At some point, every growing organisation gets to a point where an employee survey makes sense. In some cases it has become too difficult to figure out why collaboration is not working, or why people leave the company after 6 months or less. In other cases, leaders are looking for tools and data to structure conversations with their teams about the challenges they face.
No matter the reason, a survey is a fairly easy way to get some data, in a way that’s more balanced than just listening to people at the coffee machine (or foosball table or wherever you hang out). Employee surveys level the playing field somewhat, so it’s not just the loud, spontaneous people who get their say. And if you employ engineers – there is a good chance they have some love for data as well.
Picking survey questions
So what questions should you pick for your employee survey? the internet is ready to offer up endless ideas for questions you can stuff into the survey.
Don’t.
In the past I have responded to employee surveys with 100+ questions.
I don’t have to tell you that’s a terrible idea. Who wants to go through 100 questions?
Instead, I will give you 3 tips to picking questions that will actually give you some value. And I will of course tell you which questions you MUST include and why.
But we will get to that.
First the 3 tips
1. Go for long-term!
Your employee survey results won’t really start providing value until your second round. That’s when you can see development over time. A numerical score doesn’t say a whole lot without something to compare it to. So your questions need to be relevant not just now but in the future as well.
If you want to know what people think of a specific topic, just ask them. Don’t wait for a survey to add it in.
2. Go for understandable
This should not be necessary to state, but from bitter experience it is.
Make sure your questions make logical sense, and are actually possible to answer. Be as concrete as possible. Spend a little time trying to imagine having to answer the question yourself. An agree/disagree statement like ‘We trust each other.’ in a company of 200 people can be understood in about as many ways. What is trust? Who are ‘we’? Is ‘each other’ everyone or just some people?
A way to make sure people are on the same page is to make questions action-based. To gage the level of trust, it could be something like, “I am not afraid of telling my team, when I make a mistake.” or “I believe everyone in the company is dedicated to our shared goal”.
3. Go for useful
Don’t include questions in your employee survey, that you can’t or won’t do anything about. A prickly topic is salary. But if you know with complete certainty that you will not be able to do anything to improve salaries, it will only give false hope to people if you include questions like ‘How happy are you with your salary?’. Same with questions about things you can’t control – could be the office space, if you are renting an office with tight restrictions.
If you make sure the questions you pick are the ones you are willing to act on, if it turns out people are unhappy, you don’t waste their time or your own.
If you know there are hot-button issues, that you can’t control, I would always recommend addressing those openly. E.g. “Our investors have said we cannot touch salaries until our product version 2.0 hits the market.”
The ONE question
Ok, so what’s one question that is long-term, understandable and useful?
It’s this: I would recommend [company] as a workplace to friends and family.
Might not sound like rocket science, but it is a good question to include. Why?
You are most likely going to need to recruit more people. Getting your team to point out the best and brightest is a cheap, quick and effective way of doing that. So it is obviously long-term relevant.
Recommending working for the company is a great example of putting your money where your mouth is. And it is both concrete and actionable.
If you add an open comment field to this question, it will give you a lot of input on how you can improve the everyday experience of your team – and what works well.
Does this seem like a lot of work, that you don’t really have the capacity for? You’re in luck! I can help you. Reach out for more info or follow me on LinkedIn for more 😊
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