Build a more productive workplace with employee engagement surveys

Engaged employees make the world go round. When employees feel happier and more satisfied in the workplace, they’re more productive as well as more likely to stay with your company for longer and improve your bottom line. 

Employee engagement surveys are a phenomenal way of measuring employee satisfaction and engagement over time. By harnessing the power of these surveys, you can identify actionable insights that help you create a better workplace for everyone. 

Employee engagement is the extent to which employees feel valued and involved in their everyday work. There’s plenty of debate among human resources professionals and researchers about the particular dimensions that make up employee engagement. But at its core, it comes down to whether employees feel invested in their company’s mission and success. 

An employee engagement survey measures not only employee happiness but also their dedication to your company's mission and outcomes. 

It's therefore vital to measure employee engagement since it’s an important indicator of your business's health and an excellent way to spot areas for improvement.

There are four distinct levels of employee engagement that can help establish a benchmark for future recurring surveys:

When employees feel engaged with their work, they’re more fulfilled and more motivated. Gallup studies have, for a long time, demonstrated that employee engagement influences performance, retention, productivity and employee loyalty.

Employees with higher levels of engagement typically have a forward-thinking disposition with regard to their company. They’ll come up with ways to improve work operations, demonstrate a team-oriented mindset and show strong leadership skills that help elevate moderately engaged employees.

With its vast range of benefits, employee engagement is vital to the success of your organisation. An engaged workforce results in a more productive and profitable organisation. We’re not talking about tiny increments here, either. The Gallup State of the Global Workplace 2023 report suggests a 23% increase in profitability for companies with highly engaged employees.

Such an impressive percentage increase shows it's not just the case that businesses should measure employee engagement but rather that they simply can’t afford not to.

What’s the difference between employee engagement and employee satisfaction? Although there’s an overlap between the two, far more dimensions define employee engagement than employee satisfaction. In other words, it's highly likely that an engaged employee is satisfied, but not all satisfied employees are engaged. 

A good employee engagement survey would measure the following factors:

Effective management can make or break your employee engagement. It’s not just whether your senior management treats employees well or whether they act ethically (although, of course, that’s important too!). 

Effective leadership at every level of the organisation is crucial. This involves managers articulating company values, communicating effectively and following up with appropriate actions. 

A good employee engagement survey will gauge these habits, from managers to C-level.

Related: Management performance survey template

Most people don’t want an easy job. They want to be challenged and tested in their day-to-day work. Challenging work can be hugely motivating for employees, as long as they can clearly see how their work relates to the company’s performance. 

SurveyMonkey research from December 2023 reveals that around 90% of employees say that their work is meaningful to them. Helping your employees find reasons for self-motivation, or points of connection between their interests and your vision, can help improve this metric.

Use your employee engagement survey to ask your employees how challenging (and motivating) their work is and whether there’s a connection between their performance and that of the company.

Ambitious employees are a good thing. They can be your team's most self-motivated and productive members, as long as it’s clear how you can help them progress in their careers. If it’s not, you’ll risk losing them. 

Clarity in terms of career goals is important, but you need to offer a helping hand. Are your employees being supported by educational and mentoring opportunities? 

Running an employee engagement survey can help you determine whether your employees can see a clear path forward and have the support they need to get where they want to go.

When employees are proud of where they work, it shows. They’re true believers in your mission and want to see your company succeed, and that attitude is reflected in their performance.

When people take pride in their company, they’ll take pride in their work. Fostering this feeling of pride isn’t just about making employees feel good about themselves: it makes them turn up to work focused, aligned with their peers and ready to tackle problems with commitment.

We spend a lot of time interacting with our colleagues. In companies of every size, it’s important to consider working relationships between employees. How they interact, how they view each other’s abilities and what they see as the strengths and weaknesses of the workforce all have an impact on the company morale. 

How employees view their colleagues can have a huge impact on their morale and their belief that they achieve company goals.  

Employee survey questions aimed at these issues should be a huge part of any employee engagement strategies you implement.

An employee engagement survey measures employee satisfaction, motivation and perceptions of the workplace. Businesses can use these surveys to gain a better understanding of their employees' feelings about their jobs and identify areas for improvement.

Related reading: Employee engagement survey template

Employee engagement is a central metric that will help you determine how happy your employees are in the workplace. These surveys allow employees to voice concerns, ideas and questions. By monitoring employee satisfaction over time, you can create a data-driven plan to improve the employee experience and increase employee morale.

Here are five advantages of employee engagement surveys:

Employee engagement surveys can give you a clearer insight into how your employees feel about their job, management and company. Your use of these surveys demonstrates to employees that you care about what they think and that their opinions matter. 

If you send out employee engagement surveys frequently, this is a clear signal to your employees that you listen to them. This approach can make your employees feel valued and appreciated. 

Surveys can also help you assess each person's level of employee engagement. These figures allow you to highlight high-performing employees who may have gone unnoticed until now.

Providing a platform where employees are encouraged to voice their thoughts, concerns and opinions about their organisation can create a culture where people are more comfortable. Comfortable employees are happier ones. 

Employee engagement surveys also help improve communication by clarifying expectations to avoid misunderstandings and provide constructive criticism. This improves everyone’s work performance and bolsters the overall success of the organisation.

Employee satisfaction is directly related to employee morale. If you want to maintain high employee morale, it’s a good idea to try to keep your employees happy. Surveys can help you gauge employee satisfaction by asking about their jobs and their future with your company. 

You can learn about their feelings towards their colleagues and management as well as whether they'd recommend your business to others. High recommendation rates typically suggest that employees are satisfied with their jobs.

Ensure that quality workers feel appreciated with recognition and rewards. Employees who feel valued are more likely to refrain from finding employment elsewhere. 

Employee engagement surveys can help you seek out employees who may be dissatisfied with their jobs. These insights empower you to implement reward incentives and team-oriented exercises that can make employees more engaged in the work culture.

An employee engagement survey benefits company culture by offering insight into your operations' inner workings. The feedback that you receive allows you to detect pain points that may need some restructuring. 

Closing the feedback loop will show your employees that you’re listening to their wishes and ideas. Over time, using these surveys and responding to the feedback that they generate will help contribute to a healthier, more positive company culture.

The employee experience includes everything from workplace satisfaction to contentedness with remuneration. You can use various surveys to measure employee engagement effectively.

Here are the most useful types of employee engagement surveys:

The employee Net Promoter® Score (eNPS) measures employees' overall satisfaction and engagement. This survey is straightforward and requires just one main question before it starts to generate useful data.

Employees answer the question “How likely is it that you would recommend working at this company to a friend or colleague?” They can answer on a scale of zero to ten, with ten being extremely likely.

Based on the responses, you can categorise your employees into promoters, passives and detractors. A higher proportion of promoters in your business signifies more satisfied employees. 

Our employee Net Promoter Score Survey template lets your business rapidly collect employee engagement and satisfaction insights and puts you on the path towards improving these metrics. 

Remote working has become a worldwide trend, with companies around the globe adopting remote or hybrid workplace models. Our employee engagement survey template for remote workers allows your business to monitor the engagement of these employees, regardless of their location.

The survey asks workers whether or not they agree with statements such as the following:

Respondents can then select an answer that closely aligns with their opinion from a range of responses. The remote work survey allows businesses to monitor and improve remote worker engagement, helping to boost productivity and improve revenue.

The aim of a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion survey is to gain a better understanding of the people who make up your business. These surveys will help you survey your workplace, helping to identify areas where you lack representation or where your internal practices could better align with the needs of your workforce.

Your business can use an employee diversity survey to understand additional needs that specific individuals from certain religious groups may need, identify further opportunities to promote inclusion and celebrate the diversity you already have.

Businesses that emphasise the importance of diversity enjoy higher cash flow per employee and often experience superior team performance. Here are a few sample questions from an employee diversity survey:

One of the leading factors contributing to high employee engagement rates is great remuneration packages. Your business can use an employee benefits planning survey to identify areas for enhancement.

By tracing satisfaction rates across different areas of your benefits plan, you will encounter potential improvements that you can make. With these enhancements come an increased sense of satisfaction at work, higher engagement and boosted productivity. 

Here are some typical questions from an employee benefits planning survey:

Another important aspect of enhancing the employee experience is ensuring that your business creates an enjoyable and supportive workplace culture. A culture pulse survey will help you measure overall workplace satisfaction, generating data on employees' feelings about workplace safety, dynamics and remuneration.

Your business can use culture pulse surveys to monitor whether or not your employees are happy with the workspace you’ve created. They will also flag areas that you can improve on, contributing to a better workplace culture for everyone.

Here are a few standard questions that you’ll find on a culture pulse survey:

Related: Employee feedback survey templates

Simply measuring employee engagement isn’t enough to foster an engaged workforce. You have to read the results, uncover areas for improvement and implement employee engagement strategies to achieve them. 

SurveyMonkey workforce survey data shows that around 85% of workers are satisfied with their jobs. Using surveys, you can boost this average figure in your organisation even more and enhance the overall employee experience.

Maybe you’re interested in measuring and improving only a few of the factors of employee engagement. For example, you may only be interested in how management performance affects employee engagement in your company. In that case, you may want to use the management performance survey template or extract only the portion of the employee engagement survey template that deals with management performance.

But if you’re truly focused on using surveys to develop employee engagement strategies, this probably isn’t the best approach. When you home in on a specific topic from the beginning, you may miss out on other areas for improvement. 

What if career development opportunities are a more important factor for employee engagement in your workforce than management performance? If you’re developing an overarching employee engagement strategy, it’s best to be comprehensive first and focus on specific parts second.

Here are some KPIs that are useful when tracking employee engagement with surveys:

Whichever metrics you choose, it’s important to communicate your plan to your employees and ensure that they understand how and when you’ll carry it out. Transparency is crucial to this process. 

Here’s a step-by-step plan for outlining and launching an employee engagement survey scheme:

How can you tell if your plan is having a positive effect? By continuously monitoring employee engagement and satisfaction and tracing any changes that occur. You're probably on the right track if your employee satisfaction rates are going up.

At first, receiving a large quantity of survey responses can be overwhelming. Here’s how you can review, analyse and create data-driven insights from your survey responses:

A continuous culture of data will allow you to improve your employee experience over time. It will also signal to your employees that you’re working to make your company the best possible workplace for them.

Measuring employee engagement with online surveys allows your business to identify actionable insights to improve satisfaction. 

Build a more productive workplace using SurveyMonkey templates to increase employee engagement. Select a plan that matches your marketing strategy or sign up to get started today.

NPS, Net Promoter and Net Promoter Score are registered trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company and Fred Reichheld.