Unique employee engagement questions for your next survey

Employee engagement has become a key measure of success for many organizations around the world. So much so that, according to Deloitte, it has secured its position as a top C-suite issue. As a result, businesses are now prioritizing the creation of desirable workplaces and compelling corporate cultures in an effort to drive higher employee engagement rates.

However, before you can focus on improving engagement in your business, you need to understand what your current level is and what areas of your organization you need to improve in order to provide a more desirable working environment. And this is precisely what an employee engagement survey is designed to do.

Let’s take a look at what an employee engagement survey is, and the different types of employee engagement questions you could include in your survey.

Why are employee engagement surveys important? 

Employee engagement is a core element of your organizational culture. It relates to the emotional and psychological connection that your employees feel towards your company. The more engaged your employees are, the more motivated and enthusiastic they are about their work and the more dedicated they are to helping your business reach its organizational goals. Engaged employees are also far more likely to turn up on time, take less time off work, and stay with your business in the long term.

The key to building an engaged workforce comes down to the employee experience that you offer and the corporate culture that you build. The most effective way to achieve this is to implement a series of employee engagement strategies. Employee engagement ideas might include people management initiatives that promote trust and two-way communication. It’s also important to implement strategies that help to create a positive working environment. For example, you could shift your organizational focus from a culture fit to a culture add mentality to promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace. 

However, it’s equally important to check in regularly with your employees to see how engaged they are and whether they are happy with their positions and the company as a whole. And this is what an employee engagement survey is all about. Essentially, it is a questionnaire that you send out to your workforce on a regular basis to collect feedback on their perceptions of the company. By asking the right employee engagement questions, you can determine how engaged your workforce is, what they like about working for you, and what they feel needs to change. You can then use this feedback to improve the employee experience that you offer and boost your employee engagement levels.   

Types of employee engagement survey questions 

There are many different types of employee engagement surveys. The right choice for you will depend on the feedback you want to collect and how you plan to use it. You also need to consider how frequently you will share your surveys and how many employees are being surveyed.  

Whatever type of employee engagement survey you decide to use, make sure you include questions that address important components of engagement. This includes employee satisfaction, alignment, and future goals. You should also dig into areas such as leadership, value, recognition, benefits, and culture. It’s also important that your employees understand that they can share honest feedback without fear of recrimination.

The following are the most common types of employee engagement questions that you might consider using:

• Open-ended questions. Used to gain detailed, personal insight into how employees feel. More time-consuming to analyze but can provide you with a wealth of valuable and honest feedback. 
• Multiple-choice questions. Used to collect more basic feedback on a range of issues. Questions can require single or multiple answers. Easier and quicker to implement and analyze but feedback isn’t as detailed. 
• Rating scale. Consists of close-ended questions that employees respond to on a scale of 1 to 10. Helps you collect qualitative and quantitative feedback.
• Likert scale. Usually five-point, seven-point, or ten-point, bipolar scales where employees respond in line with where their feelings fall on a scale. Highly effective for quantifying factors such as emotions and attitudes. 

Let’s take a look at these types of employee engagement questions in a bit more detail to help you decide which style would work best for your survey.

Open-ended questions ideas 

Open-ended questions can be a great tool for collecting detailed employee feedback. By asking the right questions, you can find out valuable insights relating to engagement and satisfaction levels in your company. These types of questions give your employees a voice and provide them with an opportunity to share open and honest opinions on their feelings and impressions of your business. 

Make sure that employees understand that these surveys are anonymous. That way, they can be completely transparent with their answers without fear of recrimination. 

Here are a few examples of open-ended questions that you could include in your survey:

• What do you enjoy most/least about working here?
• Do you feel that your accomplishments are recognized at our company?
• Are you happy working with your team?
• Are you satisfied with our current benefits and compensation programs?
• Do you see good scope for career development at our company?
• Where do you see yourself working in five years? Here or somewhere else?
• In your opinion, does your manager support you and value your success?
• Does the company’s mission and vision inspire you?
• How can we boost engagement at work?
• Is there anything else you’d like to share about our company’s employee experience?

Multiple-choice question ideas 

Multiple-choice employee engagement questions can be a great way to collect feedback on a range of topics. They are quick and easy for employees to complete, which tends to increase participation rates. They are also easy to analyze as there is a finite list of potential answers.

Here are a few examples of multiple-choice questions that you could include in your survey:

• Which of the following HR processes does our organization need to improve? (Payroll/Onboarding/Training/Performance appraisals/Employee relations)
• Have you faced any of the following issues or roadblocks with our company culture? (No defined core values/Too much office gossip/Discrimination/Public criticism of employees)
• How would you best describe your work style?  (Independent/Collaborative/Both/Other)
• Has the company training you’ve been offered been directly relevant to your work? (Yes/No)
• How often does your manager recognize your achievements? (Daily/Weekly/Monthly/Never)
• How often would you like to participate in team feedback sessions? (Weekly/Monthly/Semi-annually/Annually)
• Which of the following aspects do you think the company should work on? (Career development/Company culture/Compensation/Benefits)
• What motivates you to go the extra mile at work? (Recognition/Bonuses/Time off/Promotion)
• Do you have access to all the resources and equipment you need to do your job? (Always/Often/Sometimes/Never)
• Would you recommend this organization as a great place to work? (Yes/No/Maybe)

Rating scale question ideas 

A rating scale employee engagement survey is a great way to quickly check in with your team to see how happy and engaged they are. You can use a simple scale to find out how they would rate your company culture and leadership style, and their level of job satisfaction. 

There are a few different types of scales you can use for this:

• Numeric scale. Where participants rate satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10.
• Slider scale. Where participants aren’t restricted to specific ranks. For example, a scale rating from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”, with no other value included in the scale.
• Likert scale. A rating system that is particularly effective if you want to collect feedback on personal experiences, frequency, quality, likelihood, etc. 
• Graphic scale. Where pictures, such as stars or smiley faces, are used for rating instead of numbers.

Numeric rating scales or Likert scales tend to work best for employee engagement surveys.

We’ll discuss the Likert scale in the next section. First, let’s look at a few examples of rating scale questions you could include in your survey.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the….

• …training session you attended recently?
• …level of recognition you receive from your manager?
• …stress you experience in relation to deadlines and workloads?
• …level of constructive feedback you receive during performance reviews and appraisals?
• …level of support you receive from management in terms of your physical and mental health and well-being?

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your….

• …alignment with our company goals?
• …work-life balance? 
• …understanding of how you fit into the organization’s future plans?
• …experience of the workplace culture and environment?
• …satisfaction rate in terms of your role and your position within your team?

Likert scale question ideas 

As we mentioned in the previous section, Likert scales are a type of rating scale survey that can be very effective for collecting feedback on a participant’s personal experience of something. This is because they have been specifically designed to measure people’s attitudes, opinions, or perceptions. And this makes them ideal for measuring engagement and satisfaction.

With a Likert scale, you use a 5 or 7-point rating system to identify degrees of opinion, rather than a simple “agree” or “disagree”. 

Here are a few examples of employee engagement questions you can include in a Likert scale survey.

Rate the following statements on a scale of 1 to 5, where:

1 = Strongly disagree

2 = Disagree 

3 = Neutral

4 = Agree

5 = Strongly agree 

• I consider myself to be an engaged member of the organization
• My colleagues would describe me as a motivated member of the team
• My values align with those of the organization
• I feel like I belong in this company.
• I plan to still be at this company in two years. 
• It is my belief that my workload is reasonable for my role.
• I see a clear tie between the company’s mission and my job.
• I learn a lot from my manager
• My team has clear and prioritized objectives. 
• My department is consistently given all the information we need to achieve our objectives. 
• I would refer a friend or a family member to this company.
• I feel recognized for my hard work and successes at work.

Assess employee engagement with Factorial 

Whatever style of employee engagement survey you decide to go with, it’s important to have access to the right tools and technology to support the process. The tools you use should support you throughout each stage of the process. This includes preparing your surveys, distributing your surveys, and analyzing the feedback you collect from employees. 

It’s also a good idea to use reporting software to organize your data so that you can draw clear conclusions from your feedback. That way, you will get a full understanding of the improvements you need to make to your employee journey. You can then implement the right people management strategies to boost engagement in your business. 

There are a few things to consider when you look for employee engagement tools. Firstly, you need a solution where you can create and distribute your engagement surveys in a user-friendly way. This will ensure as many of your employees as possible participate in the process. You also need a solution with communication features so you can stay connected with your team and monitor engagement levels continuously. Plus, you should try to find a solution that can be easily integrated with your performance appraisals so that all your employee feedback can be centralized. And let’s not forget about those all-important reports. Make sure the solution you pick has features for analyzing your employee feedback and generating data-driven HR reports with valuable insights.

Let’s take a look at what Factorial has to offer to help you create an effective process for your employee engagement surveys. 

Employee engagement surveys  

Factorial’s all-in-one HR software includes a number of features for managing your employee engagement surveys. It also includes features for managing your performance appraisals so that all your employee feedback is centralized and ready for you to analyze.

With our solution you can:

• Create surveys from a range of ready-to-use survey and performance review templates.
• Design your own customized question templates. You can add individual questions or separate your survey into sections with multiple questions covering a range of topics. 
• Assign reviewers to surveys and schedule recurring evaluations.
• Share your surveys with your employees straight from the platform. They can then complete the digital surveys in their own time through their employee portal.
• Monitor employee responses as they come in.
• Centralize your surveys and performance evaluations on a single platform
• Equip your HR team with data from customizable surveys to improve your employee experience and boost your overall engagement levels.
• Perform regular check-ins with your employees to keep your finger on the pulse of employee sentiment and maintain open lines of communication at all times. 

Factorial also has another feature that can help you with your employee surveys. One of our newest tools is our eNPS app which you can easily implement into your Factorial platform to start gathering valuable data from your teams. You can use this tool to share Employee Net Promoter Score surveys with your employees. These are surveys that are used to calculate the overall satisfaction of your workforce. Essentially, whether or not they would recommend your company as a great place to work. This feedback, together with the feedback you collect from your regular engagement surveys, can help you identify what changes you need to make in your business in order to keep your employees happy and engaged. 

HR Reports 

Sharing regular surveys is important, but you also need the right software to evaluate your results and draw conclusions so you can design effective strategies to improve employee engagement. The right software can also help you predict future behaviors, measure the impact of any changes you make to your HR processes, and make better informed strategic decisions about your business. 

With Factorial’s HR reports feature, you can analyze all your survey feedback and generate customizable and scalable reports. 

With our solution, you get access to:

• A unique and customizable space to manage all your reports.
• Different visualization formats.
• A gallery with predefined reports.
• Tools for sharing and downloading your reports in several formats.
• Features for gaining a 360° view of employee feedback and performance.
• A powerful encryption system and single-user access to keep all your data secure.

And, best of all, you can manage your reports straight from your own fully customizable HR dashboard. All this makes it much easier to stay on top of your employee engagement data so that you can generate the insights you need to grow your business.