Employee Happiness Survey: 21 Questions To Ask & How To Analyze the Results
Investing in employee happiness surveys is not only helpful for boosting team morale, it’s good for your bottom line too.
Research by FTSE Russell analyzed 25 years of market data of the annual returns of publicly traded companies featured on the ‘100 Best’ lists versus the rest. The results weren’t impressive, they were staggering. The 100 Best Companies beat the market by a factor of 3.36 – that is a lead of more than triple.
At the 100 Best Companies, 83% of employees reported a healthy workplace, versus just 52% at typical U.S. businesses – and revenue-per-employee doubled for companies on the 100 Best list. Conversely, it’s estimated that unhappy workers cost the North American business economy over $350 billion per year in lost productivity.
Contents
Why measure employee happiness?
21 Employee happiness survey questions to ask
Checklist: How to conduct an employee happiness survey
How to analyze the employee happiness survey results
Employee happiness survey dos and don’ts
Why measure employee happiness?
Measuring employee happiness provides valuable and actionable insights for companies. Why? Because when employees are happy, they tend to be more productive and put more discretionary effort and enthusiasm into their work.
Happy employees are also less likely to leave your company, saving you the costs associated with recruitment and training. Happy employees often translate into better customer service interactions and, therefore, happier customers. The bottom line is that measuring and fostering employee happiness can positively contribute to the overall success of your company.
21 Employee happiness survey questions to ask
Here’s a cheat sheet of powerful questions to help you build your employee happiness survey and gain valuable insights from your team:
Overall satisfaction questions:
- How happy are you with your current job? As a simple starter, this question measures general job satisfaction.
- To what extent do you feel your work is meaningful and contributes to the company’s goals? This question measures the employee’s sense of purpose and contribution.
- Would you recommend working at this company to a friend or family member? This question measures general company advocacy.
- Thinking about your total wellbeing, how satisfied are you with your current work-life balance? This question evaluates tension levels on time spent on work versus personal priorities.
Work environment and culture questions:
- Do you feel comfortable expressing your ideas and opinions openly at work? This question measures an employee’s sense of psychological safety and open communication.
- How well do you feel your colleagues collaborate and work as a team? This question measures an employee’s experience of the team culture.
- Do you feel valued and respected by your manager and colleagues? This key question measures a sense of belonging, inclusiveness and appreciation.
- Is your workplace environment physically and emotionally safe and supportive? This question measures an employee’s sense of comfort and safety.
- Do you feel you have been given the necessary resources and tools to perform your job effectively? This question gauges how well-equipped your employees feel in their roles.
Did you know?
When it comes to predicting a company’s attrition rates, a toxic work environment is 10.4 times more important than compensation compared with industry norms.
Career growth and development questions:
- Do you feel the company has assisted you with clear career goals and development planning? This question helps you gauge an employee’s perception of their opportunities for development and upward mobility within your organization.
- Do you feel you are being provided adequate learning and professional development opportunities? This question measures an employee’s perception of their opportunities for growth and training.
- Do you feel your current role allows you to fully utilize your skills and talents? This question measures job fit and utilization of full potential.
- Do you feel confident and empowered to make decisions within your role? This question measures the degree of autonomy employees believe they have.
Management and leadership questions:
- Do you feel your manager provides you with clear and consistent communication? This question measures the perceived effectiveness of their manager’s communication.
- Do you feel your manager is supportive of your professional development and career goals? This question measures the level of a manager’s support for growth as perceived by the employee.
- Do you feel your manager provides you with helpful feedback and performance reviews? This question measures an employee’s perception of the effectiveness of feedback from their manager.
- Do you feel confident in the leadership team’s ability to guide the company toward success? This question measures an employee’s overall trust in your company’s leadership.
Did you know?
57% of employees have left at least one job due to a bad manager.
Compensation and benefits questions:
- Do you feel your current compensation and benefits package is fair and competitive? This question measures satisfaction with their total compensation package.
- Are you satisfied that the company offers a variety of benefits to meet your specific needs and overall wellbeing? This question measures an employee’s satisfaction with the benefits your company offers.
- Do you feel your workload is manageable and appropriately compensated for the time you invest? This question measures your employees’ perception of workload fairness and compensation balance.
- Do you feel the company offers opportunities for advancement and increased compensation? This question measures the employee’s perception of opportunities for career progression and salary growth.
Checklist: How to conduct an employee happiness survey
Follow this eight-step guide to conduct your own employee happiness survey.
1. Determine the purpose of your employee happiness questionnaire:
- What exactly do you want to learn from the survey?
- Which areas of employee happiness are you most interested in?
- How often will you conduct the survey (for example, quarterly, bi-annually, or annually)?
- Determine how you will benchmark your results. For example, you could benchmark results internally by comparing them to results from your previous surveys, or you could benchmark externally by contrasting your results with similar industry-aligned research surveys.
2. Decide how you will collect answers:
- An online survey software tool will help you collect data anonymously and effectively analyze its results.
- If you are providing your non-desk workers with the opportunity to complete paper-based survey forms, data capturers can load these responses into your software tool once the survey is closed so that all your data is centrally stored.
3. Develop the survey questions:
- Use various question formats suited to the information you wish to obtain, such as:
- Yes/no/maybe
- Multiple choice
- Likert scales (i.e., using a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 = Strongly Agree and 5 = Strongly Disagree)
- Open-ended questions to enable employees to add their own comments.
- Keep your questions clear, concise, and easy to understand.
- Avoid using double-barreled questions such as: “Are you satisfied with your work-life balance and compensation?” Combining two or more factors into one question makes it impossible to gauge accurate responses to specific issues.
- Avoid leading or biased questions where answer choices are unfairly weighted towards a particular response, as these can skew results. For example, “How satisfied are you with your work-life balance? (a) Very satisfied, (b) Satisfied, (c) Somewhat satisfied, (d) Neutral, (e) Dissatisfied.”
4. Pilot test your employee happiness survey:
- Ask a small sample group of your employees to review the survey and provide you with their feedback.
- This will help you identify any problems with the survey, such as unclear questions or technical issues.
5. Inform your employees about the survey:
- Explain the purpose of the survey and be clear about how the results will be used.
- Assure your employees that their responses will be anonymized or kept confidential if you require their identification.
- Provide clear instructions on how to take the survey and deadlines for completion.
6. Encourage employee participation:
- If you have non-desk workers, make it easy for everyone to take the survey by offering multiple survey methods (for example, online, app-based, paper, etc.).
- Offer incentives, such as prize draws, to encourage higher participation rates.
7. Analyze the results:
- Once the survey is closed, analyze the data you’ve received to identify trends, patterns, strengths and weaknesses.
- Pay attention to both the quantitative data (e.g., numerical responses) and the qualitative data (e.g., open-ended responses).
8. Take action:
- Use the survey results to develop a plan to improve your employees’ happiness.
- Prepare reports based on the data that senior leaders, divisional managers, and HR can act on to target employee happiness weaknesses and give recommendations for how you can leverage strengths.
- Communicate your employee happiness plan to employees and keep them updated on your progress.
How to analyze the employee happiness survey results
It’s crucial for HR to analyze employee happiness questionnaires so they can take the pulse of employee sentiment, identify areas for improvement, and implement strategies to enhance your team’s satisfaction and overall well-being. This is key to ultimately creating a more productive and engaged workforce.
Step 1: Compile and organize your data
Collect and organize all survey responses in a central location, such as a spreadsheet or dedicated survey analysis software. If your organization provided a paper-based questionnaire, capture that data into your central digital system.
Step 2: Clean the data
Ensure consistency in data format (for instance, if answers were provided numerically, ensure standardized formatting) and address any missing or incomplete responses. If you are correcting errors in open-ended questions, be sure not to alter an employee’s intended meaning.
If you have data capturers loading answers from paper-based forms into a spreadsheet or survey software system, implement a cross-check to ensure capturing accuracy.
Step 3: Identify key metrics
If your survey is lengthy, prioritize the most critical aspects of employee happiness you want to analyze based on your survey goals. These might include overall satisfaction, company environment, work-life balance, career development opportunities, or feelings toward leadership.
Step 4: Sort and segment data
Group responses by relevant categories, such as department or job level. Segmenting your data in this manner will help you compare specific groups and identify potential variations in sentiment within your workforce.
Step 5: Analyze the data
Select an appropriate analysis method based on your question types:
- Quantitative data (multiple choice, Likert scale):
- Calculate descriptive statistics like averages, medians, and percentages for each key metric and segment to identify key trends.
- For instance, you can use charts or graphs to depict answers to questions such as these: “On a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = Strongly agree and 5 = Strongly disagree), is your workplace environment physically and emotionally safe and supportive?”
- Qualitative data (open-ended responses):
- Analyze thematic patterns or recurring themes in employee feedback.
- Use word clouds or sentiment analysis tools to identify common keywords and major themes to gauge overall sentiment.
Step 6: Compare with benchmarks
Benchmark your research internally, comparing your latest results to previous surveys. Benchmark your research externally against industry averages or other relevant data sources. This provides context and will help you assess your standing compared to your past performance and similar organizations operating in your sector.
Step 7: Identify areas of strength and improvement
Based on your analysis, highlight areas where employees are highly satisfied and engaged. Similarly, pinpoint areas with low scores or negative feedback to prioritize improvement efforts.
Step 8: Conduct root cause analysis
For areas needing improvement, delve deeper to understand the underlying reasons behind low satisfaction or negative feedback. If necessary, organize follow-up focus groups, one-on-one discussions, or additional targeted surveys to gather more specific insights.
Managers have an outsized impact (good or bad) on employee experience, so be on the lookout for indicators pointing to problem managers. If you receive a lot of negative feedback on questions relating to managers’ communication, support, or feedback, for instance, ensure you’re able to address the issue with the manager/s concerned.
Step 9: Storytelling and data presentation
As an HR professional, your ultimate objective is to obtain actionable outcomes from this survey that improve your workforce’s happiness.
In order to make changes, you’ll need to inform and persuade senior stakeholders and managers. This requires the ability to translate your data into a compelling narrative that highlights key findings, trends, and areas for action.
When you create management reports and presentations, use clear, concise language and visuals (charts, graphs) to communicate insights to these audiences effectively.
Step 10: Create a dashboard
Develop an interactive dashboard with graphs and charts to help you visualize trends and track key metrics over time. This allows for quick and easy monitoring of progress and facilitates data-driven decision-making regarding your employees’ contentment.
Employee happiness survey dos and don’ts
What to do and what not to do when it comes to conducting your employee happiness survey:
Do:
- Do ensure confidentiality. Employees must feel comfortable and safe sharing honest feedback, so guarantee their anonymity throughout the process.
- Do communicate clearly. Explain the survey’s purpose, how the results will be used, and how confidentiality is ensured.
- Do ask the right questions. Tailor questions to your specific goals and avoid leading questions and ambiguous language.
- Do keep it concise and relevant. A lengthy survey may lead to lower completion rates and can make it difficult for employees to focus on providing thoughtful answers.
- Do take action on the feedback. Demonstrate that you value your employees’ input by creating an action plan based on the results and communicating it to them.
Don’t:
- Don’t use too many open-field questions: Open-field answers can yield deeper insights in cases where employees provide a lot of detail. However, including too many in your survey will limit your ability to identify key patterns and trends that closed-ended questions can provide.
- Don’t pressure participation. While encouraging participation is okay, making it mandatory may lead to resentment.
- Don’t collect personal information. Focus on work-related questions and avoid asking for any personal details because, in some cases, requesting demographic or tenure details may void your employees’ anonymity (for instance, if only one male in a given tenure range works in a particular department).
- Don’t use the data to punish employees. The survey is meant to improve the workplace, not target individuals.
- Don’t ignore negative feedback. Critical feedback is valuable for identifying areas for improvement, embrace it.
- Don’t present the results without a plan. Employees deserve to know how their feedback will be used, so have a clear action plan in place before sharing the results.
Key takeaway
Implementing these guidelines will empower you to design a comprehensive survey that accurately captures sentiment. But remember, enhancing employee happiness is an ongoing journey, not a one-time event.
So, conduct regular surveys, act on feedback, and demonstrate your commitment to your employees’ well-being to build a more positive and productive work environment.
Weekly update
Stay up-to-date with the latest news, trends, and resources in HR
Learn more
Related articles
Are you ready for the future of HR?
Learn modern and relevant HR skills, online
