Employee Engagement Surveys: Benefits | Tips | Questions
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  • Writer's pictureAnpar Research
    • Oct 9, 2020
    • 7 min read

Employee Engagement Surveys: Benefits | Tips | Questions

Updated: Feb 26


Employee engagement surveys: benefits, tips and questions - a happy and smiling team of 6 people during a meeting

To gage how motivated employees are, learn the benefits of running employee engagement surveys, what kinds of questions to ask, how the questionnaire should be laid out and the steps involved in creating an employee engagement survey.


Table of contents:


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What is an employee engagement survey?


Employee engagement surveys are a way to measure the level of motivation and involvement within the company that employees have by gathering their thoughts and opinions of employees towards their work and the general environment. So the more engaged employees are, the more likely they are to follow the company values, go above and beyond their normal duties.

8 benefits of employee engagement surveys


To understand why is it so important to carry out this type of survey, the following are the top 8 benefits of running employee engagement surveys to help explain why:


1. Higher Productivity

Engaged employees are more likely to work diligently and will give more effort in the work they do thus increasing productivity.


2. Higher employee retention

As long as employees feel they are utilising their strengths, being challenged and enjoy the work they do then it’s less likely they will look elsewhere.


3. Better customer ratings

Engaged employees will provide a better customer experience in serving their needs.


4. Lower staff turnover

Keeping employees happy will decrease staff turnover and the knock-on benefits it will have on costs and time in terms of recruitment and training.


5. Sales and revenue growth


6. Reduced absenteeism

If employees are engaged with the work they do and are invested in the success of the company’s goals then they will more likely to turn up for work.


7. Improved sales

A combination of improved customer service, productivity and quality will eventually lead to more sales.


8. Increased loyalty

If employees are engaged, they are far more likely to stick around if they care for the success of the company and are sufficiently challenged.


Top 5 tips in creating an employee engagement survey


Remember the following top 5 tips in creating a employee engagement survey:


1. Short and simple

Employees are unlikely to complete your survey if it’s long and over complicated. Plus, it’s easier to dissect the results. Try to keep it 30 questions or less if possible.


2. Confidential

Assure employees that their answers will be 100% confidential and stay anonymous, so they will not face consequences for the answers given.


3. Communication

Be open and share the reasons why participants need to take part in the survey and highlight how this will be followed-up once the survey period is closed. Also give a timeframe for when the survey needs to be completed by.


4. Relevancy

Obviously some of the questions maybe generic but you can customise the surveys to your given sector, environment and situation you all work in.


5. Engaging

Try if possible, to make the survey more engaging so employees are more likely to be responsive to the questions you ask.


8 steps in creating an employee engagement survey


Step 1: Get buyin with senior members of the business

Firstly, dependent on the size of the business, will need to discuss the needs of the business in relation to staff and plus get buyin from senior members of the business to see how valuable the results of a employee engagement survey would be.


The feedback obtained from senior members of the business will help to determine a clear goal on what you want measured and who your measuring from, in ensuring your asking the right questions. For example, you may want feedback to better understand if employees are engaged in a fast pace environment or attracting and retaining top performers.


Step 3: Decide how the survey will be administered

The most likely and convenient avenue will be via an online survey, which helps maintain confidence that answers given in the survey will be confidential. There maybe a reason for just running the survey by certain divisions of the company separately rather than the whole business. Plus could be more a customised survey depending on seniority and job function.


Step 4: Outline the structure of the survey

After you have determined the goal you want to achieve then it’s about laying out a relevant structure of the questionnaire. The questionnaire structure is covered in more detail with an example in the next section. There are templates you can use from online platforms to help you get started, which you can then change and modify to your requirements.


Step 5: Keep in mind the analysis part when forming the questions of the survey

This part is often forgotten about and only comes to light when trying to draw insights from the data that has been gathered. Both the objectives and what you are likely to analyse should form the basis when developing questions for the survey and help how the analysis can be done at the backend of the project. See the top 12 questions you can ask in a employee engagement survey to draw inspiration whether they are single/multicoded answer questions to open ended questions.


Step 6: Test the survey first with a select few

This can be with a few senior members of the business to ensure the wording, routing, length and all relevant topics are covered and highlight any other issues that may need addressing before the survey is sent out to the rest of the organisation.


Step 7: Open communication with employees

Be open and honest with employees and let them know in advance of the survey with the purpose and reasons why their feedback is required and the beneficial impact it will have on the whole of the business and them.


Step 8: Development of the survey invite

Finally the survey invitation should be easy to send, be engaging and motivating employees to take part and reinforce the message that their answers will be kept anonymous and confidential. Also have survey reminders should be in place at different intervals to maximise response to the survey. Therefore once the data has been gathered and analysed, the summary of the results can be shared with all employees and necessary action can be taken based on these findings.


An example of a survey questionnaire for employee engagement in chat format
An example of a employee engagement survey

Questionnaire structure of an employee engagement survey


Below is an example of a basic structure for an employee engagement survey to begin with.


General information

The beginning of the survey will covers questions about what are the employee's job role and department depending on the size of the organisation to help employees ease into the survey and afterwards for analysis purposes.


Career development

Career development will include questions that cover topics like career growth and opportunities of advancement.


Work engagement

Work engagement section should help to find out the level of effort, involvement, inspiration and challenges that employees face.


Compensation

This is about employees satisfaction with compensation and it's comparison to the market.


Relationship management

The relationship management section should cover questions about the Internal communication and working relationship with different parties.


Benefits

Questions about satisfaction with various benefits.


Work environment

Questions about work environment covers topics like job security, culture, safety and diversity.



Top 12 employee engagement questions


As you can see there are a number of questions you can include in the survey but what are the top questions to add that will give you valuable insights to move forward?


The following are the top 12 employee engagement questions to use:

  1. How satisfied are you on a 5-point scale with the way your employer has managed both its business and people during this time?

  2. Has the company you work for maintained adequate communication with all of its employees?

  3. On a scale of 1 to 10, how happy are you at work?

  4. Have you continued to collaborate with your team during this time?

  5. Does your team inspire you to do your best work?

  6. Does your team help you to complete your work?

  7. Do you foresee yourself working here one year from now?

  8. Do you believe the leadership team takes your feedback seriously?

  9. Do you have a good understanding of your organization’s informal structures and processes?

  10. Do you believe the organisation has your best interests in mind when making business decisions? And why? (OPEN ENDED QUESTION)

  11. What three words would you use to describe our work culture? (OPEN ENDED QUESTION)

  12. Do you have the appropriate amount of information to make correct decisions about your work? And why? (OPEN ENDED QUESTION)


Fun employee engagement questions to use


There are also some fun questions you could include as an ice breaker or to keep the employees interest in the survey, check out the examples below.

  • If you could read minds, whose would you want to read?

  • Which fictional family would you choose to be a part of?

  • What would you say to yourself if you travel back to 20 years ago?

  • If you can see into the future (100+ years from now), what do you want to know the most?

Time to get started


The easiest way to apply employee engagement surveys, that is non-intrusive is via the self-completion route of an online survey that can be sent via email or through a secure part of your company website, where the participant can click on a link.


So, if you’re ready to get started with creating and running an employee engagement survey, why not try this online DIY survey platform - JotForm. It is easy to use, intuitive, can be used alongside other apps and relatively inexpensive, where you can use the templates available that can be customised if you don’t want to start from scratch.


Once you have run your first employee engagement survey, you have the opportunity to track this over time by running the survey again like on a quarterly or six-monthly basis to measure the success of your efforts in increasing employee engagement by using the results from the first survey as a baseline or run pulse surveys as a follow-up to get more detail for a specific issue. So why not give it try and see your business grow.

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