When your employees are fully engaged at work, the benefits seep into all areas of the company. From productivity output to customer experience – employee engagement is an important business practice you can’t afford to neglect.
One tried-and-tested way that helps regulate this is using employee engagement surveys. These questionnaires are different to your regular ‘run-of-the-mill’ feedback forms.
They help acknowledge how employees truly feel about their workplace.
Whether they’re completely happy with their job or have particular concerns, the surveys allow you to invest in career development and business progression. Let’s take a look at what an employee engagement survey is, what the benefits are, and how to build one that works for you.
What is an employee engagement survey?
An employee engagement survey is a questionnaire that collects information from a workforce. It presents a variety of questions and comment boxes allowing employees to share feedback on job satisfaction.
Employee engagement surveys help employers identify performance, motivation, and loyalty. The feedback that’s collected is then used to enhance or improve levels of engagement – in individual teams or across entire departments.
Judging by the name, you might think employee engagement surveys only benefit employees. Actually, they can also help employers create positive and real-time progression for their businesses.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of employee engagement surveys?
There are numerous benefits for using employee engagement surveys. But it’s also important not to ignore the hurdles of employee engagement, too.
Let’s take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of employee engagement surveys:
Advantages
- They lead to better job satisfaction for employees.
- They enhance staff morale and wellbeing.
- They encourage trust and loyalty towards the business.
- They help create an inclusive and respectful workplace culture.
The greatest benefits of employee engagement surveys are that they promote mutual respect, trust, and honesty. Anonymous questionnaires allow employees to share their true opinions or concerns about their job. Open communication like this helps enhance staff retention, business output, and overall success.
Disadvantages
- They can be time-consuming (especially when collecting vast amounts of data).
- They open doors to all kinds of feedback (which can be hard to go through).
- They focus more on past events rather than future goals.
- They may be returned blank or without productive feedback.
If employees don’t see the value of the surveys or don’t believe change will come, they won’t spend any time filling them out. Without solid work relations, it’s difficult to engage employees or future generations through the surveys.
What types of questions are included in employee engagement surveys?
There are endless types of questions you can add to an employee engagement survey. It all depends on what you want to discover about your staff, work practices, or business on a whole.
Let’s take a look at examples of employee engagement survey questions:
Job satisfaction questions
Establishing job satisfaction is arguably the most important element when it comes to employee engagement surveys. They help employers identify who is happy working within their role and who could use a boost of reassurance.
Common questions on job satisfaction include:
- How do you feel about your work?
- Would you recommend working here to others?
- Do you enjoy being part of this business?
- Do you feel proud of your work?
- Are you satisfied with your current work entitlements, benefits, and terms?
- Which do you prefer: working alone or in team projects?
Workplace alignment questions
Workplace alignment questions are all about creating a relationship between an employee’s emotions and their workplace. This helps highlight any personal targets, as well as overall business goals.
Common questions on workplace alignment include:
- Do you feel like your work is meaningful for the business?
- Are your work achievements recognised by your peers, managers, or others?
- Is management invested in your career development?
- Do you work in a safe and comfortable environment?
- Are you inspired by the business’s goals and visions?
- Are your managers interested in your cultural initiatives?
Career progression questions
Off the bat, these questions might seem like they only apply to employees. But actually, highlighting personal goals and future aspirations can help employers utilise their workforce to its fullest.
Common questions on career progression include:
- Where do you see yourself in a year’s time?
- Do you think your role benefits your career development?
- Is there a different job you’d like to progress into?
- Do you believe you have the right support to enhance your career?
- Have you ever thought about leaving your current role?
- Is there anything impacting your career development?
Open-ended questions
All employee engagement surveys should include open-ended questions that relate specifically to the business. These will vary depending on what feedback you actually want to uncover from your staff.
Common open-ended questions include:
- What work practices or customs should we change?
- Are there any faults within our work culture?
- Have you witnessed workplace changes since the last survey?
- How do you think we can improve employee engagement?
- Is there anything else you’d like to add?
How to build a survey for employee engagement
Every employer will have their own needs and interests for using employee engagement surveys. Some want to improve business loyalty; whilst others want to invest in employee progression.
It doesn’t matter if you’re downloading a free employee engagement survey template or creating your own – there are numerous things to consider when building a survey of employee engagement. Let’s take a look at them:
Create a survey that fits your needs
The first step employers should take is creating a survey that fits their business needs. It’s fine to copy an employee engagement survey example from the internet. However, in order to utilise them fully, they must tailor them to your workplace.
For example, you want to find out how your workplace cultures impact new employees. The surveys could include closed questions to collect vast amounts of numerical data. Or they could include more open questions to establish a more realistic insight into your cultures.
Remember, every business will have its own goals, visions, and strategies. Even if you copied a survey format from a parallel company, it won’t be as favourable as building your own.
Consider the length of your surveys
It’s important to consider the length of your employee engagement surveys. This includes how long it’ll take an employee to fill out, as well as how often they should be held.
There are no set rules on how long surveys should be; but try to aim for 30 mins. This means employees could complete them on their lunch breaks, at home, or even during work hours – without it affecting their tasks.
When it comes to how often you should hold surveys, a rule of thumb that most businesses follow is once a year. In the end, it’s all about collating information and feedback that will help further business development – for you and your employees.
Keep your surveys private and anonymous
When it comes to employee feedback, you may be presented with all kinds of information. Some great, some not so great. Whichever way it flows, it’s important to keep all surveys private and anonymous.
Employees should be able to share their opinions – good or bad – without worrying about any potential consequences. By keeping surveys confidential, you’ll have access to genuine feedback that can truly help improve your business.
Some employee engagement surveys don’t include personal information; like age, sex, or job role. However, if you want to look into feedback concerning personal information, make sure you state your reasons. For example, if you want to look into gender pay gaps within your company, employees may need to state what sex they are.
Start making positive changes
Once you’ve collated feedback from the surveys, you’ll need to sort them into categories. Employers should make a note of positive comments that should be continued within work practices.
You should also list all negative points and deal with them appropriately. Of course, you’re not expected to implement every single piece of feedback – especially if you don’t agree with it or if it could jeopardise your business growth.
Instead, highlight ones that you plan to implement and ones you need to reconsider. Remember, feedback goes both ways, so clarify what your next steps are. Honesty and transparency are crucial at this stage. Without them, employees could be put off from completing future surveys – risking engagement, loyalty, and commitment for good.
Make the best of employee engagement surveys with Love2shop
There are countless benefits of employee engagement surveys. It simply falls to the employer to create surveys that encourage the best feedback for the best outcome.
A great way to grow employee engagement is to reward them for good behaviour and achievements at work. What better way to do this than by giving gift cards and vouchers!
Love2shop offers gift cards guaranteed to enhance employee engagement surveys to their fullest.
Whether you want to further employee progression or business visions, Love2shop has the perfect gift card for you.
