Diving into the Employee Feedback Survey

Whether you have five employees or 5,000, the employee feedback survey is an excellent source of collecting employee sentiment that allows you to improve business operations and employee retention in turn. 

Feedback surveys provide employees with an anonymous way to share their concerns without fear of reprisal. In this format, a business can expect much more honest feedback that can drive meaningful change in the company.

Unfortunately, many employee feedback surveys fail because they do not ask the right questions or suffer from a low response rate. This guide will help you understand why these surveys matter and how you can make the most out of your next survey. 

Employee Feedback Survey Overview

An employee feedback survey entails capturing feedback from existing employees in a survey format. This type of survey is also referred to as an employee engagement or employee opinion survey. 

In general, employee feedback surveys seek to understand the level of job satisfaction, fulfillment and overall happiness that employees feel. Employee feedback surveys are conducted to understand employees’ holistic feelings toward a company or those pertaining to their team or department. 

The results of an employee feedback survey are then used to help drive company action by improving companywide aspects such as management styles, HR methodologies, employee relations and interactions with clients.

There are many reasons why a company may choose to conduct an employee feedback survey. Some of the main motivations include: 

• Understanding current pain points
• Measuring overall job satisfaction
• Gaining insight into successful management styles 
• Learning which HR incentives are most appreciated by employees
• Improving processes for hiring and onboarding new employees
• Demonstrating to employees that the company is interested and invested in improving their experience 
• Giving employees the opportunity to reflect and volunteer ways to improve their role or the company
• Improving the general satisfaction employees feel with their work and work environment

Benefits of Employee Feedback Surveys

Companies of all sizes can benefit from conducting an employee feedback survey and acting on the insights uncovered during the analysis process. Benefits companies may experience include:

• Better performance: your team may feel more motivated to perform when they are given the opportunity to provide employee feedback. 
• Eliminating any discomfort employees feel about raising their concerns on employment particulars.
• Detecting problems before they occur.
• An improved and streamlined communication between management and employees.
• Helping employees feel they belong and have a sense of purpose within the business.
• Boosting employee retention rates.
• Attracting prospective employees who want to be part of a culture where their voice is heard.

Additionally, there are added benefits of administering surveys on a more regular basis. The benefits of more frequent employee feedback surveys include:

• Having a system of benchmarks to understand how employee satisfaction changes over time.
• Identifying changes in HR or operation procedures that have positively or negatively impacted employees.
• Giving employees more frequent opportunities to voice their concerns.

How to Conduct an Employee Feedback Survey

Employee feedback surveys are relatively easy to conduct and follow a similar process to other survey types. 

• Understand the purpose of your survey and write down your goals. Before you begin  to pen your questions, explore your motivations for conducting an employee feedback survey. Then write down what you hope to accomplish or learn by the end of your survey.

• Identify your target audience. Determine if you will distribute your survey to the entire company or to smaller segments. Your target audience will influence the questions in your survey. 

• Organize and plan your survey(s). Depending on the purpose of your survey and the target audience(s) you identify, you may need to create more than one survey. For example, if you are creating a survey for a large company with several offices, you may want to create individual surveys for each office or for each team within the offices. The questions that you ask managers are also likely to differ from those that you will ask team members.

• Create your questions and design your survey. With the purpose and audience of your survey in mind, create questions that will provide the data you need to drive change. The design of your survey matters too;  consider using a professional survey platform to make the process easier for the employees and, thereby, improve your survey response rate. 

• Distribute your survey. Before sending the survey out, it is a good idea to explain to your employees why you are conducting the survey. This should encourage employees to take the time to complete the survey and provide thoughtful answers.

• Perform survey data analysis. Once the responses are in, you will need to collate, organize, and analyze the responses in order to draw conclusions for your business. We encourage you to read our in-depth article about survey data analysis to learn more about this process. 

• Put the insights into action. With the analysis complete, you should be able to draw some conclusions and put them into action. Circle back with your employees and share the results of the survey and explain how you will use these insights to improve the company. 

Questions to Include in Employee Feedback Surveys

By asking the right questions, you are more likely to get insightful responses that can help drive positive and impactful change in your organization. 

The wording of your questions is important. In order to get helpful responses, be sure to ask questions that require specific responses. Don’t try to kill two birds with one stone; keep questions focused on one topic at a time. 

To help get you started, we have compiled a list of questions covering some of the topics you may wish to include in your next employee feedback survey. 

Overall Job Satisfaction

1. Have you considered looking for another job within the past three months? If yes, please explain why.
2. What’s the one thing you would change about your job?
3. On a scale of 1 – 10, how happy are you with your job?
4. Are you happy with your work-life balance?
5. Would you refer a friend or colleague to work at this company? If no, please explain why not.

Relationship with Management

1. On a scale of 1 – 10, how would you rate your manager’s performance?
2. Are you happy with the level of communication between senior management and the team?
3. Do you know where to turn for help when you have a problem or challenge?
4. Do you feel recognized for the work you do?

Performance and Motivation

1. On a scale of 1 – 10, how challenging do you find your job?
2. What is the most challenging aspect of your job?
3. Do you feel inspired to do your best work?

Boost Your Business with the Employee Feedback Surveys

Employee turnover is expensive. Not only is it expensive and time-consuming to hire and train new employees, but companies with a higher turnover rate will experience lower overall profits. 

An employee feedback survey is an incredibly valuable tool that can help keep your employees engaged with your business. By investing in your people and understanding their true feelings about their role in your company, you can ensure the success of your business for years to come.

The simple act of conducting the employee feedback survey alone can help boost morale within your team. Add the free insights you’ll get from your employees, and it makes conducting an employee feedback survey a no-brainer. 

A professional survey platform can make it even easier to distribute your survey to a vast network of online users and assure that your survey collects the exact number of responses that you need. There is nothing holding you back from getting started today!