Employee Engagement Survey Questions: Template & How to Analyze Results

With employee engagement levels declining, companies today are at risk of losing their top talent—and with that, their competitive edge in the market. Moreover, disengaged employees are less productive and unlikely to go above and beyond for the company. 

To keep employees committed at work, you need to identify underlying issues and get a better sense of what drives your team. But it’s tricky to gather open and honest feedback from workers—and even more so when you can’t track their motivation levels in person.

An employee engagement survey can help you ‌gather feedback from workers, no matter their location. The best surveys ask the right questions, encourage honesty, and leave you with actionable insights.

In this guide, we share 20 effective employee engagement survey questions to include in your survey. We also explain how you can analyze responses and use these findings to refine your HR strategy.

What Is an Employee Engagement Survey?

Employee engagement surveys are structured questionnaires that measure workers’ engagement levels. In simple words, employee engagement refers to how motivated and committed employees feel toward their jobs and the company they work for.

These surveys are usually comprehensive and focus on several key areas of employee engagement. Questions typically cover but aren’t limited to:

• Employee job satisfaction
• Manager-worker communication and feedback 
• Teamwork and collaboration
• Recognition and rewards
• Leadership effectiveness
• Work-life balance and well-being
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion

Employee engagement surveys are conducted annually or sometimes even biannually (once every 2 years). This is because they’re long—usually between 30 and 75 questions—and more detailed than shorter surveys, like employee pulse surveys. 

Managers and HR teams use insights from these surveys to enhance their engagement and retention strategies. 

Why Are Employee Engagement Surveys Important?

Conducting employee engagement surveys can take a lot of time and effort. Some businesses don’t run these surveys at all, while others don’t take results seriously—both big mistakes. 

Gallup recently reported that only about a third of US employees are engaged in their jobs.  Companies are now faced with low productivity, quiet quitting, and a lack of good talent. Measuring and improving employee engagement is critical to organizational success. Employee engagement surveys are key to this process.

They help you:

Understand employee sentiment and identify issues before they escalate 

Engagement surveys help you understand how workers feel about their jobs and the company culture. Responses show you what motivates your employees at work, but they also highlight any existing or emerging areas of concern. Taking action to improve engagement shows employees that you care and helps you retain them in the long term. 

Moreover, engagement surveys enable you to gather feedback while workers are still at the company. Many managers see worker feedback for the first time on social media or websites like Glassdoor after the employee has quit. This can damage the company’s reputation among both current employees and external talent in the market.

Make informed and meaningful decisions 

With engagement surveys, you can dive into the specifics of what is and isn’t working well for employees. Otherwise, you could be shooting in the dark with your engagement strategies and initiatives. 

Consider a scenario where your workers feel they lack the support and resources they need to do their jobs. If there’s no medium for them to voice this, there’s no way for you to resolve it. 

What’s worse, you may adopt an engagement approach that isn’t meaningful to your employees. For instance, you may opt to promote a worker when what they really wanted was greater independence or flexibility in their current role.

Responses from engagement surveys are a vital tool to understand what’s going on in the company and create a relevant plan of action. 

Gather feedback from everyone for the full picture 

Employee engagement surveys can be sent to as many workers as you want—even the entire company. This way, you can collect feedback from all relevant employees, giving you a complete picture of what’s happening at your organization. The typical alternative to engagement surveys is meetings, which are time-consuming and limit you to a handful of workers.                      

Plus, employees can complete surveys in private and sometimes even anonymously. They’re more likely to be open and honest in their feedback compared to meetings. 

Attract top talent 

You can use insights from your engagement surveys to shape your recruiting strategy. 

For example, if you learn from engagement survey results that work-life balance is important to workers, you can start offering more flexibility to attract the best talent. 

Also, when your employees feel heard and valued, it’s likely to strengthen your reputation in the job market and make you stand out from the competition.

Create a culture of openness and transparency 

By asking for feedback, you’re encouraging an open, two-way dialogue with your workers. Workers who feel listened to and valued by their companies are much more likely to go above and beyond for company success. 

Employee surveys are also a great way to stay connected with teams who work across different locations. These workers often feel isolated from company culture and decisions.

20 Key Questions to Include in an Employee Engagement Survey + Free Template 

We’ve touched upon the importance of employee engagement surveys, but you’ll only experience these benefits if you ask your workers the right questions. 

Below, we let you in on the 20 key employee engagement survey questions and what they measure. 

Job satisfaction

1. To what extent are you satisfied with your current job? 

• Very satisfied 
• Satisfied 
• Neutral
• Dissatisfied
• Very dissatisfied 

This first question measures employees’ overall job satisfaction levels. This indicates whether employees feel content, challenged, and supported in their roles. The next two questions help explain this score in more detail. 

2. Do you feel your skills and abilities are used in your current role? 

• Yes
• No

This question specifically looks at whether workers feel they’re adding value to their role. Negative responses can also mean that workers aren’t feeling challenged enough at work.

3. Do you feel you have the support and resources you need to do your job well? 

• Yes
• No

Responses to this question can help you understand if the company is enabling workers to do their best work. If you find negative responses here, evaluate the training and onboarding processes in your company. 

Feedback 

4. Are you satisfied with the frequency at which you receive feedback on your performance? 

• Yes
• No

This question speaks to how regularly employees receive feedback from their manager. Frequent, timely feedback enables employees to make continuous improvements in their performance. 

5. Are you satisfied with the quality of feedback you receive from your manager?

• Yes
• No

The purpose of this question is to assess whether the feedback employees receive is constructive and effective. Low-quality feedback is difficult to act on and prevents workers from doing their best at work. 

6. Do you feel comfortable giving feedback and suggestions to your superiors?

• Yes
• No

This tells you whether managers and employees have an open, honest relationship. Negative responses could indicate underlying issues with company culture. Moreover, a lack of feedback reinforces poor management and can create a toxic environment. 

Leadership effectiveness

7. How satisfied are you with the level of transparency within the organization?

• Very satisfied 
• Satisfied 
• Neutral
• Dissatisfied
• Very dissatisfied 

This relates to transparency and trust within the organization. Workers stick to companies where they can trust leaders and are kept in the loop with company decisions. 

8. How satisfied are you with how your manager communicates goals and expectations for your role?

• Very satisfied 
• Satisfied 
• Neutral
• Dissatisfied
• Very dissatisfied 

Here, you can gain insight into how effectively managers are setting goals for their workers. A lack of clear expectations is one of the top reasons for employee disengagement, according to Gallup. 

Teamwork and collaboration

9. How strongly do you agree with the following statement? “My coworkers and I work well together as a team, collaborating effectively to achieve common goals.”

• Strongly agree 
• Agree
• Neutral
• Disagree
• Strongly disagree

With this, you can see how cohesively team members are working together. Low scores can indicate poor management or internal conflicts within the company. 

Recognition and rewards 

10. To what extent do you agree with the following statement? “I feel appreciated and recognized for my contributions at work.”

• Strongly agree 
• Agree
• Neutral
• Disagree
• Strongly disagree

Research has shown that people who felt recognized by their managers were 40% more engaged at work. With this question, you can evaluate whether your company and managers are doing a good enough job appreciating employees’ work. 

11. To what extent are you satisfied with the benefits you receive from the company? 

• Very satisfied 
• Satisfied 
• Neutral
• Dissatisfied
• Very dissatisfied 

This question aims to capture how effective your benefits program is. Responses can help you assess if your benefits budget is being used optimally. Scores also help you understand how benefits and perks help retain or drive top talent away. 

12. Do you feel your opinions and ideas are valued within the organization? 

• Yes
• No

This sheds light on how valued and included workers feel in company decisions. Involving workers is a great way to make them feel connected to the company’s mission and increase engagement. 

Training and career development 

13. Are you satisfied with opportunities for career growth within the company? 

• Yes
• No

Career growth is key to retaining today’s generation of workers. Responses to this question will let you know if you need to consider providing more career opportunities such as mentorships, horizontal growth, and promotions.

14. Are you satisfied with the learning and development programs in place?

• Yes
• No

The 2022 LinkedIn Global Talent Trends Report showed that workers place high value on their professional development. This question highlights how your learning and development programs are received by workers. 

🧠 Did You Know?

Connecteam’s employee training software lets you create and assign custom training courses to your employees and new hires. Plus, they’re mobile-friendly, so workers can complete them from anywhere.

Get started with Connecteam for free today!

Health and well-being

15. To what extent are you satisfied with your work-life balance? 

• Very satisfied 
• Satisfied 
• Neutral
• Dissatisfied
• Very dissatisfied 

Today’s employees prioritize work-life balance and are likely to stay with companies that help them achieve it. This question helps you measure how employees feel about their workload, options for flexibility, and other factors that maintain good work-life harmony. 

16. To what extent are you satisfied with the company’s wellness and well-being programs?

• Very satisfied 
• Satisfied 
• Neutral
• Dissatisfied
• Very dissatisfied 

This question aims to gather feedback on the company’s health and well-being initiatives. This could cover mental health days, free gym memberships, access to meditation apps, and more.

Company culture 

17. Do you feel the company does a good job of supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)?

• Yes
• No

This generation of employees cares deeply about DEI and wants to work for companies that align with these values. Use this question to get a sense of how satisfied your workers are with your DEI initiatives. Negative responses can not only impact retention but also damage your reputation in the talent market. 

18. Would you describe your working environment as physically and mentally safe for you? 

• Yes
• No

This question relates to workplace safety—from a physical as well as mental point of view. This covers health and safety protocols but also looks at bullying, harassment, and discrimination. You could also separate these questions out to get more specific responses. 

19. Are you proud to work for this company?

• Yes
• No

This question measures the overall sense of connection the employee has with your company’s mission and values. Workers who find purpose and pride in their work are more likely to stay loyal to the organization.  

20. How likely are you to recommend this company as a great place to work? 

• Very likely 
• Likely  
• Neutral
• Unlikely
• Very unlikely 

Employees who are happy and satisfied at work at more likely to recommend the company to peers outside of work. This question tells you how effectively your referral program will work and what reputation you likely have in the job market. 

Bonus question: Do you have any additional comments?

This space is for employees to add any notes or comments. It adds valuable context to your employee engagement survey results. 

How to Analyze Employee Engagement Survey Results

Validate results and dive into inconsistencies

First, ensure your results make sense. For example, consider a scenario where a worker has rated the company highly on overall job satisfaction. However, they’ve also indicated they’re not supported in their role and don’t feel their skills are being used. In this case, the employee may have answered dishonestly or misunderstood one or more of the questions. 

If there’s evidence to suggest that responses may be false or misleading, it may be best to exclude those specific responses from your analysis. Otherwise, your results may not reflect employees’ true sentiments, putting you at risk of taking the wrong actions. 

Similarly, don’t use responses for any questions that have too few responses from employees—e.g., less than 10% of the total workers who filled out the survey. This is because these responses don’t represent the sentiments of the overall team. You may end up wasting resources addressing an issue that affects only a handful of workers rather than prioritizing pressing concerns that impact the team at large. 

Further, cross-check responses with what’s happening in the real world. For example, a worker may answer positively across the survey but leave the company soon after. It’s important to understand why this happened—which you might do through an exit interview with the worker. 

Pick a reporting and analytics tool

Decide what tool you want to use to collect and analyze data. If you’re using Excel, for example, you need to first gather all employee responses in one central worksheet. You can then use Excel’s charts and graphs features to identify trends. 

Alternatively, you could opt to run your survey on a software application. Workers submit their responses within the app itself. You can view results and download reports with minimal effort. 

Break the data down to identify key themes and trends

Break survey data down in different ways to identify emerging themes and trends. 

You could, for example, segment results by demographics such as gender or age. This can help identify any potential patterns of bias or discrimination in the company. 

Viewing results by department or location can also highlight if certain teams are more or less engaged than others. You can dive deeper into the data to understand what’s causing these differences. For example, perhaps one location has better communication between managers and employees. 

Benchmark your results

Compare your engagement survey results with the same questions on your previous surveys to track changes over time. You can also benchmark the results of one location or department against another as discussed above. 

Finally, you can compare your results against other companies’ engagement surveys if you have access to them. Or, benchmark data against industry studies and reports online. These are great ways to determine how your company is faring against others. 

Prioritize and implement action items 

Employee engagement surveys give you actionable insights that you can use to refine your HR strategy. Identify themes and trends and create action items for the most important areas of concern. This could be topics that have very low engagement levels or responses that have significant gaps between employee groups. 

Best Practices for Running a Successful Employee Engagement Survey 

Here are some best practices to consider to make the most of your employee engagement survey. 

Create questions that align with your objectives

Your employee engagement survey is your one chance in the year—or one chance every 2 years—to get meaningful feedback from your workers. Think carefully about the most important areas you want to capture in your survey and then create a list of questions that align with your objectives.

For example, you may include key employee engagement questions to understand employees’ overall sentiment at work. But you could also gather feedback on objectives that are specific to your company—like the new mental health days offering. You could, for instance, include a question such as, “Are you satisfied with the addition of mental health days to your paid-time off allowance?”

Format questions to gather quantitative and qualitative data 

Try to use different formats such as yes/no questions, rating scales, and open-ended questions. This way, you can have both quantitative and qualitative data to analyze. 

Quantitative data ‌helps you identify objective themes and trends, while qualitative information helps provide more context to the results. 

For instance, workers may rate company benefits poorly, but this doesn’t leave you with actionable insights. An open-ended question may tell you that they want to be provided with health insurance—this is now something you can work on. 

Include demographic questions and place them carefully

Finally, remember to include questions to capture your respondents’ departments, locations, and demographics. Keep demographic questions optional. Not all workers are comfortable completing these questions. 

We also recommend including demographic questions at the end of the survey. This way, these questions are less likely to influence how employees answer the questions. 

Make sure your survey is user-friendly and crystal clear

Stick to using a sans serif font like Arial or Verdana, as they’re easier to read. 

Also, ensure that your font is big enough—at least size 12—so the text is clearly visible. 

Moreover, include only simple visual elements like images, so they don’t distract respondents. 

In addition, use simple language so all employees can understand the questions. Here’s an example of a complex question that may be difficult to understand, and a simpler alternative: 

Complex question: How often do you surpass the expectations of your role as listed in your job description in order to support the organization’s goals? 

Simpler alternative: How often do you go above and beyond your job duties to help achieve company goals?

You should also clearly explain how workers are expected to respond. For example, if you’re using a rating scale you should indicate what the numbers mean. Any room for misinterpretation can create errors in your results. 

Maximize participation and encourage honest responses 

Make sure to announce the launch of your employee engagement survey so all your workers know about it. Include information such as where they can find it and what the deadline is. You could also let them know of any incentives they get for completing it—an entry into a lucky draw or a raffle, for example. 

Further, send consistent reminders to workers to complete the survey so you can get as many responses as possible. You could do this through a work chat, email, or even call workers on their phones to follow up. 

Finally, consider making your survey anonymous to boost participation and collect honest answers. 

Use software tools to create and distribute your survey and analyze results

Surveys can be created and distributed in paper copies or in Microsoft Word or Excel. However, the best way to run your survey is through specialized software. These apps offer tools that let you create surveys using templates. You can also build fully customizable surveys from scratch, with your own questions and company branding. 

Surveys can be published in seconds and workers are instantly notified of the launch. The best software options also have mobile apps that workers can use to complete their surveys from anywhere. 

Additionally, these tools also let you track survey completion statuses, view results, and send reminders to employees in real time. 

Stay consistent with your employee engagement survey

Once you’ve set the frequency for your engagement survey—whether that’s annually or biannually—make sure you’re consistent with it. This way, you can track progress across key metrics. Employees will also take the survey more seriously when they see it as a standard company process. 

Conclusion 

Employee engagement surveys are a great way to measure how satisfied, committed, and included your employees feel at work. They help you identify areas of improvement so you can build and maintain an engaged workforce. This is important because engaged employees are more productive and much more likely to go the extra mile for company success. 

A good employee engagement survey asks questions that align with company objectives. Key questions cover topics such as job satisfaction, feedback and communication, employee well-being, recognition, and more. Plus, you can add questions that measure company-specific initiatives. 

Analyzing results effectively is also critical to gaining actionable insights from your survey. Break the data down to spot themes, and benchmark them against like-for-like data to see where you stand when it comes to employee engagement. 

To learn more about how to engage your workers, read our guide on 10 employee engagement strategies that actually work. 

FAQs

How are employee engagement surveys different from employee pulse surveys? 

Employee engagement surveys are longer, comprehensive surveys that are sent to workers around once a year. They measure job satisfaction, communication, teamwork, and more. Pulse surveys are shorter surveys that are conducted monthly or quarterly. They measure current employee sentiments and gather feedback on ongoing company initiatives. 

What tool should I use to run my employee engagement survey?

Connecteam is the best employee survey tool. It lets you create your employee engagement survey in minutes using templates. You can even build custom surveys from scratch using its drag-and-drop functionality. Plus, Connecteam enables you to track responses in real time and send reminders for employees to complete their surveys.