess their sense of motivation and purpose.
I feel a sense of accomplishment most days.
I know what is expected of me to be successful.
I know how my role supports the goals of the company.
I’m inspired by the purpose and mission of the company.
I rarely think about looking for a job at another company.
I see myself working at [company] two years from now.
What do we do well at [company]?
What could we do better at [company]?
Questions about management
70% of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager. So use your engagement surveys to find out what employees think about their team leaders.
My manager leads by example.
My manager cares about my opinion.
I get enough constructive feedback on how well I’m doing my job.
I am given enough freedom to decide how to do my work.
My manager promotes an open and constructive way to deal with problems.
I find my workload manageable.
My manager gives me the support I need to do my job well.
If you were a manager, how would you motivate your employees?
Teamwork and belonging questions
Employees who feel that they belong within an organization are 5.3 times more likely to do their best work. These questions will help you find out whether employees view your workplace as inclusive and supportive.
I make a difference to my team.
I feel like I belong within [company].
I get enough opportunities to collaborate with my team.
People from all backgrounds have equal opportunity to succeed at [company].
I can ask other team members for help when I need it.
Desk-based and frontline employees are treated equally at [company].
How could your team improve communication and collaboration?
Recognition and benefits questions
Recognition along with a fair salary and benefits are crucial for a positive employee experience. Use employee survey questions like these to gauge employee sentiment on these topics.
I receive recognition when I do good work.
I believe my benefits package is good by industry standards.
I understand the benefits available to me.
I enjoy a good work-life balance.
I feel adequately rewarded for my contributions to [company].
Salaries and benefits are awarded fairly at [company].
What benefits would you like to see provided by [company]?
Learning and growth questions
Organizations that don’t provide skills-building opportunities are 72% less likely to have employees saying they want to work there for more than a year. You can find out if your learning and development efforts are up to scratch by asking questions like these.
The information I need to do my job well is available.
I have access to the tools I need to do my job well.
I believe there are strong career opportunities for me at [company].
I have access to the learning and development I need to do my job well.
Training at [company] is effective.
Managers have shown a genuine interest in my career aspirations.
What can we do to better support your development and career goals?
Using technology to improve the survey process
Establishing survey best practices and asking the right questions are essential to a successful employee survey initiative. Having the right technology makes a big difference, too. It makes the survey process quicker, easier, and more effective.
For frontline organizations, a mobile-first employee app, equipped to deliver surveys, works well. You don’t have to rely on inefficient paper surveys or shared devices. Instead, you can send surveys to every employee’s smartphone, increasing adoption and response rates in the process.
With an employee engagement app like Blink, you can launch quarterly and pulse surveys to your entire workforce in minutes. Choose from a selection of pre-prepared employee engagement survey questions or create your own.
Blink allows employees to respond to surveys anonymously, which builds trust with your workforce and ensures you get honest, useful data. Your HR team can also use Blink Analytics, which streamlines survey data analysis and helps you identify the most pressing employee engagement issues in an instant.
To see how Blink could transform your employee engagement surveys and company culture, schedule your personalized demo today.
