Are you aware that the desktop beside yours is a real source of information about what good or bad is happening at the company? Yes, it is the employees who are an excellent source of knowledge not only about the employment conditions in the company but also about its general functioning. It may surprise you, but you can learn a lot from your team about how decisions are made, about your company’s internal hierarchy, and even your customers. All you need to do is ask the right questions and in this article, we will suggest which of the most popular HR surveys methods will be the most effective.
Good questions – necessity for every HR survey
The first group of questions that you should ask your employees is those regarding their job satisfaction. They can include the following:
- incentive/benefit system assessment survey,
- employee engagement survey,
- employee burnout survey,
- general employee satisfaction survey.
The second group includes research on the work of other team members and their relations with the respondent. They can include, for example:
- assessment of relations with the supervisor,
- 360 degree feedback,
- mobbing at work survey.
Regardless of the group to which your study belongs, it is important to conduct it regularly. A one-time survey will answer the question of what is happening in the organization, but without a thorough analysis of the results and repeating the survey in the future, you will not find out why this is happening.
Check ready-to-use examples of employee surveys
Exit and stay interview
While in most companies surveys for employees are already a standard procedure, exit and stay interviews are still not so popular. And they should, because these are simply surveys made not for the current employees but for former employees (exit interview) or those who decided to stay in the company and, for example, were promoted (stay interview). The exit interview survey is designed for all employees who end their cooperation with your company – it should be sent to them after the termination of the contract.
Completing a survey among people who have left the company or decided to continue the cooperation will allow you to find out the reason for their decision, i.e. answer similar questions to the following:
- does the structure of the organization ensure promotion within it,
- how are earnings/bonus system/benefits assessed,
- are there no disturbing situations in the company related to e.g. mobbing,
- what are the relations between employees.
In the case of exit interviews, there is one more big advantage – the certainty of honest feedback. After all, an employee who does not continue to cooperate with your company has nothing to lose – he/she does not have to be afraid of the consequences of issuing a negative opinion. That is why their feedback is so important and necessary.
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Ask not only AFTER but also BEFORE – ex ante opinion
It turns out that employees can be a source of knowledge, opinions, and inspiration. It is worth taking into account their feedback during the ex-ante evaluation, that is, a study conducted before an event or before introducing changes. Due to financial reasons or time savings, sometimes the assessment of the activities you plan should take place at the very beginning – even before their implementation. In such a situation, it is worth using the ex-ante opinion addressed to employees, which will allow to determine such things as the demand for a given activity, gather opinions about the project or estimate its costs.
Examples of ex-ante surveys for employees include:
- questionnaire about a team-building trip,
- voting for the best project/idea,
- survey related to the change of office location,
- research on food preferences in companies where the employer funds meals.
Ready HR surveys templates + advanced analysis = Startquestion research
Do you already know what questions to ask employees? That’s great! You and the entire HR department can start a free trial period and create research using ready templates and knowledge gathered on our blog. In the latter case, we have created a separate section for you – employee insights – in which you will find a lot of articles explaining the idea and course of the most popular studies, such as Candidate Experience or Exit Interview.
