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What better way to find out than conducting an employee engagement survey?
Engagement surveys help you get a clear idea of how things are at the employee's end and lets you know of any blockers to productivity. An employee engagement survey also helps you pinpoint reasons for dissatisfaction or low employee morale.
What is an Employee Engagement Survey?
An employee engagement survey is a powerful tool used by organizations to understand the level of engagement and satisfaction among their employees.
It consists of a series of questions designed to gauge how invested employees are in their work and the company, their feelings towards the workplace culture, their relationship with management, and their overall job satisfaction.
This feedback is invaluable for leadership and HR teams, providing them with the data needed to make informed decisions that can lead to enhanced employee morale, increased productivity, and, ultimately, better organizational performance.
Objectives of Employee Engagement Surveys
When conducting an employee engagement survey, you want more than just a few numbers on a report; you're seeking genuine insights into how your team feels about their work, the culture, and the company as a whole.
These surveys provide a chance to hear directly from your employees and pinpoint areas for improvement.
Here’s are 6 objectives of employee engagement surveys.
1. Gauge Employee Satisfaction
Engagement surveys allow you to understand how employees feel about their roles, leadership, and environment. A happy employee is a productive one, but dissatisfaction can impact performance and retention.
2. Uncover Engagement Drivers
What motivates your employees? Engagement drivers—like growth opportunities or recognition—will help you understand what keeps them engaged and what might need attention.
3. Prevent Turnover
Surveys help spot issues that could be leading to high turnover. By addressing those concerns, you can improve employee retention and reduce the costs associated with hiring and training new staff.
4. Boost Productivity
Engaged employees are more likely to put in extra effort and work efficiently. Uncovering productivity barriers through these surveys will help you refine processes and increase overall performance.
5. Strengthen Company Culture
A positive work environment is critical. The feedback from engagement surveys lets you identify gaps in your culture and promote values that foster teamwork and inclusivity.
6. Align with Organizational Goals
Engagement doesn’t happen in isolation. These surveys help ensure your employees’ motivations align with the broader goals of your business, fostering long-term growth and success.
Each of these objectives helps create a more engaged, motivated, and productive workforce, which ultimately benefits both employees and the organization.
How to Design Your Engagement Survey Questions?
A successful engagement survey starts with clarity. Before writing questions, define what you want to achieve. Are you measuring overall engagement, identifying strengths, or spotting areas for improvement? Once your goals are clear, you can frame questions that focus on the right aspects of the employee experience—such as communication, recognition, career growth, and workplace culture.
Best Practices for Writing Questions
- Keep them simple and specific. Avoid jargon and double-barreled questions. For example, instead of asking “Do you feel valued and supported at work?”, split it into two separate questions.
- Mix question types. Use rating scales (e.g., “On a scale of 1–5, how satisfied are you with your job?”) to quantify sentiment, and open-ended questions (e.g., “What could the company do to improve?”) to capture context.
- Ensure psychological safety. Remind employees the survey is anonymous and that responses will be used to drive positive change. This builds trust and encourages honesty.
- Pilot test your survey. Share a draft with a small group first to check clarity, relevance, and length. Use their feedback to refine before rolling it out to the entire organization.
By following these steps, you’ll design surveys that generate reliable, meaningful insights—giving you the clarity needed to strengthen engagement and improve the employee experience.
How to Analyze Your Engagement Surveys For Actionable Insights?
Gathering data through employee engagement surveys is only the beginning. The true value lies in analyzing this data to uncover actionable insights that will help you drive meaningful change within your organization.
In this section, you'll know how to go beyond surface-level results and understand the underlying factors influencing employee engagement.
1. Segment Survey Responses
Looking at survey data in aggregate can hide important details. Break down responses by department, role, tenure, or demographic groups to spot trends you might otherwise miss.
For example, one team may score high on recognition but low on career growth, while another shows the reverse. This level of segmentation helps you prioritize interventions where they’re needed most.
ThriveSparrow automatically segments this data, after you run an engagement survey.
This approach provides a deeper understanding of the unique needs and challenges faced by different groups within your organization.
By comparing engagement scores across segments, you can identify areas where employees are thriving and where they may be struggling. This helps prioritize areas for improvement.
2. Look for Correlations
Engagement rarely dips because of one single factor. Cross-reference results to find connections. If a department reports low engagement, check whether workload, leadership trust, or lack of recognition is also trending low.
On ThriveSparrow's survey reports, you can view the sentiment behind open-ended answers using AI-powered Text Insights.
Just click on any factor to drill down into specific topics. It will help you understand more nuances of the feedback from the engagement survey.
Clicking on a factor will uncover all the responses relating to that factor. If you click on a factor that requires 'immediate addressal', you can understand your employees' perceptions about their issues and come up with action plans to address them.
3. Create an Action Plan
Data without action is just noise. Once you identify problem areas, translate them into clear, measurable action plans:
- Prioritize key findings: Focus on issues with the biggest impact.
- Set SMART goals: Make changes specific, measurable, and realistic.
- Involve employees: Engage teams in shaping solutions so they feel ownership.
- Assign accountability: Make sure someone is responsible for driving each action.
- Communicate progress: Keep employees updated on what’s being done.
- Monitor and adjust: Use follow-up surveys or pulse checks to see what’s working.
Platforms like ThriveSparrow allow you to build action plans directly beside survey results so issues don’t get lost in reports. Managers can track progress, assign tasks, and revisit employee feedback in one place—turning insights into tangible improvements.
To create an action plan, simply click the 'lightning icon' beside the response requiring your attention, and checklist what you need to do to address that issue.
If you liked this mini-guide on analyzing survey results, consider trying it out with ThriveSparrow. Book a free demo.
10 Steps to Conducting Effective Employee Engagement Surveys
Creating an effective employee engagement survey involves several steps, each crucial to ensuring that the survey provides valuable insights into your team's morale and engagement. Here’s a step-by-step process on that.
1. Define Your Objectives
Begin with a clear vision of what you hope to accomplish through the survey.
Whether it’s enhancing job satisfaction, evaluating the impact of recent organizational changes, or gaining a deeper understanding of employee morale, setting specific objectives will steer the development of your survey in the right direction.
2. Choose the Right Questions
The questions should be directly tied to your objectives, encompassing a variety of formats like rating scales, multiple choice, and open-ended questions to gather a broad spectrum of insights.
Aim for clarity and neutrality in your questions to avoid any bias and ensure the responses you receive are genuine.
3. Ensure Anonymity and Confidentiality
Like we discussed earlier, assure your employees that their responses will remain anonymous and that the data collected will be treated with utmost confidentiality. This promise encourages transparency and honesty in their feedback.
4. Use a Simple and Accessible Format
The survey should be easy to complete and accessible to all employees. Whether it’s distributed electronically or on paper, ensure the format is user-friendly and can be completed in a reasonable amount of time.
Here's a preview of an easily accessible engagement survey template on ThriveSparrow.
- Distribute surveys through any mode, be it emails, text messages, or kiosks (for employees with restricted access to mobile phones).
- Analyze employee feedback in a granular manner and infer the actual sentiment behind the feedback.
- Choose from a bank of questions and customize a survey the way you want.
Get a complete walkthrough of ThriveSparrow, and get all your queries answered. Book a free demo today.
5. Communicate the Purpose of the Survey
Before launching the survey, communicate its purpose to your employees.
Explain how their feedback will be used to make meaningful improvements in the workplace.
This communication can be effectively done in two ways: by including an introductory statement at the beginning of the survey or by providing a detailed explanation alongside the survey link in the email you distribute.
This step ensures that employees understand the significance of their participation and how it can lead to positive transformations in their work environment.
With ThriveSparrow, you can communicate this on the survey or through email.
6. Pilot Your Survey
Test the survey with a small, representative group of employees to catch any potential issues, from confusing questions to technical glitches. This pilot phase is crucial for refining the survey before a full rollout.
7. Launch the Survey
Officially deploy your survey, offering clear guidance on how to complete it. Establish a firm deadline for submissions and issue reminders as necessary to ensure robust participation.
8. Analyze the Results
With the survey concluded, meticulously review the responses. Properly interpreting the survey results can help you identify patterns and actionable insights that align with your initial objectives can help guide your engagement efforts.
9. Share Key Findings and Next Steps
Communicate the survey’s major discoveries to your team, alongside outlining imminent actions. This transparency demonstrates your respect for their feedback and your commitment to positive change.
10. Take Action and Follow Up
Develop a targeted action plan based on the survey outcomes, prioritizing initiatives aimed at addressing key areas in need of improvement.
On ThriveSparrow's engagement survey reports, you can develop action plans alongside the survey response and checklist a list of initiatives you need to complete the action plan.
Conduct a free engagement survey, and view all these insights for free on ThriveSparrow.
After enacting changes, revisit your employees to assess the impact. This follow-up can take the form of additional surveys, focus groups, or casual conversations, ensuring a continuous loop of feedback and improvement.
This step-by-step process can help you create and implement an employee engagement survey that not only garners valuable insights but also fosters a culture of continuous growth and satisfaction within your organization.
Best Practices to Follow In Your Engagement Survey
Getting valuable insights from an engagement survey takes more than just good questions—it requires the right approach. Here are some best practices to ensure your survey delivers meaningful results:
1. Explain the “why”
Be transparent about the purpose of the survey. Let employees know it’s about understanding their experiences and improving the workplace. When people see their feedback will lead to real action, they’re more likely to respond honestly.
2. Make it accessible
Use a simple, mobile-friendly platform so employees can participate from anywhere. If you have a multilingual workforce, offer the survey in multiple languages to remove barriers.
3. Give enough time—but not too much
Keep surveys open for 1–2 weeks. Send friendly reminders during that time to encourage participation without overwhelming employees.
4. Secure leadership support
When leaders actively promote the survey and explain its value, participation rates go up. Consider small incentives (like team lunches or gift cards) if engagement tends to be low.
5. Analyze and act on the results
Look for patterns—low-scoring areas, differences across departments, or recurring themes. Share these findings with your teams (even if results aren’t perfect) and outline the concrete steps you’ll take. For example, if employees request more training, announce new development programs.
6. Close the loop
Don’t let the survey be a one-off event. Update employees regularly on the changes you’ve made and run follow-up surveys to track progress. This shows feedback leads to real improvements, building trust and a culture of continuous improvement.
How to Design Employee Engagement Surveys that Get Responses?
A thoughtful structure helps create employee engagement surveys that get better response rates. Research shows employees don't stop responding because surveys are too long or frequent. They stop when they feel their organization won't take action on their feedback.
Use of Likert scale and open-ended options
The Likert scale remains the best way to calculate employee attitudes and perceptions. Rensis Likert developed this five-point rating system in 1932. It helps measure agreement, satisfaction, frequency, and importance. Most experts suggest five-point scales. These scales give enough options without overwhelming people who respond. A typical scale has:
- Strongly disagree
- Disagree
- Neither agree nor disagree
- Agree
- Strongly agree
Open-ended questions are a great way to get deeper insights but they just need more mental effort. The best strategy places them after related questions to gather more context, rather than on their own.
Balancing quantitative and qualitative questions
An all-encompassing approach uses both quantitative questions (rating scales) and qualitative elements (comment boxes). Rating scales give easy-to-measure data points. Comments help explain the "why" behind responses.
Shorter surveys spread over time work better than one long questionnaire to keep participants engaged.
Avoiding survey fatigue with concise formats
Employees experience survey fatigue when they believe their feedback goes nowhere. To curb this:
- Tell people why each survey matters
- Keep surveys brief (5-10 minutes) with focused questions
- Skip questions about trends that rarely change
- Let employees skip questions they don't want to answer
- Plan communications before, during, and after the survey
The key to success: show people how you used their previous feedback. Nothing makes people stop responding faster than feeling ignored.
Using an employee engagement survey template
Templates give you several benefits: consistent data collection, saved time, better response rates, and ways to measure progress. Many companies find that standard templates with 20-57 questions give enough insights while keeping people engaged.
These templates include proven methods like different question types, simple language, and short formats. This leads to more people completing the surveys. You can usually adjust templates by removing questions or adding company-specific items.
Take ThriveSparrow for example. It is an employee engagement platform that help HRs and top executives improve engagement by backing themselves with insights on employee feedback. These inisghts help uncover employee snetiment on a more granular level.
See a preview of a sample employee engagement survey template on ThriveSparrow.
Sign up for free, and explore ThriveSparrow fully. Start engaging your people today!
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Create your Employee Engagement Plan in 6 Easy Steps
Let us now take a better look at the six easy steps through which you can create an efficient employee engagement plan.
1. Select a Survey Tool that Best Fits your Needs
This is where having a clear idea of your objective will come in handy. Pick a survey tool that has features that allow you to create questions that align with your initial objectives and goals.
You can create questions from scratch or use the template given in the survey tool to guide you through the process. Customize the questions depending on the employee demographic and make sure the survey tool gives you these options.
If you're looking for the tool to cater to these needs, ThriveSparrow is the place to go. Among its other features, the Engage module of this product offers an ideal solution to elevate your employee engagement surveys to new heights and understand the gaps to work on.
Apart from just creating engagement surveys, ThriveSparrow helps you bridge the engagement gap in your organization with invaluable insights. Book a free demo and get a complete walkthrough of the platform.
2. Get the Leaders on Board
Before diving deep into the process, make sure to have the top management and concerned managers on board with the survey. At the end of the day, it is this group of management that looks at the results and deploys measures to make the necessary changes. If they are not on board, the whole process can be a futile exercise.
Get started with 19 thought-provoking questions every leader should consider asking their team.
3. Create an Air of Excitement for the Survey
Just like how you promote a product before its launch, create awareness of the survey among the employees and get them excited about the same. Let them know the reason why you conduct a survey and how it will have a direct impact on the work environment of the employee.
4. Launch it
The next step is the actual launch of the survey. It is best to send an email to the employees with the survey as an attachment. Or else you could use the good old way of handing over physical forms which the employees can fill out and give you later.
Which way to go is up to you and the structure of your organization. The aim is to make the survey reach every employee and make sure that they have the tools to answer it properly.
5. Observe and Benchmark the Results
Once the employees are done with their survey, collect the details and come to a conclusion.
What are the employees trying to say? Is there a common problem that persists among the employees?
What steps are you going to take in order to resolve these issues? Focus on these questions in the next step.
6. Share the Results with Others
The final step of an employee engagement survey is to share the feedback or message received from the survey with the organization. This will help employees feel recognized and heard. It will also give them an assurance that their problems will soon be mitigated by the organization.
Which Tool Can You Use to Distribute and Analyze Your Engagement Surveys?
Running engagement surveys manually is time-consuming, and worse, it often leaves you with spreadsheets full of data that never turns into action. That’s where dedicated engagement survey tools step in. They not only simplify distribution but also analyze feedback for you, surfacing patterns and insights you might otherwise miss.
Some of the leading platforms in this space include:
- ThriveSparrow
- Lattice
- Culture Amp
- Engagedly
- Leapsome
- 15Five
...and many more. You can find the full list in our guide to the best employee engagement software.
When evaluating which platform fits best, keep these factors in mind:
- Customization and Options: Can the tool adapt to your organization’s unique culture and survey needs?
- Ease of Use: Even powerful features won’t matter if managers and employees find the platform clunky. Look for clean, intuitive design.
- Customer Support: Good support matters. You’ll want responsive help when rolling out surveys across your organization.
- Cost: Have a budget in mind so you can focus on providers that deliver the best value for your price range.
- Integration: Ensure the platform plays well with your existing HR tech stack to avoid data silos.
The right tool not only distributes surveys but also turns raw responses into actionable insights, helping you create strategies that genuinely boost engagement.
Why Use ThriveSparrow for Your Employee Engagement Surveys
- User-Friendly with Advanced Customization: Easy to use, yet highly customizable to suit your specific needs.
- Anonymity Guaranteed: Encourages honest feedback through strong privacy features.
- Real-Time Analytics: Get immediate insights into employee morale and engagement.
- Actionable Change: Turn feedback into real improvements with continuous feedback loops.
- Dedicated Support: ThriveSparrow's customer service ensures you’re never alone in optimizing your survey process.
Choose ThriveSparrow for surveys that drive genuine engagement and measurable results.
Wrapping Up
Employee engagement surveys help understand the pulse of your employees and how they currently feel about the company. It is an excellent tool to increase employee morale and productivity as well.
Always keep in mind that customization is key when it comes to surveys. Shape it in a way that fits your employee's needs and you can find the results to be not only useful but transformative as well.
