As businesses across the UK return to work (either physically or virtually), it’s critical to keep track of how your employees are feeling.

Surveys are the most common method of employee feedback collection. Whether you use pulse surveys, periodic web surveys or anything in between, you get answers that are easy to analyse, which can be used in your employee engagement strategy.

When conducting surveys, there are a few general rules to follow:

Keep questions (and answers) short and sweet – the less time they take to fill out, the higher your engagement levels will be
Don’t ask leading questions – it might make you feel good if all your feedback is positive, but it won’t help you achieve your goals
Provide anonymity – this will increase honesty
Pick a theme/topic - this helps to keep things short and focused

Do ask

In our last blog, we gave you a few examples of questions to ask during pulse surveys, but we think it’s important to explain why we’re making these suggestions. That way, when you’re creating your own survey questions, you’ll have the knowledge to back up your decision.

1. How happy are you with our company? (very unhappy, unhappy, neutral, happy, very happy)

What you’ll learn: Whether your employees are happy at work. This can include their role, their department or the company in general. You can use the answers to change things in these areas where possible. Why it’s a good question: There are plenty of options for your staff to choose from, on an easy-to-understand scale.

2. I feel comfortable offering my opinion to my managers (very uncomfortable, uncomfortable, neutral, comfortable, very comfortable)

What you’ll learn: The strength of inter-departmental relationships. Positive working relationships are the basis for success.

Why it’s a good question: Your culture is built on these relationships so they’re important to understand. Managers are the people your staff deal with on a day-to-day basis, so a survey is the ideal way to gain this information.

3. How would you rate your work-life balance, on a scale of 1-10?

What you’ll learn: Are you overloading your staff? Are they accepting their workload, even though it impacts upon their personal life? Are your expectations too high?

Why it’s a good question: Your employees might not feel comfortable rejecting additional work, instead taking time away from their home life to complete it. Long working hours can affect concentration, productivity and health.

4. I understand what success in my role looks like (strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree)

What you’ll learn: Do employees know what you expect of them? Are you setting expectations correctly?

Why it’s a good question: You can’t expect anyone to be successful if they don’t know what it means. Setting clear goals and targets helps your staff create a path to achieve them.

Don’t ask

1. What changes would you make within our company?

Why this is a bad question: This is so broad you are likely to get suggestions that you can't implement. Employees will expect to see changes made based on their feedback, so avoid any questions where this isn’t possible.

What you can do instead: Ask questions relating to topics that you can change.

2. Rate your manager on a scale of 1-10.

Why this is a bad question: You don’t get any information that can be acted upon. Employee engagement surveys, whatever form they’re in, should focus on improving employee experience and not creating negative feelings. Most managers have good and bad traits that can’t be evaluated using a broad question.

What you can do instead: Ask questions about manager-employee relationships and departmental workings. Question number 2 in the ‘do ask’ section is a good example of this.

3. Do you see yourself staying with the company long-term?

Why this is a bad question: Your employees (probably) aren’t psychics so they won’t know what the future holds. There are many reasons why people may decide your company isn’t where they want to be long-term, and that’s okay. Focus on creating high levels of employee retention without putting pressure on anyone who chooses to leave.

What you can do instead: Ask questions like “do you feel like you have the opportunity to improve your skills?” as you can offer more training opportunities.

4. Tell us about any problems with your manager

Why this is a bad question: It’s leading the respondent to say that they do have problems with their manager, which they might not.

What you can do instead: Ask employees about the relationships they have with their manager and peers. If the experiences shared are positive, then that’s great. If not, you can implement team-building exercises.

Once you’ve established what you want to ask your employees, make sure you have the right tools for the job.

The more responses you get, the more useful your data will be. Making your survey quick to answer, easy to understand and accessible online will encourage your staff to let you know how they’re feeling.