How to write better employee survey questions

It’s important to know what your employees are thinking – if you don’t, you risk having a very unhappy workforce that isn’t performing well and not being able to make the necessary changes.

You may have received lacklustre responses when your company ran its last employee survey, so how can you improve the answers you get and ensure they’re valuable?

The answer is simple: Write better questions. But it’s easier said than done – here are a few tips to help you with your next survey:

Ask only one question at a time. You may want to kill two birds with one stone, but keep your questions separate. Asking more than one can not only be confusing to participants, but lead to inconsistent or inaccurate responses.

Make sure they’re understandable. Ask someone outside the organisation to read the questions you’ve prepared. Do they make sense? Are they easily scannable? Do they have to be read several times before the point becomes clear? Make sure participants can quickly and easily answer them.

Don’t ask leading questions. A leading question can hint to employees that you’re looking for a particular response. Keep questions neutral and unbiased at all costs to ensure the results aren’t swayed in either direction. People who feel pressured to answer a certain way aren’t giving you the most useful information.

Ask questions people will remember the answers to. If you’re asking staff about something that occurred in Q1 at the end of the year, they may have no idea what you’re referring to or not recall their feelings about a particular subject or change. Conducting surveys more than once a year may solve this problem.

Proofread. Edit your questions thoroughly to ensure formatting and phrasing is consistent. Poorly written questions sometimes are bad simply because they use poor grammar that can confuse participants.

How often does your organisation conduct surveys to analyse its performance and employee satisfaction? If you’d like to use more, request a free demonstration to learn more about the importance of online surveys.