What’s the challenge?Poorly designed or generic questionnaires won’t accurately measure engagement.

To get an employee survey that drives business improvement, you should start by designing a questionnaire with relevant and ‘actionable’ questions.

We share advice based on best practice and our experience of measuring what matters for companies we work with.

How do you solve it?

Ask the right questionsEstablish what your survey should measure and how results will be used. This means results better inform and drive relevant action. Here’s what we suggest:

Measure key issues. Ensure your questionnaire measures issues important to BOTH the company and employees. Use focus groups or stakeholder interviews to get employee input into questionnaire design.

Trends – what do you already know? Don’t throw away previous survey questions. Carry out a qualitative or statistical review to identify key questions to retain, those providing a historical comparison and weed out overlapping questions.

Include ‘actionable’ questions. Use questions that’ll give useful results and a foundation for relevant and meaningful action plans.

External benchmarking. Word all questions in your company’s voice but include a good proportion of ‘standard’ survey questions that are comparable with other organisations.

Keep it brief. Optimise the length of your questionnaire. It should take no longer than 10-15 minutes to complete.

Actionable questions

Example of a survey statement you can’t easily take action on if scores are low:

“I am motivated to do my best by my manager”

Examples of statements you could use instead, which could be more readily acted on:

“My manager listens to me” “My manager provides regular constructive feedback”

inspire brilliance

How to: Design effective survey questionnaires Call us on: +44 (0)1932 222700 or visit: etsplc.com

How to

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How to:Design effective survey questionnaires

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inspire brilliance

Measure employee engagement in your businessDesigning your survey with an engagement index at its heart means it becomes a business improvement tool rather than just a collection of opinions. The engagement index comes from a small number of questions that are key measures of engagement for your employees.

We use a ‘Think, Feel, Do’ model to underpin questionnaire design. This helps you measure what’s important for your employees. It assumes what employees think drives what they feel and do in the workplace – their engagement.

Here are a few tips for how this works in practice:

Feel and Do: This small number of questions make up the engagement index, measuring what people feel – ‘pride’ for example, and how they behave ‘intending to stay’ or ‘recommending the company’.

Think: Use the rest of the survey questions to cover potential drivers of engagement, including topics like ‘career development’, ‘the job’ and ‘line management’. Action on these areas should directly impact engagement levels.

Call us on: +44 (0)1932 222700 or visit: etsplc.comHow to: Design effective survey questionnaires

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Case study

One of our clients – a leading mobile telecoms company – base their survey on eight high-priority areas, which includes: ‘My Team’, ‘Wellbeing’, 'My Manager’ and ‘Pay and Benefits’. They keep it really simple with only 20 questions, making it quick and easy to complete.

What next?To find out more,click on the links below:

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► About us

Would you like more help with this?If you want to talk – either about taking action on survey results or a broader engagement or survey challenge – please contact us.

Call us on +44 (0)1932 222700

Or e-mail us at info@etsplc.com

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