How to do Employee Satisfaction Surveys the Right Way (Free Templates Inside!)

The best way to reduce the risk of workforce-related issues such as quiet quitting and burnout, which could have a deeply detrimental impact on your business, is to listen to your employees.

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Both of these issues stem, at least in part, from a lack of employee engagement with their work. It could be that they find no purpose in what they do, that they feel a lack of direction from the company, or that the work isn’t fulfilling.

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Whatever the case, the only way you can know for sure what the underlying causes are and can address the problem of disengagement is to get in your employees’ minds and understand what they think.

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Introducing the employee satisfaction survey: the most straightforward yet effective way of eliciting useful information from your employees about their experience at work. In addition to monitoring employee performance, the survey can give you a platform from which to build a clear picture of your workforce’s productivity and wellbeing levels.

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Questions for an Effective Employee Satisfaction Survey 

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Organization-Related Questions

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1. Is there a clear understanding of the objectives and goals of the organization?

Yes

No
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2. Do you believe there are opportunities for individual career growth within the

organization?

Yes

No
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3. Do you plan to continue working for the organization in the next 2 years?

Yes

No

I don’t know
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4. Overall, are you satisfied with your job?

1 Very Satisfied – 5 Not Satisfied at all (sliding scale)
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Team-Related Questions
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5. Does your team provide the support you need?

Yes

No

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6. Does your team inspire you to do your best?

Yes

No

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7. Do you feel your opinions are heard and valued by your team?

Yes

No
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Supervisor-Related Questions
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8. Does your manager provide the support you need?

Yes

No
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9. Do you feel you are recognized for your achievements?

Yes

No
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10. Do you feel your opinions are heard and valued by your manager?

Yes

No

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Job Passion & Compensation Questions
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11. Do you feel like your job utilizes your skills and abilities as much as it could?

Yes

No
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12. Do you feel your job makes a positive impact on the organization as a whole?

Yes

No

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13. Do you feel you are compensated fairly for the work you currently do?

Yes

No
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14. Hypothetically, if you were to quit tomorrow, what would be the main reason?

I don’t feel valued

I work too much (work/life balance)

I don’t feel compensated enough for what I do.

Other (write in answer)
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15. On a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to recommend our company as an excellent

place to work?

1 Would not recommend at all – 10 I would highly recommend.

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Work-Life Balance Questions
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16. Do you feel you have a good work-life balance?

Yes

No
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17. Does your job cause an unreasonable amount of stress for you?

Yes

No
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18. Do you feel management understands and values the need for a healthy balance

between work life and personal life?

Yes

No

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Diversity-Related Questions
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19. What could we do to improve diversity and inclusion in our organization?

Write in Answer
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20. Do you feel that all people have an opportunity to succeed in this organization?

Yes

No (please explain briefly)

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3 Ways to Interpret Employee Satisfaction Survey Data

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So now you know which questions to ask to elicit the right kind of information from your employees, but how do you interpret the survey data?

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There are three main ways you can analyze employee responses and get the most out of your survey:

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1. Conduct One-on-One Feedback Sessions
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The first thing you can do to maximize the effectiveness of your employee satisfaction survey is to carry out additional one-on-one feedback sessions.

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With a survey, all you have to go on is your employees’ written answers. The upside of this is that they can write anonymously, and without fear of judgment or criticism. The downside though is that not everyone can express themselves articulately through writing, or has enough time to flesh out their thoughts and give a considered response.

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To counteract the potential for a lack of detailed responses, you can schedule further one-on-one feedback sessions with your employees. These sessions only need to be 5-10 minutes in length, and the primary objective should be to explore their answers to give you more information to work with.

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It provides employees with an opportunity to expand on their thoughts and put words to their feelings if they feel strongly about certain issues. It also provides you with an opportunity to ask relevant follow-up questions that could lead you to further insights into the employee’s current state of mind and their thoughts on the work environment.

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Another way to implement oral feedback sessions is to give employees the option to record a quick Loom video, in which they can verbally expand on any issues they want.

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2. Calculate the Employee Net Promoter Score
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The employee net promoter score (eNPS) is an important metric to calculate if you want to gauge collective and individual employee sentiment towards your company. 

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The best part about the eNPS is that it’s an easy metric to discover, since all you have to do is include a question in your survey along these lines:

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On a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to recommend the company as a place to work?

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It’s a good idea to follow this up with an open-ended question to uncover the underlying reasons for their rating.

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The numeric answer to this survey question will allow you to classify your employees as one of the following:

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• Promoters - Promoters are employees who provide a rating of 9 or 10, and these are people who are strong advocates for the way you work right now.
• Passives - Passives are employees who give a rating of 7 or 8, and these are people who sit on the fence are important to target if you want to keep them from becoming dissatisfied.
• Detractors - Detractors are employees who give a rating of 6 or lower, and these are people who feel disengaged with their work and will be highly likely to leave their position if nothing changes.

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You can calculate your overall company eNPS using the following formula:

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% of promoters - % of detractors

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Your score will fall in the range of +100 to -100, with the former being the best possible score and the latter being the worst.

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Once you have your score, you can get a real sense for how your employees currently feel about the company and how hard you need to work to make changes.

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The best strategy to bring about positive change is to turn passives into promoters and find out from the detractors what the biggest issues are that caused them to rate the company so low. You can do this by reading the detractors’ answers to the open-ended follow-up question, and scheduling one-on-one meetings (if they’re receptive to the idea).

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3. Work out the Employee Satisfaction Index Score
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The final way you can interpret your employee satisfaction survey data and turn it into actionable insights is to work out the employee satisfaction index (ESI) score.

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While the eNPS can give you a snapshot of employee satisfaction in your company with a quick rating question, the ESI score will give you a more nuanced view of the current situation.

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So what questions can you ask to elicit an accurate ESI score?

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• How satisfied are you with your current workplace?
• How well does your current workplace match your expectations?
• How close is your current workplace to your ideal workplace?

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For each of these questions, you’ll ask for a rating score on a scale of 1 to 10. 

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That way, you can feed the data into the following formula to quickly calculate the ESI score:

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ESI= [((question mean value ÷ 3) – 1) ÷9]*100

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Your ESI score will be a number from 1-100, and the higher it is, the more satisfied your employees are.

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Again, to get a more detailed perspective from employees, you can add open-ended follow-up questions such as:

What would you change about your current workplace?

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How Employee Monitoring Software Can Help 
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Computer monitor software Insightful can help you bridge the gap between a disengaged and dissatisfied workforce and a fully-engaged and highly-productive one. 

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As an attendance tracker and remote monitoring tool, Insightful allows you to access valuable productivity data and get the measure of your workforce in the following ways:

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Measure Workforce Optimization Changes

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If your eNPS and ESI scores are lower than you’d expect, then you’ll want to make measurable changes to see if you can bump them up and hopefully boost employee engagement levels.

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Whatever you decide to do to increase productivity and efficiency at work, whether it’s implementing a reward system or laying on health and wellness programs for employees, Insightful can help you track the efficacy of your workforce optimization changes.

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As a work time tracker, Insightful helps you with monitoring employee activity and analyzing individual and collective performance on a weekly or monthly basis. In the wake of new changes, you can use the work tracking software to keep tabs on the time data and identify any emerging trends to see if there has been a positive impact.

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Embrace Flexible Ways of Working

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You can use Insightful to embrace new flexible ways of working. Many thrive in a remote or hybrid work environment, so perhaps that’s the change you need to implement to see your employee satisfaction levels soar.

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By monitoring internet usage remotely, you can assess your employees’ productivity levels wherever they work so you don’t have to worry about losing output when you transition to a new way of working. 

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Shift scheduling allows team leaders to build out a work schedule for each team member, and receive notifications if they don’t adhere to it. That way, there’s no risk that employees are sleeping in and starting work late.

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