Employee surveys are one of the most effective ways to gather information on employee well-being and engagement at work in a timely, efficient, and centralized manner.
The most popular types are employee satisfaction surveys, which assess employee views and sentiments about the company, and employee engagement surveys, which measure employee commitment, motivation, and enthusiasm for their job and organization. Other common types of employee surveys evaluate performance, professional development, and company culture.
These surveys enable organizations to examine the impact of managers on employees. Conducting one or more of these surveys shows your employees that you value their input, and you are finding ways to promote better collaboration and improve the employee experience.
Why are employee surveys important?
One of the key steps in identifying problems and opportunities for improvement is to conduct employee surveys. Some of the advantages of conducting employee surveys are listed below.
Surveys empower employees.
Simply completing a survey empowers your employees and provides them with a means of communicating their views, concerns, and suggestions. It assures them that you are listening to them, and you value their opinions and ideas.
Surveys measure how engaged employees are at work.
Improving customer experience and building brand loyalty starts with improving employee experience. Employee satisfaction surveys may provide insight into how employees feel about their workplace, how happy they are working for the company, and their suggestions for resolving existing issues.
Surveys facilitate communication and collaboration.
The most successful teams have a strong communication channel. Involve your employees in enhancing work processes. They may have great suggestions on improving customer service, boosting brand visibility, or getting more customers.
Listening to your employees' feedback and concerns demonstrates that you are a good leader. However, knowing what questions to ask them can be challenging.
To help you out, here are some pointers on how to write effective employee survey questions that inspire open, honest, and valuable responses.
Start with objectives.
While it may be tempting to immediately begin drafting questions, you need to make sure that each question serves a purpose, and that purpose is defined by objectives. Consider the existing work processes and systems, along with organizational plans and goals.
You should be able to understand the rationale for each question. Check to see whether each question provides you with relevant information that benefits the organization—rather than it being simply fascinating.
Consider company culture and language.
Develop questions that are relevant and critical to company success. If you're utilizing a survey template and discover that some questions are irrelevant to you, modify them to become useful.
Your organization is unique, and your survey questions should reflect this distinctiveness. It may be as simple as altering the terminology in questions from "team lead" to "shift manager," depending on your company job titles and descriptions.
Keep it short.
Keep your questions concise and avoid deviating from the central subject. Often, a single sentence is enough. Everybody has a limited attention span. The faster your employees can read, comprehend, and respond to your questions, the better.
Utilize words economically. Limiting your question length forces you to carefully deliberate each word, resulting in better replies. On the other hand, adding extra words brings additional variables that may confuse responders.
Be clear.
Keep your questions clear and easy to comprehend. If your employees must read the question twice, your message is probably not clear enough.
To ensure that your questions are easily understood, keep them simple and direct. Avoid the use of industry jargon, slang, colloquialisms, and catchphrases, as they may confuse your respondents and produce erroneous or unsatisfactory results.
Finally, attempt to answer the questions yourself and assess how simple they are to comprehend and answer.
Be specific.
Develop specific and concrete questions rather than broad and generic ones. Keep your questions direct and urge employees to do the same when responding.
Avoid asking double-barreled questions. For instance, "How satisfied are you with your working conditions and salary?" is tricky to answer since it refers to two distinct subjects: working conditions and salary. An employee may be extremely satisfied with the job conditions but unsatisfied with the pay. A better strategy would be to write separate questions for each subject.
Addressing specific subjects with targeted questions is an excellent approach to elicit deeper thinking on a subject, increasing the likelihood of receiving an honest response.
Don’t ask leading questions.
By asking leading questions, you nullify the purpose of creating employee surveys. Leading questions are designed to persuade respondents to reply in a particular way, based on how they're framed.
For example, "What is the best thing about working with the sales team?" is a leading question since it asks about the "best thing." If the respondent is not happy about being part of the sales team, he or she won't be able to answer honestly.
Rephrase the question and ask, “How do you feel about working with the sales team?” to encourage a more honest response. If your questions already have an intended response, employees will feel compelled and self-conscious about replying honestly. They will almost certainly agree, rendering the results invalid.
Don’t ask questions you aren’t ready to address.
When you ask a question about something you are unable to solve or are unwilling to discuss, you place yourself in a tough situation. Surveys participants will assume that if you inquire about job conditions, for example, you are prepared to do something about it.
Conclusion
Employee surveys are an excellent way for employees to provide useful input to managers and corporate executives. Creating your own survey questions allows you to get honest and specific feedback from your workforce. It is critical to devote time and energy crafting great survey questions that inspire valuable responses and help you improve business decisions.
About The Author
Bash Sarmiento is a writer and an educator from Manila. He writes laconic pieces in the education, lifestyle, and health realms. His academic background and extensive experience in teaching, textbook evaluation, business management, and traveling are translated in his works.