Employees are the backbone of any organization. Various studies have shown that employee happiness leads to increased productivity as well as an increase in sales. But how do you know if your employees are happy or satisfied? It all starts with conducting regular employee feedback surveys. 

When done correctly, employee feedback surveys can provide actionable insights and help you provide the most stimulating environment for your employees. Here’s how you can conduct employee feedback surveys. 

Table of contents

Why You Should Collect Employee Feedback 

While it’s great to give your employees feedback on how they are performing, it’s also important that you are collecting their feedback on their experience and their satisfaction with leadership and workplace. Your employees need to know that they have a voice in the organization. 

Collecting employee feedback can help improve overall job satisfaction and engagement. More satisfied and productive employees lead to more productivity and profitability. 

We recommend using employee surveys in order to collect feedback. Not only does this approach save time when compared to one-on-one meetings, employees often feel more comfortable being honest when they aren’t sitting across from their supervisor. 

Employee Satisfaction Stats 

Don’t believe that employee surveys are worth it? The fact is that an increase in employee satisfaction leads to tangible results. Here are the numbers. 

It’s indisputable: using customer feedback to build a better company is worth it. 

20 Questions for Your Employee Feedback Survey 

Not sure what to ask on your employee feedback surveys? Here are some sample questions that you can include in your employee feedback survey. 

  • How satisfied are you with your job? 
  • What do you like most about your job? 
  • What do you dislike most about your job? 
  • How likely are you to recommend working at this company to friends? 
  • What is one area that we can improve on? 
  • How does the company address failure? 
  • Do you feel that management is transparent about changes within the organization? 
  • How does the company reward success? 
  • Do you have all the resources and support you need to do your job? 
  • Do you regularly receive constructive feedback from your manager and coworkers? 

Be sure to ask company culture questions as well. Remember, strong company culture has been linked to higher productivity. 

Culture Questions 

  • Do you feel respected by your coworkers? 
  • Do you have fun working here? 
  • How well do you work with your team? 
  • Do you feel inspired by the company’s mission statement?
  • Do you feel that you have a good work-life balance? 
  • When you work cross-collaboratively 
  • Do you feel that you are valued by management? 
  • Do you feel that you get proper recognition for your accomplishments? 
  • How well do the company’s values line up with day-to-day actions? 
  • Do you typically resolve conflicts with your coworkers? 

Tips for Impactful Employee Feedback Surveys 

There are surveys and then there are ‘Good’ surveys. A good survey helps you collect relevant information in the most respectful way.  Here are a few tips to help you get the most from your employee feedback surveys. 

Make the Surveys Anonymous 

Some employees might not feel comfortable giving honest feedback when their name is attached to the survey. Consider making your surveys anonymous so that your employees are able to provide their honest feedback and not worry about their supervisors finding out . 

Keep the Surveys Short 

Studies show that employees abandon surveys at high rates when they take more than 7 minutes to complete. Make sure that your surveys are short enough so that an employee can get through them without having to put in too much effort. If you have more questions, you can always ask them when you run the survey again – say a year later.

Give Your Employees Reasonable Time to complete the Survey 

If you expect the surveys to be done too quickly, chances are that you’ll get a ton of rushed answers that don’t provide the constructive feedback you may need to improve the workplace. 

How to Analyze Employee Feedback Survey Results 

Once you’ve gotten back feedback from your employees, it’s time to make sure that you turn this feedback into action. Here’s what you can do to make sure you get the most out of your employee feedback surveys. 

Follow Up With Your Team

Thank your team for taking the survey and let them know that you will analyze results and make changes based on the opinions expressed. Remember, employees might not take these surveys seriously if they do not feel like they are leading to any actual changes. 

Analyze Results

Take a look at the survey results. There are a few factors to consider. While you should consider overall scores, also consider trends over time and scores across different departments. This can give you an idea of how well your current initiatives are working to create change and show which areas are seen as most problematic by different parts of the company. 

Find Areas to Focus On 

Chances are that you can’t work on every possible area of improvement that was mentioned in the surveys. So look at the results and find the few areas that you want to focus on. It’s better to try to work on a couple of things at a time than try to rehaul everything at once. 

Implement Changes

Once you’ve decided on areas that you want to focus on, it’s time to start implementing changes. Create a plan with clear goals and timelines so that you can hold yourself accountable. Think about what kind of changes you want to see in a year’s time. 

Communicate Changes with Your Team 

Remember, it’s important to let your employees know what has changed as a result of their feedback. This will not only help employees understand how their feedback led to real changes in processes, it also gives them an opportunity to prepare for the changes that are coming. 

Exit Interview and Exit Surveys 

Let’s talk about one of the forms of employee feedback that everyone dreads: exit interviews. Let’s be honest: nobody likes doing an exit interview. In many cases, exit interviews are used as an occasion for Human Resources to finish up paperwork. It feels like checking a box for both employers and employees. 

Still, exit interviews are a great opportunity for your business to collect feedback and make improvements. By actually getting constructive feedback from these interviews, you can make these exit interviews to improve the experience of all of your employees. 

The Harvard Business Review identified two reasons why exit interviews often yielded bad results for employers.

  1. Employees aren’t being candid- Chances are that employees do not want to burn bridges in their old company and will not speak their mind. 
  2. Best Practices- Companies are not following best practices around exit interviews.

Here are a few tips from research to help you collect better employee feedback. 

Timing

If you do an exit interview on the day that the employee is scheduled to leave, chances are that they’re already mentally checked-out. It’s recommended to get feedback halfway between their announced departure and when they actually leave. 

It’s also recommended that you do another exit interview survey a few months after the fact. At this point, the employee may be willing to be more candid than when they were actually employed by your business.

Listen, Don’t Talk 

Make sure that the exit interview is a place where the employee feels comfortable being honest. Be patient and warm and encourage the employee to speak their mind. Ask open-ended questions so that the employee can talk about the issues they care the most about. 

Consider Using Surveys 

While a face-to-face exit interview can yield good feedback, it’s important to remember that employees might not be 100% candid in this format. A survey can be a better way to provide constructive feedback. Here, the departing employee is more comfortable expressing their honest opinion.

How Birdeye Can Help

Looking for a software solution to help you collect better employee feedback? Businesses use Birdeye’s award-winning surveys in order to collect and analyze feedback from both employees and customers. More than 150,000 businesses trust Birdeye to grow revenue.

Click here to see how you can collect better feedback with Birdeye surveys.

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