Guide to employee engagement surveys (+ questions to use)

Employees are at the heart of every organization's success. Ensuring employees are fully engaged makes a workforce more united, collaborative, motivated, and performant.

But how can you measure engagement levels? And how does engagement fit into the bigger picture of organizational goals? As a manager, how can you equip yourself to track and continuously improve engagement at work?

The answer lies in employee engagement surveys. They’re valuable tools to help assess employee satisfaction, company alignment, wellness, and the overall health of your workplace. They gather actionable insights from the source, revealing where your organization excels and what can be improved.

Managers can unlock this secret weapon of ultimate productivity by understanding the purpose of employee engagement surveys and the right implementation methods.

What is an employee engagement survey?

An employee engagement survey collects data on employee well-being, work satisfaction, performance, and other key engagement metrics. 

Engagement surveys can help HR and management examine current organizational values and culture to set up strategies and initiatives that maximize performance.

Employee engagement surveys involve the entire organization — from senior management to junior staff members — because everyone's feedback counts. More often than not, they’re facilitated by managers, providing complementary insights to other important engagement feedback mechanisms, like performance appraisals and one-on-one conversations.

What employee engagement surveys measure

There are many ways to measure employee engagement — and surveys are a key component. Depending on your engagement surveys' questions, they can measure metrics around job satisfaction, culture, alignment, collaboration, and work relationships. Different themes and aspects of work can be covered in engagement surveys.

The type of data that can be lifted from employee engagement surveys also depends on how your questions are designed. For example, answers based on a rating system will give you an overall score, whereas open-ended questions might provide more qualitative, nuanced insights. Consider these types of questions:

• Rating or Likert scale
• Multiple choice
• Yes or no answers
• Open-ended questions
• Close-ended questions
• Ranking questions
• Demographic related

Not every employee engagement survey has to be the same — some can be short, and others can be more exhaustive. Managers can build a comprehensive understanding of where their teams are over time by using a mix of recurrent surveys that scratch high-level feelings with once or twice-a-year surveys that dive deeper into certain subjects.

Employee engagement: A multi-dimensional understanding

Technically, employee engagement isn't derived from a singular metric. Rather, it’s a score distilled from several different metrics. Employee engagement is a layered understanding of engagement across:

• Manager and peer relationships
• Perceptions of career advancement opportunities
• Recognition initiatives and their impact
• Alignment between employee and company values
• Satisfaction around responsibilities and compensation

The employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) can be seen as an employee engagement index — a great way to summarize engagement metrics to provide an overall understanding of employee engagement and satisfaction. Each facet of employee engagement can and should be examined in detail to inform specific engagement strategies.

The significance of employee engagement: Why conduct an employee engagement survey?

To understand why these surveys are so important, managers must first tap into the importance of employee engagement and how this plays a critical role in overall business success.

Employee engagement relates to each employee's intrinsic commitment to their job; it's the motivation that fuels an employee's perseverance, sense of purpose, and investment in their work. Engaged employees feel a high sense of loyalty, not just to their own position but also to the organization as a whole. They understand company objectives, work hard to promote them, and are less likely to consider a position at other organizations.

Engagement at work closely relates to employee satisfaction — but they aren't interchangeable. What’s undeniable, though, is the fact that engaged employees feel more satisfied with their jobs, and satisfied employees are more dedicated.

In a nutshell, companies with high engagement levels benefit from:

• Better team performance
• Increased employee productivity
• More objective achievements
• Positive workplace vibes
• Lower burnout rates
• Less absenteeism
• Higher retention rates
• Strong employee ambassadorship

These engagement benefits ultimately translate into better productivity, higher sales, and a positive corporate reputation — all contributing to a company’s bottom line. As Gallup highlights, organizations with the highest levels of engagement were 21% more profitable than organizations with the lowest engagement levels. The benefits of employee engagement are clear, and the ROI is undeniable.

The best questions to ask in employee engagement surveys

Engagement surveys are only as good as their questions. So, crafting effective questions is essential for gathering meaningful insights. Here are some examples of questions to consider:

Questions relating to job satisfaction

• On a scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied are you with your current role?
• What aspects of your job do you find most fulfilling?
• Are there any areas of your job that you find particularly challenging or frustrating?

Questions relating to company culture

• Do you feel that your values align with the company's values?
• How would you describe the overall workplace atmosphere?
• Do you feel a sense of camaraderie and teamwork among your colleagues?

Questions relating to managerial support

• How would you rate the support you receive from your immediate supervisor?
• Do you feel comfortable discussing problems or concerns with your manager?
• Does your manager provide regular feedback and recognition for your work?

Questions relating to career development

• Do you feel there are opportunities for growth and advancement within the company?
• Are you satisfied with the training and development opportunities provided by the company?
• Do you feel that the organization supports your career goals?

Questions relating to work-life balance

• Do you feel that you have a healthy work-life balance?
• Are you able to manage effectively your workload and personal commitments?
• Does the company offer sufficient flexibility to accommodate your personal needs?

Questions relating to communication and feedback

• How would you rate the communication within your team and across departments?
• Do you feel that your opinions and ideas are valued by management?
• Are you satisfied with the frequency and effectiveness of feedback you receive?

Questions relating to employee well-being

• Do you feel that the company prioritizes employee well-being and mental health?
• Are you satisfied with the benefits and wellness programs offered by the company?
• Do you feel supported in maintaining a healthy work-life balance?

4 tips to use employee engagement surveys the right way

For employee engagement surveys to be effective, they require planning, thoughtfulness, and consideration. By following survey best practices and top tips, you can leverage their benefits as much as possible:

1. Define and align employee engagement survey goals

Different employee engagement surveys may have different aims. Is this your company’s first major employee survey, or are you planning a quick pulse check? The goals of a survey influence its structure, format, and content.

If your survey aims to gain deep insights and a comprehensive understanding of engagement levels across multiple aspects of work, then you might want to consider a robust structure that includes a variety of question types. If you aim to do a surface check of engagement levels about a specific area, then regular pulse surveys, compared over time, are the way to go.

With the appropriate format selected, creating the right questions is critical for insights to be of value. Managers should ask themselves: Which business areas need to be looked at? How is engagement potentially impacting these areas? For example, if a company underwent restructuring, managers might want to see how employee engagement level is related to the present workplace culture.

Defining the goals of each survey and how they will serve organizational decision-making will inform the survey questions that need to be asked. But if you aren't sure there are many free employee engagement survey templates to take inspiration from.

2. Pick the right questions depending on the context

Effective employee engagement surveys come down to asking the right questions. To choose the right employee engagement survey questions, managers should consider factors like the size of their team, survey frequency (i.e., a monthly or an annual survey), and data available on current employee engagement rates.

For instance, survey questions might need to be altered depending on if the workforce is engaged or disengaged. Or, if the company is experiencing a busy period and employees have little time already, short pulse surveys might be favored over a single, long, and tedious survey.

What will the survey insights be used for? If managers need to collect hard numbers, then multiple-choice or scale rating questions are ideal for this type of data — their answers are quickly and easily quantifiable. Open-ended questions might be best if the idea is to gain a deeper understanding of employees’ psychological and emotional states. Their answers take more effort to group and analyze but provide valuable insights.

3. Communicate the intentions to your employees

Reaping the full benefits of employee engagement surveys requires gathering everyone’s feedback. Low participation rates can skew results and miss important insights, leaving managers with employee engagement blind spots.

Involving employees in the employee engagement survey process will help improve response rates. Before sending out an employee engagement survey, let your teams know what to expect and communicate its objectives. Crafting a simple message that underlines the importance of survey participation could look like:

At the beginning of next week, we will send a 10-question employee engagement survey to the whole team. Based on your feedback, we plan to take initiatives that will make our work environment healthier and improve the employee experience in our company.

Or, a friendly nudge to encourage employees to participate in the survey:

Don't forget to complete the employee engagement survey today! Your feedback helps us make this company a better place to work.

That said, there are many other ways to increase survey participation. Communication is a fundamental one.

4. Use anonymity options for total transparency

Once managers are ready to send out an employee engagement survey (which can be sent via a Teams poll or Google Forms) there might be an additional consideration to anonymity. If the questions are delicate or the answers potentially sensitive, anonymity might affect how honest employees answer questions — especially if their perspective is less than positive. Thankfully, there are pulse survey tools that guarantee anonymity, manage results, and track trends over time.

How to measure employee engagement survey results and take action

Once all answers are collected, it's time to analyze the results — identifying patterns and trends and considering the appropriate actions that need to take place to improve engagement. Analysis can be a manual process, especially with open-ended questions, but AI-assisted analytic tools exist to make this less tedious.

There are many ways to translate and interpret survey data into actionable insights, but a general rule of thumb would be to consider:

• Central themes: What types of recurring employee feedback did the survey results produce? For instance, did a significant percentage of employees mention unreasonable workloads as a major difficulty in their current position?
  
• Changes compared to previous surveys: Unless this was your first employee engagement survey, there should be readily available statistics from previous surveys focusing on the same metrics. Look to see what changed from the last quarter or year and how changes implemented may have influenced employee engagement.
  
• Team and department trends: How do different teams and departments compare in terms of engagement and performance? If one department lags significantly behind others, managers may look deeper into this department's practices and how they influence employee engagement.

Segmenting the results of engagement surveys by employee groups may also deliver useful insights. For example, let's say you discover that recently recruited employees demonstrate high job satisfaction and engagement levels while more senior, experienced employees report considering a career switch.

These results indicate a positive onboarding experience and highlight long-term retention concerns. Here, the appropriate action may be to call a leadership meeting and brainstorm ways to improve employee retention throughout the entire employee lifecycle.

Final step: Creating an action plan

The result from the analysis should leave you with a clear path forward on what to improve (and what to keep doing) — this is where creating an action plan comes in.

Engagement action plans should focus on the areas that require improvement the most, with specific steps and activities outlined on a timeline. The best plans to improve employee engagement also consider the following:

• Slow reforms: Significant change may take time. If a survey reveals that many employees feel stuck in their career development, there may be a need for improvement over time — including mentoring programs, sponsored courses, and team restructuring.
  
• Quick changes: Do employee engagement survey results point to something that can be resolved quickly? It’s important to take advantage of these opportunities. If many employees feel they don't receive enough manager feedback, feedback frequency can be adjusted almost immediately.
  
• Clear, focused goals: Breaking down action plans into multiple, specific actions across timelines will ensure success. Instead of a vague goal like “improving team communication every week,” specific actions such as “all direct managers are to email their team at the start of every week with an update on objectives” are more impactful.
  
• Motivated leaders: It’s important to ensure the ones responsible for carrying out the action plans are engaged managers and HR leaders, as they will motivate the rest of the troops and lead by example.

Moving towards a culture of high engagement and continuous improvement

Creating a workplace where everyone feels valued and connected is key to success. Employee surveys help us understand what's working well and where we can improve. By listening to feedback and taking action, managers can make their teams happier and more effective, fostering an environment of openness and support.

Making this shift requires clear communication, a willingness to learn, and a focus on improving things for everyone. The right tools and approach can make all the difference in enhancing this process. 

As more and more companies work towards higher engagement, it’s not just about improving business — it’s also about building a stronger, more united culture that values each person's voice and looks to improve continuously.