Diving into the Employee Satisfaction Survey

Whether you operate a small, mid-sized or enterprise business, a high level of employee satisfaction is a must, thus you’ll need to employ (pun intended) an employee satisfaction survey.

First, you should mull over the notion of employee satisfaction: the term itself doesn’t denote contentment among employees. Rather, it signifies the concept of whether employees are content with their needs and wishes in their job.

As such, it is treated as something to measure, as a healthy amount of employee satisfaction leads to better job performance and productivity. Conversely, poor satisfaction leads to low morale and high burnout, which inevitably lead to higher turnover rates and ultimately affecting a business’s bottom line.

But as a business, you can disentangle yourself from this predicament — or avoid it from occurring to begin with — with the employee satisfaction survey.

What is an Employee Satisfaction Survey?

This kind of survey gauges the level of satisfaction your employees have with their jobs: this includes culture, work environment, visibility and all employee relations. It is a tool best executed by the human resources department, as this team works chiefly to fulfill employee needs.

However, the intelligence derived from this kind of survey should be shared with upper management, so that higher-ups can see how employees are faring, make decisions on how to improve their satisfaction and devise plans with HR on how to better oversee the company.

Your business should periodically issue these surveys to your employees, as even the happiest of them can have a change of mood. Perhaps something in the company changed for the worse? Or perhaps, the new project management system is difficult to adapt to. 

Whatever the case, your company will benefit from monitoring your employees’ satisfaction.

Why Does this Survey Matter to Your Business?

If the above explanation wasn’t reason enough to employ employee satisfaction surveys regularly, the following will. Your HR team cannot read minds, and neither can you. When your employees hit a sour note in any matter pertaining to work, it is best to correct it.

But you won’t be able to unless you know precisely what troubles your employees when it comes to their jobs.

Here are several reasons as to why you should implement these surveys, particularly in regards to unhappy employees.

1. Employees’ discontent won’t be remedied if it’s not addressed and if no action is taken against it.
2. If unhappy employees don’t like their jobs, they won’t bother to work as diligently as they should; they’ll start slacking and their performance will worsen.
3. Discontented workers may get to the point of no return; they may decide to leave the organization. Others may follow suit, leading to high turnover.  
4. Unhappy colleagues can release their low spirits onto other employees and even customers.
5. Dissatisfied workers may lower company morale and culture.
6. Unhappy employees will feel like they get to voice their concerns with a satisfaction survey.
7. The prospect of fulfillment and improving mental health may seem like a reality to unsatisfied employees when employers set up these surveys.

Questions to Ask in Your Questionnaire

An employment satisfaction survey often deals with many topics, as such, you can create multiple such surveys, or incorporate various topics into one survey. Here are a few types of employee satisfaction question types and question examples.

Questions on relationships with the supervisors and managers

1. How would you rate your supervisor/manager?
2. Does your supervisor give you constructive criticism?
3. Does your supervisor provide your tasks in a timely and comprehensible manner?
4. Do you feel that your supervisor understands your concerns?
5. Do you feel like your supervisor appreciates your work?

Questions on job enjoyment and comfort

1. Do you enjoy the work you do?
2. Do you feel that you are valued for the job you do?
3. Do you feel that you can pursue job growth in this company?
4. Do you believe you’ve gotten sufficient training to solve customer issues?
5. Do you feel that your job helps make a difference in the company, the niche, our customers, or the world at large?
   

Questions on self-evaluation

1. Do you complete all your tasks before they are due?
2. Do you feel that your workload is too high and that you may require some help?
3. How can you improve your performance without inducing any stress?
4. How can you improve your performance to help contribute to the company’s success?
5. How can you improve your relationship with other colleagues?

Questions on company pipeline and goals

1. Do the overall goals of the company make sense for this quarter?
2. Do you have an understanding of your requirements and how they fit into the bigger picture of the company?
3. Do the objectives for your team seem realistic and attainable? 
4. Are your own objectives clear and do they seem realistic?
5. Do you have any worries about the direction the company is going in terms of goals or your responsibilities?

Questions on work/life balance 

1. Do you feel like you have an adequate work/life balance?
2. If not, what can the company do to adapt to a better work/life balance?
3. Do you think your managers take your personal family time into consideration?
4. Do you feel stressed out due to long hours or hard to meet objectives?
5. Do you feel that your coworkers respect your time off?

Using Employee Satisfaction Surveys to their Fullest Potential 

Aside from the question types and topics above, there are many other topics that factor into employee satisfaction. You should consider all relevant topics, as this type of survey doesn’t merely reveal how your employees feel.

The value of these types of surveys is their ability to reveal your company’s own shortcomings and shortsightedness, along with ideas on how to improve managerial relationships and culture. Moreover, they can divulge how to achieve objections, set more reasonable expectations and offer better visibility.

This is to say that these surveys can give indispensable advice on how to run your business. As such, a robust survey platform is key.