Employee survey questions

Good Employee Survey Question , “Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers,” says Voltaire.

Since a successful survey program would require time and energy from your staff, you should concentrate on measuring only the items that are meaningful and valuable to your company.

Pulse is yet another way to pay more attention to workers. There are no set guidelines for what you can ask, so your questions will be entirely determined by your objectives. We recommend beginning with the organization’s strategic priorities and then moving on to the HR department’s objectives.

Focus your attention on each area by asking questions about how your success in each area is changing over time. Asking the right questions at the right time will ensure that your surveys are a success rather than a failure.

Make sure that every question in your survey relates to your target in some way – exclude any “nice to have” things and resist the urge to include irrelevant questions.

Above all, make sure your survey is heavily weighted for execution. Consider if you still need an answer to a particular question if you can’t move on to it.

Getting the right combination of result, driver, and open text questions is the best way to accomplish this.

The Types of Questions Outcome, Driver, and Open Text

In an employee survey, there are three types of questions:

The thing you want to measure – for example, engagement or eNPS – is the outcome, also known as a tracker item.’ In most cases, you want to see this item’s scores trending upwards over time.

Drivers

These are the business activities or behaviours that affect the item you’re monitoring, for better or worse.

For example, whether workers have the appropriate level of training or whether their boss supports them in managing their workload could be a driver of eNPS.

This can be difficult to spot – you may have an idea of what main drivers affect a particular object, but without statistical analysis, it’s just a guess.

Open text

Using open text, your workers will write their replies, adding depth to your findings. Using the previous example, you might ask an open-ended question like, “Why would you recommend this company to family and friends?” or “What preparation do you believe is lacking for your role?” The qualitative data you receive can be extremely helpful in putting the quantitative data from your item and driver questions into perspective.

Open analyses were difficult to analyze in the past, but artificial intelligence and natural language processing have come a long way to help text analytics tools mine the open text for insights.

The majority of outcome items aren’t actionable, while driver items should always be. Any pointers on how to

good employee survey questions

good employee survey questions

• Keep it brief. The more your workers can understand and respond to the questions, the better.
• Don’t leave an unspoken answer. If you ask something like, “How do you feel about our amazing CMO?” You’re implying that the reaction should be upbeat. And it will unquestionably degrade the quality of the feedback.
• It’s not a good idea to kill two birds with one stone. When posing a question, avoid answering two topics at the same time. This can cause the reader to become perplexed, causing them to offer incorrect answers.
• Pose basic, easy-to-answer questions. You would be able to make better choices if you have specific answers. Having it precise and simple is the difficult part. Trying to answer your questions and seeing how simple it is to write an answer is a useful trick.

You must ask your questions in such a way that you receive the best possible answers in response once you know what kind of information you need and who to ask.

Here’s a quick checklist to help you get started with conducting good employee surveys:

• The survey’s purpose. It’s critical to figure out why you’re surveying the first place, whether it’s to identify flaws, issues, or opportunities for change within your business. It’s important to know exactly what you’re looking for.
• The metrics you’re attempting to quantify. Setting the right metrics will allow you to track your progress against your objectives. Choose to measure what you want to achieve, whether it’s employee engagement, dedication, happiness, loyalty, motivation, or success. This practice would allow you to make targeted changes and fix problems that you would not have discovered otherwise.
• It’s a good idea to stick to a tried and true system. Determine where, when, and how you will conduct the surveys. You can specify whether the survey will be conducted offline or online, as well as the focus group to which the survey will be directed, and the survey’s date.
• Obtain the required survey equipment. The best surveys necessitate the use of the best software. Examine which survey tool would work best for your company while also providing you with the most useful experience.
• Include a guarantee of anonymity. Making sure the employees’ responses remain confidential is the best way to ensure truthful reviews. This is because staff dislikes being continuously watched or risking getting into a personal feud with a coworker or manager.
• For such surveys, a suitable date and frequency are needed. Annual surveys are no longer conducted. To ensure employee engagement, you must now set the appropriate survey frequency.

There are ten steps to creating a perfect survey:

1. Define the aim of your online survey clearly.
2. Keep the survey brief and to the point.
3. Keep the employee survey questions straightforward.
4. Where necessary, ask closed-ended questions.
5. Throughout the survey, keep the rating scale questions consistent.
6. Ordered logically
7. Your survey should be pre-tested.
8. When sending out survey invites, keep your target audience in mind.
9. Send several reminders if necessary.
10. Consider providing a reward.

Question Structure for a robust Survey

We suggest using the 70:20:10 rule of thumb when planning the layout of your survey.

• 75% Actionable items
• 15% Outcome items
• 10% Open-text items

Consider this scenario: if you know that employees’ willingness to try out new things that interest them in their job is a key driver of people endorsing the company as a place to work to family and friends, which is more useful to you: employee survey questions , knowing your score for the result or finding the changes you can make to the key driver?

For an annual engagement survey, this can all happen over one year across an entire organization. Whereas Pulse, this is a smaller loop, and typically happens at a smaller scale (i.e., within smaller workgroups) and more frequently.

Some questions which you should consider for a survey-

1. On a scale of one to ten, how would you evaluate your work-life balance? In your view, what are the three most important contributing factors?
2. On a scale of one to ten, rate the sincerity and validity of our job acknowledgment. Explain your ranking. (1–10 based questions)
3. What drives you to go the extra mile at work? Please list three motivational stimuli that you find effective.
4. Do you think you’re making progress professionally at this company?
5. Are you pleased to be a member of our group? What is the rationale behind this? (yes/no based questions)
6. How likely are you to leave this business if you were given a 5% increase elsewhere? (Percentage based questions)
7. What will the organization’s theme song be like, and why?
8. Give one word to describe our society. Include a rationale. (Creative/Interest building questions)
9. Do you have a set of straightforward professional objectives? How far can you push yourself? (Brainstorming based questions)
10. Name three processes in this area that could be improved, and describe how. (Feedback based questions)
11. Name three of our company’s greatest strengths that you believe we should be emphasizing more. (Self-Reflection based questions)
12. How confident are you in your current position? (1 being not at all secure, 5 being completely secure)

Be diligent and honest if the workers are feeling uncomfortable about their employment. Building confidence with your team requires open and honest communication.

Discuss your situation with your staff transparently and honestly. Attempt to establish secure communication channels and solicit feedback regularly.

13. Finding another career that pays as well as this one will be challenging. (1 being strongly disagreed, 5 being strongly agreed)
14. I have a slim chance of finding a suitable replacement for my current role. (1 being strongly disagreed, 5 being strongly agreed)
15. What are your chances of finding an acceptable position if you look for an alternative job for a year? (1 being highest chance, 5 being lowest chance)
16. What percentage of the time did you consider taking a work offer in the last year? (1 being I almost unnoticed, 5 being I am not interested)
17. What percentage of the time would you accept a work offer if it came today? (1 being highest chance, 5 being lowest chance)

Is it easy for your workers to find new jobs?

The ease at which your workers can find a comparable (or better) job can have a significant impact on your turnover rates. One of the most important aspects of work embeddedness is sacrifice. If your workers can find a new job without putting in a lot of effort, they are less likely to stay with your company. As a result, their work embeddedness decreases, and employee turnover can increase.

18. In the last 3-6 months, what career target have you achieved?
19. On a scale of one to ten, how challenging is your job regularly?

Keep in mind that if your employees become bored, you will lose them. People get bored of repetitive routines. So pay attention to their responses and see if you’re providing enough diversity in your employees’ jobs.

20. How likely are you to leave this business if you were given a 5% increase elsewhere? Please include a percentage.

While it might not seem like much money, if an employee is dissatisfied with their job or believes they are being underpaid, they would gladly quit for a small raise.

If the percentage is too high, it indicates that the pay is not competitive enough and that employee morale is declining. So keep an eye on employee engagement and make sure you’re compensating your workers fairly.

21. How honest are we about the company’s results on a scale of 1 to 10?

Employee satisfaction is dependent on transparency. So, figure out a way to improve your communication with your workers and make them feel like they’re working in a trustworthy atmosphere.

22. What dangers do you see that might bring us out of business? At least two of them should be named.

Check to see if any factors are causing the company to collapse. This is important for detecting threats that are only visible to the employees.

23. Have you received any recognition from a boss in the last month? What’s the frequency at which they do it?

People want to be noticed at work, and two weeks without it will make an employee feel unappreciated; this question can tell you if this is the case. So, find the right resources to boost employee recognition in your business, and make sure to regularly sing your team’s praises.

24. On a scale of one to ten, how comfortable do you feel giving your boss positive feedback?

Arrogant leaders also refuse to accept new ideas. Make sure the organization’s leaders are approachable and open to criticism. This question will inform you of the current situation.

25. On a scale of one to ten, how much enjoyment do you have at work? And what are some of your favourite pastimes?

Both the job environment and the roles assigned to you play a significant role in this. A drab work environment will make the hours pass quickly. However, a fun work environment (i.e., getting great and helpful coworkers) can inspire people to go above and beyond. So you’ll get an idea of what keeps your workers engaged in their jobs by asking this question.

This will help you out in collecting, managing, analyzing, and interpreting the feedback of the employee survey. Surveys will enable you to manage your employees more effectively and efficiently so that the company can function smoothly.