Rethinking Work Surveys: Five Commonly Asked Questions and How to Improve Them

by Smartz Solutions | Blog Posts | 0 comments

Workplace surveys are a vital tool for organizations aiming to gain insights into employee engagement, job satisfaction, and other key factors influencing productivity and workplace culture. However, poor response rates can significantly hinder the efficacy of these surveys. Often, certain poorly framed or sensitive questions can deter employees from completing surveys. Let’s explore five commonly asked questions that typically elicit the lowest response rates, and propose improved alternatives:

Too General Questions: “How do you feel about your job?” This question is exceedingly broad and vague. Employees might not know how to articulate their feelings or where to start. A more effective strategy is to break this down into more specific questions that target different aspects of the job. For instance, “How satisfied are you with your work-life balance?” or “On a scale of 1-10, how challenging do you find your current role?” This approach yields more precise responses and minimizes confusion.

Loaded Questions: “Don’t you agree that our recent changes have improved the work environment?” This type of question is loaded, pushing the respondent towards a specific answer, which could skew the results and discourage honest responses. Instead, opt for a more neutral phrasing, such as “How would you rate the impact of our recent changes on the work environment?”

Sensitive or Personal Questions: “Do you think your colleague X is competent?” Questions that target specific individuals or ask for personal judgments can make employees uncomfortable and less likely to respond. They can also foster a negative work environment. Replace such questions with ones that focus on the team or process instead. For instance, “How effective do you find our current team collaboration?”

Multi-Barreled Questions: “How satisfied are you with your salary, benefits, and work-life balance?” This question addresses several different issues, making it difficult for the respondent to provide a clear answer. Breaking it down into separate questions such as “How satisfied are you with your salary?” and “How satisfied are you with your work-life balance?” will garner more accurate responses.

Negative Questions: “What don’t you like about our company culture?” While it’s important to uncover issues, framing questions negatively can discourage respondents. Instead, a positively framed question like, “What aspects of our company culture would you like to see improved or changed?” can promote constructive feedback.

In conclusion, to improve response rates in work surveys, it’s essential to carefully consider the framing and phrasing of your questions. Avoid vague, loaded, sensitive, multi-barreled, and negatively framed questions. Instead, strive for specificity, neutrality, team-oriented, individual, and positively phrased questions. Doing so not only encourages better response rates but also provides more valuable and actionable insights. Remember, the goal of any survey is to encourage open, honest communication and foster a better work environment. The questions we ask play a pivotal role in achieving that goal.

About Smartz SolutionsIn the modern working world, you do not need to spend millions of dollars on multiple platforms and applications only to offer your teams and customers mediocre experiences. You need one solution on one integrated platform to provide exceptional experiences.

Smartz Solutions specializes in managing customer and employee experiences through our enabling technology. Based on a wealth of knowledge covering multiple industries, we have developed a suite of products that include the entire customer engagement journey offering best-in-class, world-class applications in a single end-to-end CX and EX platform.