9 Essential Employee Engagement Survey Questions

Are your employees enthusiastic about working in your office? Do they take ownership of their roles? Are they actively involved in your company’s success? One of the most effective marketing tools you have is an engaged employee base. Customers respond better to happy employees, stay longer and are more loyal. However…

According to a recent Gallup poll, your employees are probably not.

Only 33% of US employees report being engaged at work. Low engagement leads to decreased productivity and increased turnover. In other words, how engaged your employees are can significantly affect your bottom line.

But how do you know if your employees are engaged? The easiest way to determine employee engagement is through carefully selected employee engagement survey questions.

What does it mean to be engaged?

Engagement and happiness are not necessarily the same thing. Although employee happiness is extremely important, you can have a happy employee who’s not very engaged. They come in, do their job without complaint, and go home.

Engaged workers do tend to be happier than disengaged workers, but it goes beyond that. Engaged employees are absorbed in their work. They’re enthusiastic about what they do. They take pride in actively helping their company succeed.

Here are 9 employee engagement survey questions to help you determine just how engaged your workers really are.

How satisfied are you at work?

Workers who aren’t satisfied are less likely to be engaged. Get right to the heart of the matter by asking your employees if they’re satisfied with their jobs.

Include a rating scale (“Very satisfied”, “Somewhat satisfied”, etc.) to determine the exact level of satisfaction. Consider including a place for workers to leave open-ended comments if they respond with anything less than “Somewhat satisfied”.

How likely are you to refer someone to work here?

When you’re excited about a new movie you just saw, or an amazing meal you just ate, you want to tell everyone you know about it so they can try it too, right?

The same goes for the company you work for. If someone isn’t happy with their job or doesn’t feel a connection to their employer? Well, then they aren’t very likely to tell a friend about a job opening at their company.

Do you feel like your work is appreciated?

Unfortunately, only 21% of employees report feeling strongly valued at work. That low number suggests that not enough leaders are praising their workers, which can lead to low levels of engagement.

If you find out that your employees don’t feel appreciated, consider coaching your leaders to provide regular recognition.

Do you feel respected?

Creating a culture of mutual respect means that employees feel valued by both leaders and coworkers. If you discover that there’s a lack of respect in your organization, that could be a large component of disengagement.

Consider things like team-building activities, coaching on diversity and conflict resolution. This creates a culture of respect.

Do leaders acknowledge your feedback?

It’s one thing to ask people to share their opinions. It’s another thing entirely to take that feedback seriously and actually do something about it.

When workers open up to their leaders but are ignored, it creates an environment of negativity and distrust. But when leaders can show employees they’re taking their insight seriously? Then it opens the lines of communication and engagement.

Do you feel your work directly impacts the business?

Do your employees feel like their work makes a difference to the company’s bottom line? If not, they may wonder why they’re even there.

To increase engagement, ensure your employees understand how their role relates to your organization’s goals and impacts the business.

Where do you see yourself in 1 year? 5 years?

If your employees don’t see themselves growing and evolving within your company over the next few years, you have a problem.

Determining that your employees have no plans to stick around could have a huge impact on engagement.

Are you proud to work here?

Do they hem and haw when someone asks them where they work? Or do they proudly announce your company’s name?

If it’s the former, determine what it is about your company that’s making employees feel that way, then consider what improvements you can make within your organization to change it.

Do you feel supported by your team?

Feeling engaged in the workplace goes beyond just how people feel about their leaders and company. It also includes peer relationships.

If employees don’t feel like their team members support them, their engagement is sure to drop. That could also indicate a larger issue within your culture that needs to be addressed.

What do I do with the employee engagement survey questions?

Sending out these survey questions once is a great start, but it’s not enough. At the very least, you’ll need to send it out several times, although we recommend making this a regular habit.

First, use the responses to analyze how engaged workers are now. Then, put a plan in place to address areas of low engagement. Then, by surveying them at regular intervals, you can see how engaged they are several months from now. This helps to determine what’s working and what isn’t.

Keep in mind that solutions are often not about giving a gift, or providing an award once a month or once a quarter. Employees often cite lack of processes and systems to support their work. For instance, with some of our promotional product clients, we see that upper management will not plan ahead for tradeshows. Rather than invest in promotional items at the beginning of the year, they hold funds on quarterly or even monthly basis. The front line employees then have to go through the procurement process 4 to 12 times a year. While a small example, these little instances add up.

If you are willing to look at systems and processes as well as awards, recognitions, and incentives, you will find more ways to help your employees and it won’t be long before you see your employees’ engagement levels increase.