Employee Engagement Surveys: 10 Sample Questions

Employee engagement increases both employee satisfaction, but also has been shown to boost productivity and the bottom line. But how can you best measure employee engagement? Getting a clear view of which employees are engaged and their engagement level often feels like reaching in the dark.

According to a 2020 survey conducted by Gallup, only 40% of American workers feel engaged with the work they do. Most of the other workers who don’t feel engaged won’t ever disclose this information to their employers — at least not directly.

An employee engagement survey, when used correctly, is a great tool to monitor engagement levels, and should be a part of every employee engagement strategy.

These surveys are a convenient way for employees to anonymously express their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their employer and working conditions. They can be done in person at work or through a cloud-based portal. And it’s possible to allow employees to complete their surveys anonymously.

Types of employee engagement surveys

There are 2 types of employee engagement surveys. The first is a pulse survey which is a short, informal survey that is usually 1 to 5 questions in length. It is meant to decipher the current satisfaction of employees and can be done on a semi-regular basis. Pulse surveys should be used for things like understanding how well a new policy is being received or how launching a new product is going.

The second type of survey is an engagement survey. It’s meant to understand overall employee satisfaction and the data can be used in the future to show areas in the company that management can improve in order to increase employee retention and productivity. These surveys are more formal and range from 20 to 50 questions in length. Since the data collected from these surveys is crucial to the company they should be stored on a secure cloud-based server.

An employee survey is a vital tool for an HR department. But surveys are only as good as their questions.

Sample questions for your employee engagement survey

Before we get into the questions, it’s important to note that there are a few different metrics you can use to analyze your results. One of the most common methods is the Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS), which asks employees to answer questions on a scale from zero to 10.

With the eNPS, someone who scores less than 6 is a disengaged employee. Someone who scores between 7 and 8 is “passive.” And engaged employees rank between 9 and 10. To get your company’s score, you need to subtract the scores of the disengaged employees from the engaged ones. If your score is negative, employees are not satisfied overall, and it’s time to make serious changes.

You’ll want questions that work with this kind of framework, so you can easily analyze your results. At the same time, the employee survey should ask critical and direct questions about the company culture.

You need to subtract the scores of the disengaged employees from the engaged ones. If your score is negative, employees are not satisfied overall, and it’s time to make serious changes.

10 sample questions to get you started

1. Do you feel as if you received proper training for your position after being hired?
2. When given a task do you feel that you are given clear and direct goals?
3. Do you feel like your workplace is inclusive and diverse?
4. Are you satisfied with your current role?
5. Are you provided with the proper tools, resources, and time to do your job well?
6. Are you compensated fairly for your role in your organization?
7. Do the employee benefits offered to meet your needs?
8. Do you feel that your company provides resources to help employees who may be struggling with mental health issues?
9. Do you see yourself working in the same company in 5 years?
10. Do you feel appreciated for the level of work that you do?

You may want to follow up these questions with short, open-ended follow-up. For example, after asking if an employee receives direct goals, you can ask “why or why not”? This way, you can understand more about the employee experience outside of calculating your eNPS score.

At the end of your survey period, an HR professional wants to have both a firm score to use a benchmark, and a list of potential improvement areas to work on. After all, an effective employee engagement strategy should be focused on turning these surveys into actionable goals to support employee performance and retention.

Measuring employee engagement today

Gauging employee performance is a regular exercise in improving the workplace culture. And while there’s a lot to consider in designing an employee engagement strategy, it doesn’t have to be a complete headache. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when drafting your employee survey or employee engagement initiative.

To learn more about how you can boost employee advocacy, increase performance, and receive more employee feedback, check out our best practices guide for employee engagement surveys.