25 Impactful Employee Survey Question Examples

It's hard to know what No matter how many surveys you run, the results just aren’t revealing anything concrete about your company’s core issues. It might be time to take a closer look at the questions you're asking. Lucky for you we have 25 impactful survey question examples you can use to improve your employee surveys and start collecting the feedback you need to improve employee engagement. 

Taking time to develop a strategy can be a crucial part to getting the most out of your employee surveys. Gone are the days where employee surveys were complete with a simple template. To get the best possible response you need to think about tailoring the questions to your workplace culture and understanding what kind of information you're looking for by asking these questions.

To gain a continuous stream of authentic, actionable feedback, you need to ask the right questions at the right frequency.

Asking specific questions helps you understand how your team is feeling at any given point in time. By using pulse surveys (while giving them the opportunity to respond anonymously), you can increase the chances the feedback you receive is honest, helpful, and productive.

The main purpose of an employee engagement survey is to gain deep insights into what drives employee engagement in your organization, what makes your employees motivated, and how can you change their day-to-day to implement more of that —and what could possibly be hindering it.

Companies have a higher likelihood of retaining their employees and keeping them satisfied with strategic employee engagement surveys.

With a strategy behind your employee engagement surveys, you can:

• Give your employees a voice and the opportunity to share their concerns and suggestions (however, a surprising statistic reveals that only 20% of employees feel that their managers take action on survey results)
• Allow managers to monitor engagement levels and take action wherever necessary (about 80% of managers actively follow up on the issues raised by their employees)
• Boost employee engagement levels (organizations that don’t take surveys or act on feedback score only 27% on the employee engagement index)
• Understand where to focus future efforts (in a recent survey, 57% of respondents cited “not giving clear directions” as one of the biggest communication issues that their leaders had)

Essential Questions to Include in Your Employee Survey

Choosing the right questions for your organization can not only help you gather constructive feedback but also help you stay on track and laser-focused on achieving company goals and improving overall performance.

Let’s take a look at 25 essential employee engagement survey questions that you should be asking using various question types such as:

• Multiple choice 
• Open-ended 
• 1-10 scale 
• “Yes” or “No” response

We split these questions into the following five categories: 

• Employee Satisfaction 
• Management Feedback
• Employee Retention
• Employee Culture

Employee Satisfaction Survey Questions

First and foremost, you need to start by asking questions related to satisfaction.

Asking employees about job satisfaction levels can say a lot about overall engagement.

Additionally, it can reveal some underlying problems that could be disengaging your team members.

Here are some questions to help you get started:

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

To get employee engagement right, you must start with this question and ask it regularly. It's undoubtedly the most direct of questions to ask employees regarding workplace satisfaction. Regularly finding out where your company’s morale falls on the 10-point scale allows you to track it over time.

2. Would you refer someone to work here?

The likelihood of an employee referring someone is a direct reflection of how satisfied that person is at their job. If they’re unhappy with their job, you can bet they don’t have much good to say to their friends about the company.

3. Do you have a clear understanding of your career or promotion path?

A poll by Gallup found that employees who get the opportunity to continuously develop are twice as likely to say they will spend their career with their company. Find out if your workers have a clear understanding of what lies ahead of them. If their answers are doubtful, you’ll need to start offering developmental opportunities to prevent people from quitting in rapid succession.

4. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your work-life balance?

Employees need to balance work and their personal life in order to remain productive and engaged. If employees are feeling lopsided, that’s a red flag that signals burnout is right around the corner.

5. Hypothetically, if you were to quit tomorrow, what would your reason be?

Bad communication, lack of transparency, and feeling unvalued—can all be uncovered by asking this question. Responses to this ultra-insightful engagement question will inform you if your employees feel like they’re there to stay—or if there are underlying issues that are driving them to look elsewhere for work.

6. Are you satisfied with the perks that you’re receiving?

Employee perks play an important role in determining overall job satisfaction levels. They also help in attracting new hires to the company. Make sure you’re keeping up with your competitors by asking your employees if they’re satisfied with the benefits they’re receiving.

Employee Engagement Survey Questions About the Management Team

Asking for feedback about your management team can be challenging but it needs to be included. No one knows a manager better than their subordinates. Since leadership plays a crucial role in engaging the workforce, you need to make sure that it’s playing that role properly.

To that end, we recommend asking the following questions:

7. Do you feel valued at work?

Our research has revealed that only 21% of employees feel strongly valued at work. Use this question to gauge how valued workers in your organization are feeling.

8. How frequently do you receive recognition from your manager?

Find out how the leadership team is doing when it comes to recognizing their employees. If the majority of workers have said they’ve gone more than two weeks without recognition, there’s good chance morale is dropping. This can consequently lead to disengagement, loss of productivity, attrition, and of course, an overall drop in job performance.

9. The last time you accomplished a big project, did you receive any recognition?

Feeling valued at work is a huge motivator. This question will help uncover if leaders (or peers) have missed the mark when it comes to recognition. If employees don't feel their hard work is properly recognized, you can work together to find a solution to this problem.

Employee Survey Questions About Employee Retention

While it’s true that you can measure retention through other questions/variables, it’s best if you include a few questions that could help you predict it beforehand.

Here are some questions that can help you determine where each of your employees stand in the employee lifecycle:

10. Do you believe you'll be able to reach your full potential here?

Employees want to work at a place that will nurture their desire for growth. The more opportunities for growth your organization can offer, the longer employees will stick around.

11. If you were given the chance, would you reapply to your current job?

This is a tricky question. The happier an employee is at their current job, the more likely they would be to reapply to that very same position. Therefore, if an employee rates on the lower end of the spectrum, they’re most likely unhappy and won’t be at the job for long.

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

A question like this is pretty self-explanatory. However, it can say a lot about your retention rate. If most of your employees say they don’t see themselves working there in one year, you need to make some changes.

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

No one wants to work at a place that ignores its employees. When leaders don’t take feedback or suggestions seriously, it shows that they’re not committed to making improvements. And frankly, it makes employees feel undervalued.

Employee Engagement Survey Questions About Culture

A study conducted by Denison Consulting revealed that there was a significant correlation between strong company culture and engagement levels.

The “health” of your company culture can play a significant role in determining overall engagement levels.

With that being said, be sure to include the following questions:

14. Do you feel like the management team here is transparent?

Our previous research found that transparency is the number one factor that contributes to workplace happiness. Find out how well your leaders are doing with providing information to their employees.

15. With your eyes closed, can you recite our organization's values?

Our previous research has also uncovered the fact that only 42% of employees know their organization’s vision, mission, and cultural values. A low number is unsettling since it reveals that employees are doing their work without any real understanding of how they’re contributing to the company—or that everyone isn’t working on the same page.

16. What three words would you use to describe our culture?

Fun, antagonistic, supportive—find out what your employees think about your culture. Use the results to find ways to strengthen and improve your culture to suit the needs of your employees.

17. On a scale of 1 to 10, how comfortable do you feel giving upwards feedback to your supervisor?

A workplace should never be a hostile environment—nor should it be suppressive. Employees should feel comfortable providing feedback to their supervisors so that they can continue to offer suggestions for improvements.

18. Do you feel like coworkers give each other respect here?

You want to build a culture where people respect one another—not one where heads clash. Dig under the surface to find out how employees truly feel about each other. If they’re not supporting one another, it’s time to start planning effective team-building activities.

19. Do you believe we authentically live by our organizational values?

Do your employees feel like the organization’s values are just meaningless words on the walls? Or maybe they believe that leaders aren’t living out those values.

Either way, an organization’s values are its guidelines for how to behave—as well as how to make decisions.

20. Does our executive team contribute to a positive work culture?

Are the top leaders in your organization fostering a positive work environment or a negative one? This survey question enables you to go behind the scenes and find out how well leaders are upholding the organization’s culture.

21. Do you have fun at work?

Employees spend so many hours at work. Find out if your employees think your organization’s culture is worth waking up for every day.

Employee Engagement Survey Questions About Personal Growth

Last, but not least, you need to ask your employees questions about their personal growth in the organization. For that reason, you can include questions such as:

22. Which new responsibilities, if any, would you like to take on?

According to SHRM, only about 29% of employees are happy with the career advancement opportunities available to them. To ensure that your employees are getting ample growth opportunities, ask them if they’d like to take on any new responsibilities and, if so, which ones.

23. What type of new projects would you like to be involved in?

A survey by Korn Ferry revealed that 33% of respondents cited “boredom” as the main reason for quitting a job. Considering that, in addition to inquiring about the responsibilities, it doesn’t hurt to ask your employees specifically which projects they’d like to be involved in.

24. What new skills would you like to develop?

Are your employees getting ample opportunities to develop the skills they need to excel in their careers? Ask them about the new skills that they’d like to create, and if they align with the broader business objectives—provide them with the resources to do so.

25. Do you receive ample learning opportunities at your current job?

Finally, you need to make sure that your employees are getting enough opportunities to grow professionally and achieve their personal career goals.

In Conclusion

The beauty of employee feedback through surveys is that you can always adjust them on an ongoing basis. Choosing to have a strategy behind what questions you ask, and how often you ask them can be the difference between receiving real, accurate, and authentic feedback from your teams and having your survey not taken seriously by employees. The outcome is up to you!

You can also learn more about how TINYpulse identifies trends in real-time and provides direction for management to improve overall employee experience.