In these volatile, rollicking societal and economic times, gaining insight into employees’ attitudes and perspectives is more crucial than ever. To unlock performance and empower your company, you must double down on listening to employees to attract and retain talent. And isn’t that the name of the game? After all, employees are at the heart of every successful organization.

There are multiple ways to garner employee feedback, and surveys are front and center. Here’s what to include in an employee survey.

1. What are Employee Insights?

Let’s start there. These are efforts to gain a sound understanding of an organization’s workforce to lure, train, retain and reward employees. Such actions are frequently done through surveys, which can reveal a lot about employee viewpoints that leaders can use to enhance the workplace if crafted and conducted correctly.

2. What Kinds of Surveys Are There?

  • Employee opinion and satisfaction surveys. These surveys gauge what employees think about the company.
  • Employee culture surveys. These surveys use employees’ perceptions to see whether such views mesh with those of the organization.
  • Employee engagement surveys. Such surveys assess employees’ motivation, commitment, and a sense of purpose.

Within the category are called pulse surveys, which are brief and regular sets of questions for employees. The aim is to continuously obtain perspectives on topics that can include communication and relationships, job-related roles, and the work environment in general.

These are particularly effective since they permit streamlined data collection and timely results analyses, allowing companies to respond to feedback swiftly.

3. Isn’t an Annual Survey Sufficient?

Well, no. Especially not these days, when posing the right questions at the right time lets you craft interventions and continuously improve the employee experience. After all, satisfied and engaged employees result in happy customers, resulting in a sweet-looking bottom line.

Companies are increasingly hearing out employees throughout their lifecycle, including during life events, onboarding, and transitions. The employee survey helps organizations draw connections between employee experiences and performances. It’s not rocket science; it’s just innovative business.

4. What Should Go in Employee Surveys?

Surveys are a significant step toward improved employee engagement. But you do need to ask the right questions. According to employee engagement and company culture publication Tiny Pulse, there are ways to up your chance of getting actionable answers. Those include:

  • You are making the queries brief. You want your employees to understand the question. This isn’t a time to showcase erudition.
  • Make sure you don’t “imply.” Doing so can skew your responses. For example, if you ask something along the lines of, “how to do you like our generous vacation policy?” the implication is that the employee should respond favorably.
  • You are separating each question. Make sure you don’t address two topics with the same question, potentially confusing the reader and leading to incorrect responses.
  • You are asking pointed, easy-to-answer questions. The more particular the issue, the more precise the answer. This is what you want since it will enable you to set a better strategy and make more informed decisions. 

What to include in an employee survey depends mainly on the company and the workforce. Still, there are specific ways to go about it that will help you improve the employee experience and thus your organization’s bottom line. You may need help with this, however.

If so, check out what consultant Mercer has to offer, including its strategic “listening” programs. These efforts marry the appropriate methodologies with content as well as superior, agile technology.