How to Conduct Effective Employee Engagement Surveys

Understanding how your employees really feel at work is a good business practice. As such, using a survey or questionnaire to find out more about their experiences can provide your business with important information.

To help you set up yours, this guide covers everything you need to know about the importance of employee engagement.

Why use a survey?

First of all, what benefits can you expect from a survey? For a start, your staff will appreciate you’re allowing them to voice their opinions. If, for example, you ran the survey once a month then it’s their chance to let you know how your business is developing.

From your side, it’s also a chance to guide the mood and conduct of your employees. Are they happy, or are they preparing to leave? Or do they have some suggestions on how to improve your infrastructure?

So, a survey is a great way to approach transforming your performance and profitability through employee engagement. So, an employee satisfaction survey can allow you to:

• Monitor the mood of your staff.
• Discover new ways to improve your business.
• Adjust unpopular procedures.
• Introduce new training opportunities.
• Address any employee concerns.

Defining your objectives

To start, it’s a good idea to define what you want your questionnaire to achieve. Many businesses take it as an opportunity for honest feedback.

They then use the details to make improvements to their procedures. So, you can use your survey to measure various elements of your business. You can get feedback on your:

• Company culture.
• Leadership.
• Training opportunities.
• Day-to-day working life.
• Regular issues your staff members face.

The comments you receive from your staff members will be positive and negative. Don’t take offence of any bad feedback, as you can use it to put the record straight.

Just through letting your staff know you’re addressing a problem, that can help boost morale. What you need to remember is you’re aiming for staff satisfaction.

Happy employees make for a productive business, so it’s in your best interest to encourage honesty. And all of this can provide great money saving tips for your business, as you can potentially discover new approaches that can cut down on overhead.

Your staff engagement survey

The important part here is it’s your survey. It’s important to approach it in a way that suits your business, as well as your employees.

But there are a few ways in which you can go about implementing your questionnaire. The first is with a traditional sheet of paper with your questions laid out.

You can hand these over to your staff members on designated days. A modern approach is to go digital. There are a variety of employee engagement questionnaire platforms available that let you send staff members a survey.

You can then easily collect the data—this approach also allows for greater anonymity. Using a digital approach, employees can respond as they want. You can make it clear they don’t have to

Staff survey questions

There’s no exact science behind what you should ask your staff members. But you should try to get them to open up about their experiences working with you.

If you’re looking for a few ideas on what to write for your questionnaire, you can refer to the below examples:

• Do you think you’re valued in your role?
• How happy are you working for the business?
• Are you happy with your work-life balance?
• What one thing would make your working life easier?
• Is there anything stopping you from doing your job better?
• Would you like to see any training initiatives introduced?
• Do you receive productive feedback from your managers?

You can adapt these as you see fit as your employee engagement survey questions should suit your industry and employees’ environment. And you can create your own.

But the goal is to ensure you develop an understanding of:

• How employees view your managerial style.
• Your potential staff retention rate.
• What the opinions are of your company culture.

With the information you gather, you can then make any decisions on what you’d like to change in your approach to day-to-day business.

Need expert advice?

If you need any more guidance with how to set up your employee engagement survey, you can get in touch with one of our qualified HR consultants today on 0800 028 2420.