Employee Surveys » Employee Satisfaction Survey

So you’re ready to solicit feedback from your employee’s through an employee opinion survey. Measuring employee satisfaction is a vital practice that can greatly aid in identifying crucial areas of improvement.

Measuring satisfaction can also assist in sustaining initiates, plans and benefits that are already highly regarded by employees. High levels of employee satisfaction can lead to increased engagement, employee tenure and overall commitment organization goals.

Survey Goals

Prior to conducting an employee satisfaction survey, leadership must first establish agreed upon survey goals. Is your organization conducting this survey to help improve employee relations and increase employee satisfaction? If so, what action will be taken as a result of this survey? Asking leadership these fundamental questions will assist in establishing measurable goals and objectives for the survey.

Educate and engage leadership in the importance of the entire process. Measuring employee satisfaction isn’t just about the survey. The survey itself is just the tool to measure the data. Taking steps to correct actionable items will be the key to success in your company employee survey, so getting leadership on board with the process is a necessary step.

Explain the intent of the survey. Having a clear reason for conducting the survey will ensure that employees don’t begin to gossip about intent. Have leadership and managers proactively speak about why the survey is important and what they plan on doing with the data after it is collected.

Survey Questions

Ask the right questions. Carefully considering the questions that will be asked is a vital step in the process. Some organizations form small committees that have equal department representation. The committees can work together to discuss and decide the most appropriate questions. Additionally, organization will reference question banks to assist in the creation of the survey. A poorly planned survey can lead to unactionable data, decreased morale, and loss of trust among employee.

Below are examples of some question you may use in a typical employee opinion survey:

• I am satisfied with the pay for the work I do.
• The job training I received well prepared me for my position.
• Safety is important to this organization.
• I am satisfied with my current work schedule.
• I feel that I am able to express my opinions.
• I feel that I can offer my opinions without fear of retribution.

Use statistical scale. Choosing a likert-scale to measure levels of satisfaction is a useful and common practice. Typically organizations use 4 or 5 point likert-scales question types. Four point scales allow for two favorable and two unfavorable positions where Strongly Agree equals 4 and Strongly Disagree equals 1. In the case of a 5-point likert-scale, the options allow for a neutral position, where Strongly Agree equals 5, Neither Agree nor Disagree equal 3 and Strongly Disagree equals one. Through the use of SurveyGizmo software you can apply hidden numeric values that represent the value of each option (e.g Strongly Agree equals 5 points) for the purpose of statistical reporting.

Consider third-party confidential administration. Research shows that having an unbiased third-party firm administer the survey will yield increased participation rates as well as the quality of feedback. Communicate to employees about the third-party firm, and let employees know how the data will be sliced and diced. Setting up confidential rules and displaying those rules within the survey will build a relationship of trust among employees.

Take action. Don’t let your efforts fall by the way-side. A delay in organizational response or no action can lead to decreased morale and lower overall satisfaction. Implementing an action planning process soon after analyzing data is paramount. Finally, ensure that leadership and management have clearly communicated changes made as a result of the survey.

Check out our Survey-Questions page to learn more about crafting survey questions.

Survey Example

We offer several templates to help you get started on your employee satisfaction survey. Our templates are totally customizable so go ahead and add your company’s logo, colors, etc. Or, if you prefer you can start from scratch – it is easy and we are here to help you along the way.

Click on the survey image to interactively demo this survey!

Survey Reports

We believe you should have access to your most recent data whenever you need it, so we allow you to view and export your most recent data at anytime. Our survey software lets you export your reports to PDFs and even password-protect your reports, so you can choose the most convenient way to share your data.

When creating a report, you are given the option to use interactive graphs to represent your data. When you hover over a column in a bar graph or a wedge in a pie chart, you’ll see metrics from your survey results overlaid on top of the chart. When choosing a chart you can also choose whether or not to include open-ended questions.

Click on the report for an interactive reporting demo!

*Data in this report is randomly generated test data

Be sure to checking out our Survey Reporting page for other report options.

Need additional help?

If you are interested in having SurveyGizmo help you with any aspect of the employee satisfaction process please contact Christina Bell, in Professional Services at 720-496-2134