Conducting periodic employee surveys can provide useful insight into the thoughts, perceptions, and goals of a company's staff. The surveys can be designed to assess employees' feelings and behaviors with regard to their jobs, managers, and overall level of engagement. By collecting this data on a regular basis, small and large companies alike can keep tabs on the attitudes of their employees. This data will help business owners develop a number of critical HR strategies. They'll be able to retain their best people, deliver the proper training, and provide a challenging and satisfying work environment.

The breadth and scope of your surveys will depend upon your goals for the data and any related budget limitations. In this article, I'll provide you with a number of ideas for questions to include on your employee surveys. Keep in mind that the questions you use should be specific to the purpose of the survey (i.e. exit interview, measuring satisfaction, training issues, etc.).

Identifying "What," Then "Why"

A lot of companies that conduct employee surveys for the first time often focus questions that seek answers to "what." For example, they might ask "What changes would you make to your department?" While it's valuable to solicit this type of employee feedback, that feedback is often more useful when it's accompanied by reasons. For example, once a business owner has identified areas in which employees want change to occur, they should then identify why that change is desired. Only then can problems be addressed effectively.

Ideas For Exit Interviews

Start your employee exit survey with 2 questions: why did the employee join and why is the employee leaving. Each question should have several possible answers (i.e. salary, commute, peer conflict, benefits, etc.). Then, break the remainder of the survey into several portions. One portion will focus on the employees' opinion toward his job. Other portions will address company management, specific department, direct manager, and compensation. The primary goal is to collect as much data as possible in order to identify trends.

Ideas For Employee Satisfaction

Employee satisfaction surveys should begin with department identification and position responsibilities. From that point, questions should start focusing on the level of personal satisfaction. These can include whether the employee feels he receives sufficient recognition from his manager. Or, they can address his department's flexibility with regards to personal and family matters. Level of interaction with others, opportunities for career development, and clarity of tasks can also be measured. Finally, ask whether the employee would be comfortable referring a friend (a good barometer of job satisfaction).

Ideas For Staff Turnover Survey

This type of survey can be difficult to design. The questions should be open-ended to allow employees to provide complete thoughts. Also, the survey itself should be short enough to encourage participation. The most important things to identify are aspects of the job that employees perceive as positive or negative. Then, it's critical to identify why they feel that way. And of course, this type of survey should be anonymous so employees are encouraged to provide sincere answers.

Designing A Useful Survey

Employee surveys can be a rich source of insight into a myriad of useful details. Unfortunately, thousands of businesses fail to leverage this insight. They either use poorly-designed surveys or fail to survey their staff at all. If possible, allocate the necessary resources to design an effective survey for your employees, given your goals for the data. If your HR staff has limited experience, consider outsourcing the task to a dedicated service. You may find that the feedback you receive from your staff more than compensates for the investment.