• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
QuestionPro

QuestionPro

questionpro logo
  • Products
    survey software iconSurvey softwareEasy to use and accessible for everyone. Design, send and analyze online surveys.research edition iconResearch SuiteA suite of enterprise-grade research tools for market research professionals.CX iconCustomer ExperienceExperiences change the world. Deliver the best with our CX management software.WF iconEmployee ExperienceCreate the best employee experience and act on real-time data from end to end.
  • Solutions
    IndustriesGamingAutomotiveSports and eventsEducationGovernment
    Travel & HospitalityFinancial ServicesHealthcareCannabisTechnology
    Use CaseAskWhyCommunitiesAudienceContactless surveysMobile
    LivePollsMember ExperienceGDPRPositive People Science360 Feedback Surveys
  • Resources
    BlogeBooksSurvey TemplatesCase StudiesTrainingHelp center
  • Features
  • Pricing
Language
  • English
  • Español (Spanish)
  • Português (Portuguese (Brazil))
  • Nederlands (Dutch)
  • العربية (Arabic)
  • Français (French)
  • Italiano (Italian)
  • 日本語 (Japanese)
  • Türkçe (Turkish)
  • Svenska (Swedish)
  • Hebrew IL (Hebrew)
  • ไทย (Thai)
  • Deutsch (German)
  • Portuguese de Portugal (Portuguese (Portugal))
Call Us
+1 800 531 0228 +1 (647) 956-1242 +52 999 402 4079 +49 301 663 5782 +44 20 3650 3166 +81-3-6869-1954 +61 2 8074 5080 +971 529 852 540
Log In Log In
SIGN UP FREE

Home Workforce

The importance of framing the right employee engagement questionnaire

Guest blog cover Askg the rightin question in your employee engagement survey_1

Since their first wave of popularity in the 1970s, employee surveys have become sophisticated instruments that provide accurate, timely feedback about worker morale. The tools and software have evolved – and now the questions we ask in these employee benefits surveys need to evolve, too.

The standard practice in almost all organizational surveys is to rely on what my daughter, Dr. Kelly Goldsmith, calls passive questions – questions that describe a static condition. “Do you have clear goals?” is an example of a passive question. It’s passive because it can cause people to think of what is being done to them, rather than what they are doing.

Kelly, who has a Ph.D. from Yale in Behavioral Marketing and teaches at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, gave me some great insight into one of the eternal mysteries in my field, namely, the poor return from American companies’ $10-billion investment in training programs to boost employee engagement.

The problem, my daughter explained, is that despite the massive spending on employee training, companies may end up doing things that stifle rather than promote engagement.

When people are asked passive questions they almost invariably provide “environmental” answers. Thus, if an employee answers “no” when asked, “Do you have clear goals?” the reasons are attributed to external factors such as “My manager can’t make up his mind” or “The company changes strategy every month.” The employee seldom looks within to take responsibility, and say, “It’s my fault.”

The result, argued Kelly, is that when companies take the natural next step and ask for positive suggestions about making changes, the employees’ answers once again focus exclusively on the environment, not the individual. “Managers need to be trained in goal setting” or “Our executives need to be more effective in communicating our vision” are typical responses. The company is essentially asking, “What are we doing wrong?” – and the employees are more than willing to oblige with a laundry list of the company’s mistakes.

There is nothing inherently evil or bad about passive questions. They can be a very useful tool for helping companies know what they can do to improve. On the other hand, they can produce a very negative unintended consequence. When asked exclusively, passive questions can be the natural enemy of taking personal responsibility and demonstrating accountability. They can give people the unearned permission to pass the buck to anyone and anything but themselves.

Active questions are the alternative to passive questions. There’s a difference between “Do you have clear goals?” and “Did you do your best to set clear goals?” The former is trying to determine the employee’s state of mind, the latter challenges the employee to describe or defend a personal course of action.  Kelly was pointing out that passive questions were almost always being asked while active questions were being ignored.

This was such a breakthrough for me that I initiated a controlled study with Kelly to test the effectiveness of employee engagement survey questions while undergoing employee training. The theory was that different phrasing of the follow-up questions would have a measurable effect because active questions focus respondents on what they can do to make a positive difference in the world rather than what the world can do to make a positive difference for them. (JFK must have known this when he crafted one of the more memorable calls to action in American history: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”)

Learn more: employee engagement survey examples

In the first study, we used three different groups. The first group was a control group that received no training and was asked “before and after” questions on happiness, meaning, building positive relationships, and engagement.

The second group went to a two-hour training session about “engaging yourself” at work and home.  This training was followed up every day (for ten working days) with passive questions:

  1. How happy were you today?
  2. How meaningful was your day?
  3. How positive were your relationships with people?
  4. How engaged were you?

The third group went to the same two-hour training session.  Their training was followed up every day (for ten working days) with active questions:

  1. Did you do your best to be happy?
  2. Did you do your best to find meaning?
  3. Did you do your best to build positive relationships with people?
  4. Did you do your best to be fully engaged?

At the end of two weeks, each of the three groups were asked to rate themselves on increased happiness, meaning, positive relationships, and engagement.

The results were amazingly consistent.  The control group showed little change (as control groups are wont to do). The passive questions group reported positive improvement in all four areas. The active questions group doubled that improvement on every item! Active questions were twice as effective at delivering training’s desired benefits to employees. While any follow-up was shown as superior to no follow-up, A simple tweak in the language of follow-up – focusing on what the individual can control – not cannot control – made a significant difference.

       

SHARE THIS ARTICLE:

About the author
Harshad Deshpande
Director, Sales at QuestionPro. Empowering Organizations and Higher Ed with Research Survey Software and CX Solutions.
View all posts by Harshad Deshpande

Primary Sidebar

Take your people experience to the next level!

Try our Employee Experience Survey and Analytics platform

Learn more

RELATED ARTICLES

HubSpot - QuestionPro Integration

The man behind QuestionPro UX | Gerardo Vázquez

Jun 15,2022

HubSpot - QuestionPro Integration

Best 10 Toluna Start Alternatives in 2025

Dec 06,2022

HubSpot - QuestionPro Integration

They Failed to Show the CX LUV —Tuesday CX Thoughts

Feb 14,2023

BROWSE BY CATEGORY

  • Academic
  • Academic Research
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Assessments
  • Audience
  • Brand Awareness
  • Business
  • Case Studies
  • Communities
  • Consumer Insights
  • Customer effort score
  • Customer Engagement
  • Customer Experience
  • Customer Loyalty
  • Customer Research
  • Customer Satisfaction
  • CX
  • Employee Benefits
  • Employee Engagement
  • Employee Engagement
  • Employee Retention
  • Enterprise
  • Events
  • Forms
  • Friday Five
  • General Data Protection Regulation
  • Guest Post
  • Insights Hub
  • Life@QuestionPro
  • LivePolls
  • Market Research
  • Marketing
  • Mobile
  • Mobile App
  • Mobile diaries
  • Mobile Surveys
  • New Features
  • non-profit
  • NPS
  • Online Communities
  • Polls
  • Question Types
  • Questionnaire
  • QuestionPro
  • QuestionPro Products
  • Release Notes
  • Research Tools and Apps
  • Revenue at Risk
  • Startups
  • Survey Templates
  • Surveys
  • Tech News
  • Tips
  • Training
  • Training Tips
  • Trending
  • Tuesday CX Thoughts (TCXT)
  • Uncategorized
  • VOC
  • Webinar
  • Webinars
  • What’s Coming Up
  • Workforce
  • Workforce Intelligence

Footer

MORE LIKE THIS

albertsons-companies-nps-2025

Albertsons Companies NPS and Insights in 2025

May 23, 2025

data-augmentation

What is Data Augmentation? Methods & Uses in Research

May 22, 2025

livecast a new way to do research

Here’s how LiveCast can help you survive the great Stanley Cup debate of 2025

May 22, 2025

Credit-Unions-NPS-2025

Credit Unions NPS Leading in Loyalty in 2025

May 21, 2025

Other categories

  • Academic
  • Academic Research
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Assessments
  • Audience
  • Brand Awareness
  • Business
  • Case Studies
  • Communities
  • Consumer Insights
  • Customer effort score
  • Customer Engagement
  • Customer Experience
  • Customer Loyalty
  • Customer Research
  • Customer Satisfaction
  • CX
  • Employee Benefits
  • Employee Engagement
  • Employee Engagement
  • Employee Retention
  • Enterprise
  • Events
  • Forms
  • Friday Five
  • General Data Protection Regulation
  • Guest Post
  • Insights Hub
  • Life@QuestionPro
  • LivePolls
  • Market Research
  • Marketing
  • Mobile
  • Mobile App
  • Mobile diaries
  • Mobile Surveys
  • New Features
  • non-profit
  • NPS
  • Online Communities
  • Polls
  • Question Types
  • Questionnaire
  • QuestionPro
  • QuestionPro Products
  • Release Notes
  • Research Tools and Apps
  • Revenue at Risk
  • Startups
  • Survey Templates
  • Surveys
  • Tech News
  • Tips
  • Training
  • Training Tips
  • Trending
  • Tuesday CX Thoughts (TCXT)
  • Uncategorized
  • VOC
  • Webinar
  • Webinars
  • What’s Coming Up
  • Workforce
  • Workforce Intelligence

questionpro-logo-nw
Help center Live Chat SIGN UP FREE
  • Sample questions
  • Sample reports
  • Survey logic
  • Branding
  • Integrations
  • Professional services
  • Security
  • Survey Software
  • Customer Experience
  • Workforce
  • Communities
  • Audience
  • Polls Explore the QuestionPro Poll Software - The World's leading Online Poll Maker & Creator. Create online polls, distribute them using email and multiple other options and start analyzing poll results.
  • Research Edition
  • LivePolls
  • InsightsHub
  • Blog
  • Articles
  • eBooks
  • Survey Templates
  • Case Studies
  • Training
  • Webinars
  • All Plans
  • Nonprofit
  • Academic
  • Qualtrics Alternative Explore the list of features that QuestionPro has compared to Qualtrics and learn how you can get more, for less.
  • SurveyMonkey Alternative
  • VisionCritical Alternative
  • Medallia Alternative
  • Likert Scale Complete Likert Scale Questions, Examples and Surveys for 5, 7 and 9 point scales. Learn everything about Likert Scale with corresponding example for each question and survey demonstrations.
  • Conjoint Analysis
  • Net Promoter Score (NPS) Learn everything about Net Promoter Score (NPS) and the Net Promoter Question. Get a clear view on the universal Net Promoter Score Formula, how to undertake Net Promoter Score Calculation followed by a simple Net Promoter Score Example.
  • Offline Surveys
  • Customer Satisfaction Surveys
  • Employee Survey Software Employee survey software & tool to create, send and analyze employee surveys. Get real-time analysis for employee satisfaction, engagement, work culture and map your employee experience from onboarding to exit!
  • Market Research Survey Software Real-time, automated and advanced market research survey software & tool to create surveys, collect data and analyze results for actionable market insights.
  • GDPR & EU Compliance
  • Employee Experience
  • Customer Journey
  • Synthetic Data
  • About us
  • Executive Team
  • In the news
  • Testimonials
  • Advisory Board
  • Careers
  • Brand
  • Media Kit
  • Contact Us

QuestionPro in your language

  • English
  • Español (Spanish)
  • Português (Portuguese (Brazil))
  • Nederlands (Dutch)
  • العربية (Arabic)
  • Français (French)
  • Italiano (Italian)
  • 日本語 (Japanese)
  • Türkçe (Turkish)
  • Svenska (Swedish)
  • Hebrew IL (Hebrew)
  • ไทย (Thai)
  • Deutsch (German)
  • Portuguese de Portugal (Portuguese (Portugal))

Awards & certificates

  • survey-leader-asia-leader-2023
  • survey-leader-asiapacific-leader-2023
  • survey-leader-enterprise-leader-2023
  • survey-leader-europe-leader-2023
  • survey-leader-latinamerica-leader-2023
  • survey-leader-leader-2023
  • survey-leader-middleeast-leader-2023
  • survey-leader-mid-market-leader-2023
  • survey-leader-small-business-leader-2023
  • survey-leader-unitedkingdom-leader-2023
  • survey-momentumleader-leader-2023
  • bbb-acredited
The Experience Journal

Find innovative ideas about Experience Management from the experts

  • © 2022 QuestionPro Survey Software | +1 (800) 531 0228
  • Sitemap
  • Privacy Statement
  • Terms of Use