Employee engagement surveys help organizations measure employee engagement to make it more tangible. They help organizational leaders:

• Uncover the meaning behind their employees’ experience
• Make employee insight actionable
• Implement changes that move the needle

A traditional employee engagement survey happens once a year and includes all employee voices. This type of employee survey is helpful in understanding employee engagement trends across the organization. It helps create organizational, team, and demographic benchmarks to track nuances over time.

Employee engagement surveys (and the insights and strategies that come from them) can have a huge impact on business success. With trending data, market benchmarks, and robust reporting, an engagement survey helps you: 

• Understand where your company excels
• Shed light on where you need to improve
• Give every employee a voice
• Help connect the dots between employee engagement and your bottom line
• Build employee trust
• Compare and contrast among different employee groups
• Drive meaningful action and smarter people decisions
• Capture feedback that helps you navigate change
• Help you cultivate a competitive and engaging company culture

Developing an actionable employee engagement survey involves thoughtful survey design. Our employee engagement experts suggest staying focused on scientifically validated employee engagement outcomes and drivers and including trackable employee demographics.

Here are 21 expert-recommended employee engagement survey questions to include in your employee survey, including questions about:

• Employee engagement outcomes
• Career growth and development
• Communication and resources
• Individual needs
• Manager effectiveness
• Team dynamics
• Trust in leadership
• Future outlook
• Diversity and inclusion

To truly understand the meaning behind your results, you need to review your employee survey analytics in a thoughtful and systematic way. There are a few ways you can start to slice and dice your survey data to uncover meaning and take action:

1. Evaluate and prioritize by favorability
2. Use heat mapping to compare favorability by demographic
3. Identify and evaluate keywords and narratives within your survey comments
4. Use industry survey benchmarks
5. Empower your managers to analyze their team results
6. Help your employees understand their role in engagement

Think of your employee engagement action plan as your strategic roadmap for employee engagement. It should outline specific initiatives and activities that your teams believe will help improve engagement—based on insights from your engagement survey results.

An employee engagement action plan typically includes:

• Key areas of focus based on engagement survey results
• Specific goals and objectives meant to drive progress
• Action steps required to achieve those goals
• Who is responsible for implementing action steps and by when
• Expected outcomes and metrics for measuring progress

With so much to consider when evaluating which vendor is right for your organization, it can be helpful to have a guiding light to make a clear decision.

Our guide to choosing the right survey software walks you through 12 questions to ask when evaluating survey software:

1. Can you describe your engagement methodology?
2. What does the survey launch process look like?
3. How will you help me drive participation on my survey?
4. What reporting capabilities exist? Are there benchmarks available?
5. What options do I have when it comes to support?
6. What other resources and content will I have access to?
7. Does this software integrate with my HRIS?
8. How do you help my managers understand engagement and take action?
9. Does your software integrate with other tools that help drive engagement?
10. What options do I have in terms of customization?
11. How do you keep your software up-to-date with the latest engagement trends?
12. What other types of surveys do you offer?

Measuring and improving employee engagement easily and accurately requires a partner you can rely on. For the last 20+ years, our customers have trusted us to deliver reliable expertise, technology, service and results.

We help you uncover meaning.
We're more than a survey tool. Our scientific approach to survey design, research-backed templates, personalized analysis and insights, unparalleled benchmarks, and smart AI help you understand the meaning behind your employee voice data.

We make action easy for everyone.
The real power of your employee surveys is not in the surveys themselves, but in the action you take as a result. We make action easy for everyone — so leaders, HR, managers, and employees can all play their part in driving employee engagement.

We’re a partner you can rely on.
You’re on a journey – and we’re with you every step of the way. You can rely on our dedicated team to provide strategic guidance, ongoing coaching, timely tech support, and safe and secure practices your programs need to be successful.