Employee satisfaction questionnaire: best practices

How does your team feel about their work environment? Are they satisfied with their career and what your company provides them with? Do you think they share a good image of your business during their time off or complain about their professional life? The best way to know this information is to set up an employee satisfaction questionnaire. A lack of satisfaction among your coworkers can severely impact their mental health and your corporate development. Not only can it result in a disconnected and disengaged workforce but it can also lead to burnout and high turnover.

So how do you create a useful job satisfaction survey? Which questions should you ask to get relevant feedback? How often should you collect and study analytics regarding happiness and satisfaction in the workplace? Because this is a core pillar of all successful companies, we have dug into this topic to give you clear advice and answers. Remember: each organization is unique and so are your employees. Show them that you care about their well-being and create forms that target specific themes.

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When and how often should you conduct a job satisfaction survey?

The main reason for sending surveys is to measure your employee satisfaction, but they can also help track progress over time. To gauge how happy your workforce is, where improvements are needed and how they feel in the workplace, the key is to do job satisfaction surveys regularly.

In order to not overload your staff with an excessive number of questionnaires to answer, we recommend doing a big 360-view survey yearly with questions related to every aspect of your business. You can then run more specific surveys by choosing one theme per month in addition to the other feedback collected from reviews sent after onboarding or training, for example.

What about giving your team the opportunity to express their thoughts when need be? Installing a feedback box in your office or creating one online is also a way to show your employees that you care for their well-being. They can then express how they feel without waiting for the next survey, especially if the upcoming topic is not related to what they want to share with you. 

Spontaneous surveys are useful for managers and HR departments when witnessing abnormal situations in the workplace. It can be interesting to get your workforce’s opinion if you notice a drop in performance or a sudden wave of resignation. Don’t wait for the next survey to try and understand the issue, you can plan an extra one in response to the current situation.

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How to create a survey to measure work satisfaction effectively?

Mix the type of questions

If you send employee satisfaction questionnaires to your team often, they shouldn’t require too much time to answer. Otherwise, they will stop filling them out. For quick weekly or monthly surveys, you can opt for multiple choice or “scaling” type questions. Keep the open-ended queries for less frequent surveys or when you need to have a detailed review about a specific topic. This type of question takes longer to be answered and then analyzed. However, they yield more personal and informative feedback.

Choose the right format

Millennials and Gen-Z tend to be more eager to answer a virtual questionnaire while Baby Boomers might prefer filling out a paper form. Even though it is not a best practice for sustainability in the workplace, both options should be available if your multigenerational workforce requires it. Of course, trying to promote a paperless office is always the best.

For digital surveys, you can simply write down your questions on an online document and send it to your team members via email. However, there are many efficient employee satisfaction tools that help collect feedback. One of the most common questionnaire platforms is Google Forms, but you can also use Officevibe or TINYpulse for example.

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Be short and precise

Your employees appreciate your care and desire to fulfill their expectations, but they don't want to spend hours answering surveys.

To make them concise and efficient, choose simple vocabulary and ask short questions. Your workers shouldn’t struggle to understand what you are asking.  Also, using a casual tone invites your team members to give sincere responses as if they were engaging in a verbal conversation with you.

Make it anonymous

Ensuring the answers to your employee satisfaction questionnaires remain confidential is essential. Even with a positive workplace culture based on trust, some people will feel uncomfortable sharing their honest opinion if their name is mentioned on the feedback form. Conducting anonymous surveys generates more engagement, and therefore the chance to correctly gauge the level of satisfaction in your work environment.

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👉 Wondering why you should run this type of survey? Check our article about the importance of employee satisfaction to find out why!

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Which topics should be included in your employee satisfaction questionnaire?

There are various aspects that play a part in job satisfaction. They should all be incorporated in your yearly employee satisfaction questionnaire and each can be explored separately through your weekly or monthly reviews. For example, you can dedicate one survey to the “management” topic, the next one can be about remuneration followed by work-life  balance, and so on. Here are the most important elements that enhance employee satisfaction and therefore, should be analyzed regularly:

• resources
• employees benefit
• management style
• compensation
• workplace connection
• career development 
• work environment
• onboarding
• work-life balance
• job security
• DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion)

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Don’t know how to set up a questionnaire or don’t have the time? Keep reading and you will find a link to a free downloadable job satisfaction survey template created by the deskbird team!

What are classic examples of questions you can ask?

As we mentioned earlier, when choosing the questions you are going to ask, you need to take into account the purpose of the questionnaire. Do you wish to know how employees feel about the physical workplace and the equipment you provide on-site? Would you like to understand what makes them happier in their jobs? Or, oppositely, do you want to learn what could eventually push them to search for different positions? Here are some questions you can write for a very generic analysis:

• Do you feel connected to the company’s values, to your colleagues and to your working environment?
• Are you satisfied with your relationship with your manager?
• Would you recommend our organization to a friend who is looking for a job?
• Do you think your salary is fair according to the work you provide? 
• Does our working model enable you to have a good work-life balance?

With the elements cited above, you have some examples of questions to include in your job satisfaction surveys. If you're new to measuring employee satisfaction and don't know how to go about it, there are many online models that you can use. 

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👉 Download our free employee satisfaction questionnaire PDF, which includes key topics that will help you improve employee satisfaction.

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What are the next steps after gathering your employees’ satisfaction feedback forms?

Collecting employees’ satisfaction feedback is only the first step to creating a positive work atmosphere and enhancing engagement. This data is a crucial source of information to improve many aspects of your business.  How you utilize it is key. So what are the next steps after gathering your team members’ valuable feedback?

Analyze

The second stage is to analyze the answers. If it is not the first survey conducted within the organization, it is crucial to compare the results with previous ones. You will notice the progress made and the areas that still need to be improved. The outcomes of these questionnaires then become part of your other office analytics and allow you to spot what is negatively impacting your employees.

Create a strategy (together)

Once you determine what areas need to be improved to increase your workers’ satisfaction, it is time to set up a strategy. What are the most important points to tackle first? What changes are you going to implement? What resources do you have? A great way to maximize improvement is by including your employees in the process. Ask your team if they want to be a part of this project and find solutions together. In the end, they are the best people to help you make their work environment better, aren’t they?

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Benchmark

It is always interesting to know how your competitors are performing in every part of their business, including with their staff.  Prioritizing an employee-centric approach is a major advantage for organizations. By looking at their practices, not only can you learn from their mistakes, but you can also take note of what aspects of their business might tempt your employees to work for them instead. Similarly, you might observe what could encourage prospective talent to apply to work for them more than for you.

Share your action plan

We cannot emphasize this enough: communication is key. How will your coworkers realize that you are considering their feedback and trying to improve if you don’t share your plan with them? Once you are ready to introduce the changes you want to make, let them know about it. Tell them about the most common pain points that came back from the questionnaire and what actions you are going to take for positive change. It can be during your next meeting or through an email that you send to your entire workforce.

Employee satisfaction questionnaires allow you to discover what makes your workers stay and what may eventually make them leave your company. By conducting job satisfaction surveys that include topics that matter to you and your team, you show them that you care about their wellbeing. It is also the best way to pinpoint your weaknesses from the point of view of your workforce and get the chance to boost employee morale and engagement.

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