What is an Employee Engagement Survey?
An Employee Engagement Survey is a set of survey questions directed towards an organization’s employees such that the survey seeks to understand the level of engagement of these employees with the organization at large. These surveys are typically sent to employees using Online Survey Tools.
All World-class winning companies have a World-class work culture. This is because they understand the most critical value of employee engagement – Happy customers are the result of happy employees! It is a well-proven fact that engaged employees will get you more customers while disengaged employees will cost you more customers.
Some of the key metrics of measurement of these questions are :
- Employee motivation levels
- Alignment of employee’s understanding with overall organizational goals
- Understanding employee mood and morale
- Gathering insights on how to improve employee productivity through engagement
- Analyzing team level survey responses for cross-team benchmarking
Employee engagement survey and analytics are key to creating a work culture that positively cultivates employee mood and morale, increases workforce productivity and sustains an overall winning and happy workplace.
Learn more: Organizational Commitment
Top 20 Employee Engagement Survey Questions
Here are the top 20 employee engagement survey questions you need to include in your survey to get better responses from your employees so that you can measure your employee engagement levels and also identify the areas that need improvement so that there is increased employee engagement.
Manager/Supervisor Evaluation and Employee Engagement Survey
I cannot emphasize more on the importance of timely feedback and how it helps employees perform better. A timely feedback is the need of the hour, as there is no point waiting until the end of the year. A constructive feedback will help employees identify their strengths and weaknesses and improve upon it, thus, increasing levels of employee engagement.
1. Do you receive constructive feedback from your manager?
Managers are the direct source of feedback for the employees. A manager or a supervisor must at all times keep in mind that feedback is a process to help employees improve and perform well at the workplace and not a platform to declaim their personal frustrations. If an employee answers negatively to this question immediate effective steps should be taken.
2. Do you receive timely feedback from your peers?
Peers or colleagues can give feedback which is not very formal in nature. In fact, it is a good and a healthy practice for team members and peers to have open discussions, this facilitates a harmonious environment at work, that helps employees think clear and better.
3. Does your supervisor recognize your efforts when you perform well?
Employee engagement is said to increase by 14% (Gallup) if they are given due recognition for the hard work they put in to get their tasks done. An engaged employee tends to go beyond an organization’s ask of him/her.
4. Do you feel the performance evaluation process is fair?
When employees feel that performance evaluation is fair in the organization and there is no hidden agenda but a clear message, they tend to believe the leadership and trust them better. Employees who are satisfied are more engaged than their counterparts.
Teamwork and Employee Engagement Survey
An organization that promotes a culture of teamwork is said to generate 43% more revenue and growth than their competitors. Who doesn’t like an increasing graph? Encourage the culture of teamwork within your organization and look at the employees perform better.
5. Is your team participative and encourages you to achieve your tasks?
It’s no rocket science, help one another to achieve success faster. Imagine an organization that fosters a culture of secrecy and no teamwork, what do you think is likely to happen to such an organization? It will perish in no time. It is important that employees in your organization understand the importance of helping each other.
6. Is there a strong feeling of teamwork and participation in this organization?
Teamwork and participation should be a culture throughout the organization not just in one or two departments. For example, if the engineering department needs any help from the marketing department, they should be able to rely on them to carry out the activities smoothly.
Growth Opportunities and Employee Engagement Survey
If an employee has a feeling that his/her career path is not being justified with the organization they are associated with there will be a steep decrease in the level of employee engagement. This will lead to higher attrition rate and the market reputation of the organization will be at stake.
7. Do you see a positive career growth in the organization?
If employees feel their career is in tandem with the organization’s growth plan, they feel satisfied and in turn, their level of engagement is always high. A promising career path is a good enough reason for an employee to stay engaged and stay put in the organization.
8. Are you provided with the right training if any new system/tool/software is introduced?
Invest in training that helps employees perform better and stay focused in their job. Engage them in training sessions that ignite imagination and help them think of better ways to use tools/ systems/ software etc. You cannot expect everyone to know everything.
9. What is the nature of the feedback you receive from your manager?
Glorifying mistakes is not professional. If an employee has committed any mistake it is the duty of the manager to help the employee resolve the issue. On the contrary, glorify their achievements, thank them for their good work, dedication, and loyalty and see your workforce march towards glory.
10. Do you feel your manager is interested in your progress?
In the golden words of Dale Carnegie, “Be genuinely interested in your employee’s progress, don’t just pretend.” Be honest in your feedback and help your employees achieve their targets and goals.
Work-Life Balance and Employee Engagement Survey
The average number of hours an American spends at work is between 47-50 hours/week. This barely gives them time to be their family or near and dear ones. I have not even added the time taken to commute to respective workplaces or the nuisance and tensions caused by traffic. Do you as an organization support work-life balance of your employees?
11. Do you feel the organization is supportive of a healthy work-life balance?
An employee who is able to balance their work life and their personal life well is 10% more engaged at work as compared to their peers. A healthy work-life balance keeps employees focused and dedicated to their work since their attention is not diverted.
12. Do you feel the amount of work allotted to you is reasonable?
We must understand, as humans, we have our limitations. Treating employees as a factory line machine is not going to yield you glory, treating employees as humans will help you connect better with them. Assign them only enough work, you know they will be able to complete during the working week.
13. Do you feel your work causes unwanted tensions in your personal life?
The downside of a high-paced, technology-driven job, or for that matter any job that requires constant attention can get stressful after a while. And, stress is not good for your health. Stress leads to various other complexities like stroke, diabetes, and other diseases and you surely don’t want your workforce to be suffering with.
14. Are you able to give a fair amount of time to your family?
Every employee needs a stress-buster. Lucky are those, who have a supportive family, who understand the nature of work and the stress that comes with it. As leadership, you should be able to promote this culture and encourage your employees to spend time with their family and friends.
Behavioral Fairness and Employee Engagement Survey
An organization that promotes the culture of fairness not only have engaged employees, but it also has loyal employees who are the brand promoters. These are the employees that never talk negative about the organization and help other change their perception too.
15. Is your manager professional and cordial while communicating with you?
If you are a manager maintain a professional tone while communicating with your employees. Remember they are as much part of the organization as you are. Communicate effectively, yet assertively if needed.
16. Are you satisfied with the organization’s policies on rewards and recognition?
If employees are satisfied with the process and system related to rewards and recognition, they feel the need to perform better to achieve these rewards. Remember rewards and recognition should be based on statistics and facts. Your personal memory or your rapport with an employee should not be a hindrance to the path of progress for any individual.
17. Do you think favoritism isn’t an issue in this organization?
Clearly, this is one attribute that will ruin your market reputation, if favoritism is being followed in your organization. Raise your standards, set examples, and benchmarks for others in the same industry. Lead by example.
18. Do you feel the leadership in the organization treats all the employees equally?
Treat all your employees the way you would treat yourself. Don’t use harsh or derogatory tone while talking to any of your employees. Be humble, remember, your organization is operative because of your employees, without a dedicated workforce you will achieve nothing.
Effective Communication and Employee Engagement Survey
Communicate more, communicate well and communicate to excel. Effective communication is the key to success, it negates differences and facilitates a culture of trust and respect which again leads to a better level of employee engagement.
19. Do you feel employees are effectively communicated about the changes in policies and procedures?
Consult with your employees well in advance before you make any changes to the policies and procedures. Send surveys, take quick polls, form a forum where they can leave their feedback offline.
20. Do you feel communication is a two-way process in my organization?
Effective communication is a dialogue and not a monologue. Be a good listener, encourage employees to talk out and send feedback as and when needed. Improve your organizational culture with effortless communication.
Learn more: Employee Survey Software and Tool
Tips to Write Employee Engagement Survey Questions
This must be at the heart of your employee engagement survey questions. The prime directive of such a survey is to “listen” and know more from your employees. While it is true that some questions will require adequate contextual information, keeping them at a minimum is critical to the overall success of your employee engagement survey drive.
If a question appears to be too long or complicated, breaking them into multiple questions will get your better and clearer responses. This particularly helps in getting better and segregated analytics reports.
While designing employee engagement survey questions, you need to keep a systematic balance between using open-ended questions and closed-ended questions.
While closed-ended questions can help you get a quantitative feedback, open-ended questions will lead to qualitative feedback. Therefore it is essential to incorporate both question types to collect systematic data that will help you measure your employee engagement.
Once you have designed the survey with the relevant employee engagement survey questions, make sure to send the survey to your colleagues or friends and obtain their feedback on the questions, to make sure response options are understandable and all your survey logic work.
Learn more: 30 Employee Satisfaction Questions you can’t Afford to Miss
