8 Key Employee Satisfaction Survey Questions
In order for a company to continuously be successful, the employees must be engaged and productive. Employees who are happy at their jobs are much more likely to maintain productivity and provide ongoing value-add. So how can you get honest feedback on how employees are feeling about their job?
One tried-and-true method is the employee satisfaction survey.
What is an employee satisfaction survey?
Just as the name suggests, an employee satisfaction survey is a series of questions designed to gather feedback from your employees. When designing one, you should keep the following notes in mind:
- Avoid corporate jargon: the survey questions should connect with the employees as much as possible, and be easy for them to understand. Using confusing language can make employees unsure about what they are being asked
- Ask questions as honestly as possible: don’t skew questions with a bias, and don’t sugarcoat things. Getting the employee’s honest feedback is the whole point of an employee satisfaction survey
- Keep the layout consistent: although it may be your instinct to switch up the style and template of the survey each time you send it out, don’t. Employees already have enough on their plates and getting a recognizable survey with a structure they’re already familiar with will make it much easier for them to complete.
- Don’t ask too many questions: really focus on asking the most important questions. Too many questions can lead to employee survey fatigue which could result in unhelpful answers or incomplete surveys.
Why are employee satisfaction surveys important?
As mentioned above, happy employees make the best workers. Keeping a finger on the pulse of your office is the best way to ensure they are in fact happy, which you’ll definitely want to do. Unhappy employees can affect the entire business in negative ways, from low office morale, to decreased productivity, to high turnover rates.
Employee satisfaction surveys should be offered to preserve the anonymity of its participants. This is extremely important, as it allows employees to answer the questions honestly, without fear of retribution.
How to create an employee satisfaction survey?
Now that you know what an employee satisfaction survey is, as well as why it’s important, let’s take a look at creating one.
An employee satisfaction survey should be sent out at reasonable intervals that provide enough time in between to address concerns. They should be sent out electronically so it’s easier for employees to reply with detailed answers, and also easier to analyze and file the data when it’s returned.
Let’s look at some questions that should be included on the employee satisfaction survey – this is not an exhaustive list by any means, but will provide a good core set of questions.
Employee satisfaction survey questions
1. Are you happy with the company’s culture?
Company culture is one of the most important aspects of working at an office. This includes aspects like the work environment, interpersonal relationships, and more. If an employee isn’t a fan of the company culture, they won’t feel happy to come to work, which will lead to them being less productive.
2. Does your work feel meaningful?
It can be very frustrating for many people to feel like their work doesn’t mean anything. If an employee thinks their work is just volumes of tasks, or it is too easy to do, they will likely become less engaged with it.
3. Do you feel recognized for your contributions?
Equally as frustrating as having work that feels meaningless, is feeling as though you’re doing good work and not being recognized for it. Employees don’t expect to receive accolades every time they complete a task, but semi-regular recognition, either in a one-on-one, via email, at a meeting with their coworkers, etc., will make them much happier.
4. Does the company offer adequate growth opportunities?
Not only will having room to grow keep good employees around, it will attract new employees as well. Getting a solid team and giving them the training they need to advance is much less expensive than continuously replacing employees who have left to pursue career growth.
5. Do you feel connected to your co-workers?
Employees will spend many hours interacting with their co-workers, so their happiness and productivity levels will be affected by whether or not they like each other. A team that can work together and inspire each other will be much more productive than one that can’t.
6. Does management seem invested in the success of your team?
If management is just there to earn their paycheck and delegate tasks to others, employees are less likely to connect with and respect them. If management is transparent about their intentions, communicates well, and is open to receiving and listening to feedback, employees will be much more engaged with them and open to listening to their directives.
7. Are you able to do your job efficiently?
This can touch on a few aspects of the employee satisfaction survey. First, does the employee have adequate technology and tools to efficiently complete their job? Everyone doesn’t need cutting edge tech, but advanced enough to optimize efficiency is crucial. It can also refer to the distribution of the workload – is everyone getting similar amounts of work, or are a few people shouldering too much? Obviously the latter can lead to unhappy employees.
8. On a scale of 1-10, can you rate your work-life balance?
Work-life balance is crucial to maintaining happiness and productivity at the office. Employees who don’t have a good balance are at risk of burnout – fatigue and other physical/mental effects due to working too much for too long – and resentment of the job that doesn’t give them time to pursue their own lifestyles outside of work. Being known to support good work-life balance is also an attractive quality in a company for job seekers.
Employee Satisfaction Survey Customization
As we said above, this isn’t a complete list of all the questions you should ask on an employee satisfaction survey. However, now that you know what it is, the importance, and several core questions to ask, you have a good start on creating your own employee satisfaction survey.
