Are your employees engaged? Do they feel motivated by your organization's work, or are they an attrition risk? It’s hard to know, especially in a busy company with a lot of growth.
Employee engagement surveys are excellent feedback tools that let you ask the important questions and gather employee insights. With the right employee survey questions, you’ll understand your employees’ perspectives, desires, and experiences.
This article will walk you through several employee survey question examples and best practices. Let’s get started.
Career development questions
Do employees feel they have ample growth opportunities in your company? Do they see a clear progression path, or do they feel stagnant? Career development is one of the most important aspects of an employee’s experience; most of us feel far more invested in our work if we are continually learning and growing.
Find out how your employees view development opportunities with these sample questions. Employees can answer on a rating scale from 1-5, where 1 means “strongly disagree” and 5 means “strongly agree.” You can also leave a space for them to share their thoughts.
Sample questions:
- Do you feel that there are adequate training opportunities available to you?
- Do you understand our company’s career progression structure?
- Do you believe the company is dedicated to helping you grow your career?
- Do you see a future for yourself at this company?
- Do you have access to the resources and mentorship needed to advance in your career?
- Do you feel encouraged to take on new challenges that help you grow professionally?
Work and role-related questions
Use work- and role-related employee satisfaction survey questions to get into the nitty-gritty of how people view their day-to-day work and where they fit into the company. These questions can help determine if your employees feel like valued members of the organization or if they feel lost in the shuffle.
Sample questions:
- Do you feel challenged on a day-to-day basis?
- Do you understand how your work contributes to your team’s success?
- Do you feel excited about the work you do?
- Are you motivated to work to your best abilities?
- Do you have the tools and support you need to perform your job effectively?
- Is your workload manageable, and do you feel confident in meeting deadlines?
Leadership related questions
Good leadership can make or break a company's success. Management can make employees feel more invested in work or switch off their engagement—in fact, surveys show that 79% of employees will leave their roles if they receive inadequate appreciation from leaders. That’s why it’s vital to use employee survey questions about management to understand how your employees view leadership.
Sample questions:
- Do you feel that management and employees trust one another?
- Do you receive constructive feedback from management?
- Do you feel that you gain adequate recognition for the contributions you make?
- Do you believe that you are being put in a position to succeed?
- Do you feel supported by management in achieving your professional goals?
- Does leadership provide clear direction and keep you informed about company goals?
Values and culture related questions
Most job seekers weigh the culture and core values when assessing a prospective company. Much like good leadership, company culture can make an organization a great place to work or a place to avoid.
Being part of a team that is growing together toward a clear common goal can improve engagement, so it’s important to gauge how current employees feel. These can also be helpful to ask as employee exit survey questions.
Sample questions:
- Do you feel like you are part of a strong community at work?
- Do you feel there is a safe space to share ideas and collaborate with others?
- Do you believe your team works well toward a common goal?
- Do you feel that every team member is truly committed to shared goals?
- Do you believe the company values diversity and inclusion in the workplace?
- Does the company culture align with your personal values?
Work-life balance questions
Even the most engaged employee needs time to focus on life outside of work, whether they devote that time to family, hobbies, or travel. However, It can be easy to forget that balance when you’re focused on achieving business objectives. These types of employee pulse survey questions can help you stay informed about your employees’ work-life balance.
Sample questions:
- Are you satisfied with your work-life balance?
- Is your schedule flexible enough to accommodate your personal needs?
- Does the company support a healthy work-life balance?
- Do you have enough time to recharge outside of work?
- Are you able to manage your work responsibilities without sacrificing personal time?
- Do you feel encouraged to take time off when needed to maintain a healthy balance?
Questions about feeling valued
An employee who feels valued and appreciated is likely to have a higher level of commitment to the organization and feel like an important member of the team.
Plus, there are plenty of ways to show you value your employees—feedback, compensation, benefits, and growth opportunities are just a few. See what’s working by asking these questions.
Sample questions:
- Do you feel valued and recognized for your work?
- Do your managers take your feedback seriously?
- Do you receive recognition for the contributions you make to the company?
- Do you feel your work is appreciated by your team and leadership?
- Are you given credit for the ideas and initiatives you contribute?
- Do you feel respected and supported by your colleagues?
Employee engagement questions
The overarching purpose of an employee satisfaction survey is, of course, to assess employee engagement and satisfaction levels in general. However, you can get more granular with specific employee engagement pulse survey questions.
Sample questions:
- Is the most interesting part of your job clear to you?
- Are you motivated to come to work every day?
- Do you feel inspired to work hard and contribute to the company's success?
- Do you feel excited about the opportunities you have within this organization?
- Do you find purpose in the work you do at this company?
- Do you feel your contributions are helping the company achieve its goals?
Open-ended questions
While most of your survey questions can be ranked—for example, on a scale of 1-5 — it’s also a good idea to include some open-ended questions. Doing this gives you a mix of quantifiable data and long-form qualitative feedback.
You can ask open-ended questions to get more insight into earlier answers or to understand employees’ thoughts about topics that don’t easily lend themselves to a rating scale.
Sample questions:
- What is the biggest challenge you face in your current role?
- What improvements would you suggest to make your work environment better?
- How can management better support you in achieving your professional goals?
- What do you enjoy most about working here, and what would you change?
- Is there anything else you’d like to share about your experience at the company?
- What would make you feel more engaged and excited about your work?
Why are employee surveys important?
Employee surveys are important because they help your company understand employee sentiment and foster high engagement. Employees who feel valued as people and as working professionals will be more productive and dedicated, while those considered disengaged are more likely to coast and not strive to produce top-quality work.
The benefits of a highly engaged workforce are clear, from lower absenteeism to better retention rates. Employee surveys help you understand where you excel and if there are red flags to address.
How should you structure employee surveys?
When creating your employee survey, remember to focus on what you truly want to measure. For instance, if you want to understand employee engagement, you’ll want to ask how committed and connected your employees feel. If you want to assess opinions about benefits and pay, consider an employee benefits survey.
In any case, break the survey into multiple sections for clarity, try to be as concise as possible, and include open-ended questions to gather as much information as you can.
Use different sections
Start by breaking your survey into sections. Group similar questions together, and make sure you don’t unnecessarily repeat yourself. Putting similar questions together will help respondents focus on the topic at hand, as too much jumping between topics can be jarring and upset the flow of responses.
Add open-ended questions
Affording people the chance to answer in a more detailed and descriptive way can give added meaning to their responses. While questions on a rating scale can provide useful data, adding open-ended questions to seek additional feedback allows employees to speak their minds and give more in-depth answers.
Don’t ask too many questions
Keep it concise. Too much length of detail might result in respondents feeling confused or giving up before finishing the entire survey.
If you are struggling to cut down the number of questions, remember that you should be running this type of survey regularly, so you can always use those extra questions down the line.
Employee survey best practices
For the most effective employee survey, you should understand and follow some key best practices—and know which pitfalls to avoid. Here are a few tips to effectively create a survey.
- Avoid ambiguity. Be crystal clear so everyone understands what you’re asking of them. Keep questions specific, not vague.
- Don’t ask leading questions. Don’t put words in people's mouths. We want to hear what they have to say, not what we hope to hear.
- Ask questions that inspire strong answers. Avoid questions that elicit one-word answers, as these will provide little to no actionable insights.
- Be concise. Ask short, succinct questions.
- Keep it relevant. Questions should relate to employees’ engagement levels and work experience, not extraneous details.
- Follow up with action. Make it clear that you take employee surveys seriously. Share results with the company and demonstrate how you are implementing their feedback.
Create an employee survey with Mentimeter
Being intentional about your employee survey questions will give you stronger insights into your employees’ level of engagement, satisfaction, and connectivity at work. But you’ve got to do it right, with specific, clear, and relevant questions.
Mentimeter can help. Using Mentimeter for your employee surveys means you’ll never again find yourself trawling through responses in a spreadsheet. Instead, let your respondents fill in the survey while Mentimeter does the rest. Plus, using scale slides, word clouds, and rankings means surveys are never boring.
Ready to improve employee engagement? Create a dynamic, interactive employee survey with Mentimeter today and gather real-time insights that drive change.
Frequently asked questions
What makes a great employee engagement survey?
The main features of a great employee engagement survey are clarity, concision, and questions that encourage meaningful feedback. Surveys should focus on relevant topics, gather specific information from employees, and lead to actionable insights.
What are the best employee survey questions to ask?
The best employee engagement survey questions are those that capture employee sentiment regarding career development, work and role satisfaction, employees' experiences with leadership and culture, and employee engagement and level of connectedness. You should also consider asking open-ended questions that encourage employees to provide more detailed answers and feedback.
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