Every company has a source of innovation and improvement available at its fingertips: the opinion of its employees. In this article, we explain how to implement a suitable employee satisfaction questionnaire to make the most of your employees' feedback.
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Employee feedback can be considered an important tool for organisational success. It not only supports individual and team development but can also contribute to a positive workplace culture, higher employee engagement and talent retention. Whatever the role and experience level, employee feedback is key in helping business leaders understand how workers perceive their organisation.
However, sharing feedback during a general company meeting, for example, can be intimidating, especially for the most reserved or junior employees. It may also be difficult to give everyone the chance to have their say, perhaps due to a lack of time.
This is where employee satisfaction surveys come in, allowing workers to share their feedback anonymously if they wish. These surveys enable managers and Human Resources (HR) professionals to collect, organise and analyse the information shared, using a survey software tool, for example.
But what subjects should managers consult employees for their opinions, and how? In this article, we provide five examples of employee satisfaction surveys that companies might want to implement as part of their employee engagement strategy.
1. Employee engagement questionnaires
Some sample questions:
- Are you inspired by the company's vision?
- Do you feel recognised for your efforts and successes at work?
- Do you feel supported by your manager?
- How would you describe the company culture?
- Do you have enough tools to carry out your day-to-day tasks?
An engagement questionnaire aims to help companies answer an important question: how involved are employees with their core work tasks? How aligned are they with the organisation’s objectives? At a time when the issue of talent retention is more topical than ever, companies need to assess the factors likely to encourage their long-term commitment. Conducting this type of survey regularly can enable HR professionals and business leaders to understand employees' general motivation and feelings about the company culture.
For example, managers can target questions on how employees feel about their tasks, work-life balance, or relationships with peers and managers. Open-ended questions can help identify what additional tools might be needed to help workers carry out their work or find out how they feel about the company's values.
2. 360-degree survey
Some sample questions:
- In your opinion, what are your colleague's three strong points?
- In your opinion, what are the three areas where your colleague could improve?
- Can you give an example of a company value that this person applies in their day-to-day work?
- How would you rate your day-to-day collaboration?
- What good practices have you been able to learn from this person?
360-degree feedback is a confidential way of providing employees and managers with important information and perspectives they are unlikely to receive directly. Using dedicated 360-degree feedback software, anyone in the company can anonymously provide feedback to peers as well as to a direct manager.
This process offers employees advantages in terms of personal development as it helps them to identify the professional qualities noted by their colleagues and whether there is any room for improvement. On a larger scale, it can improve team dynamics, strengthen relationships with peers, and lead managers to review or reinforce some of their practices.
Employee satisfaction surveys can be used to compliment each worker's end-of-year performance review and, above all, ensure constructive feedback is given to help with their progress. It is essential to make staff assessments without bias, focusing on the qualities and professional improvements management has seen with the employee being evaluated.
3. Employee onboarding survey
Some sample questions:
- What one thing could we have done differently to improve the first week of your induction experience?
- What did you like best about your induction?
- Do you feel you have all the tools and resources you need to do your job successfully?
- What did you find most useful during your induction?
- What was the biggest challenge you faced during your induction process?
While induction surveys are essential for improving new hires' training and onboarding process, they also help boost the company's retention rate. Onboarding surveys can help identify new employees’ job satisfaction levels and understand which induction programmes they prefer.
When taking their first steps within a company, new hires are often confronted with a wealth of information to remember, such as familiarising themselves with the company processes or identifying their main points of contact during particular projects. An onboarding survey can be a useful way of identifying what they have learnt and any difficulties they may have as a means to support their future performance.
Onboarding questionnaires can be used at various stages of the induction process. They can be set up during the first week to share employee feedback on logistical issues, such as their experience with the administrative management of their work contracts or the ease of access to certain resources. They can also be shared at the end of the course to gather their overall impressions on the quality of the support that new hires received.
4. Process evaluation survey
Some sample questions:
- How would you rate the effectiveness of this new process?
- Which process in your workflow seems obsolete and how would you like to improve it?
- Do you have all the necessary tools and equipment to complete this process?
- Have you received the necessary advice and training to carry out this process?
- Do you have any suggestions for improving the process (e.g., specific training, software to be used, etc.)?
Process improvement questionnaires ask employees about different company procedures and the areas they think can be improved. The aim is to identify opportunities for streamlining and improving the efficiency of operational processes by gathering feedback from those who use them daily.
This type of employee satisfaction questionnaire can be considered useful for evaluating the performance of the organisation’s current processes. It can also be used to analyse the effectiveness of new digital tool implementation and the technologies’ benefits compared to previous processes (e.g. internal communication tools for instant messaging with colleagues). The feedback gathered can help managers understand how employees feel and what updates or changes to the working environment are required.
Process improvement questionnaires are a great way to help improve the teams' workflows. It can also aid in identifying how to be more innovative by collecting employees' ideas or suggestions in this area, such as recommending new technological tools.
5. Professional development survey
Some examples of questions:
- What can the company do to help you develop professionally?
- What specific professional skills would you like to develop?
- What are your career objectives within our organisation?
- Have you received the necessary advice and training to carry out this process?
- Do you have any suggestions for improving the process (specific training, software to be used, etc.)?
Another example of an employee satisfaction survey is a professional development questionnaire. At a time when the search for learning and experience is particularly popular with workers from the digital natives' generation, assessing what the company can offer in terms of professional training and career development can be a key factor in retaining top talent.
Employers who invest in employee development can help them hone their strengths, develop new skills, and be better equipped for current and future roles.
If this questionnaire is to address the issue of employees' areas of development, it should also cover the subject of their expectations and the training tools they need to succeed in their current position. What training do they find most useful? What types of optional learning would they like to sign up for? These are just some questions that can be included in this type of survey.
How employee satisfaction surveys can benefit your entire operation
Employee satisfaction surveys can be seen as real market research for the workplace, giving vital information about the opportunities and obstacles that businesses might face. They will also help company decision-makers understand the most important factors of job satisfaction for their employees.
Moreover, by encouraging employees to respond personally and valuing what has been learned from their feedback, the company is sending a positive message that their opinions and feelings are significant to the organisation. Establishing this kind of open contact helps reinforce a positive company culture in which trust, fairness and responsibility for each stakeholder are key factors.
To help implement this process, various survey tools are available, with features that can enable managers to create a questionnaire based on pre-established templates, track responses or facilitate analysis of the collected data.
