Employee surveys: Types, example questions, and how to conduct them

Stop guessing and start leading. Employee surveys provide the data you need to measure job satisfaction, boost employee engagement, and strategically improve benefits or performance reviews. By gauging employee opinions directly, your business can actively enhance the work experience.

This guide breaks down the different survey types, provides practical example questions, and delivers proven best practices designed for HR team success.

Employee surveys are questionnaires used by people managers and human resources to gather feedback on workplace topics, like satisfaction, engagement, and culture. 

Employee surveys can serve various purposes to help an organization improve employee experience, create healthier work environments, improve work-life balance, and prioritize inclusion and belonging. 

You’ll make better decisions, improve organizational health, and have a happier workplace when you listen to your employees. The different types of employee surveys collect data for distinct purposes.    

Read on for 11 types of employee surveys business owners, HR teams, managers, and training & development professionals use:

Evaluate employees based on feedback from supervisors, peers, and subordinates. This type of feedback is focused on employee assessment from multiple perspectives.

Career training and development surveys evaluate what continuing education courses matter most to employees. Assess how employees perceive your workplace training and development opportunities, and evaluate their effectiveness. 

Building a workplace culture that prioritizes belonging and inclusion is the most effective way to attract diverse and talented individuals, foster a sustainable workforce, and—most importantly—make employees feel supported.

Adequate employee benefits are crucial to attracting and retaining top talent. See if employees feel they are compensated fairly with this employee benefits questionnaire. Gather data to help improve your employee benefits program and support healthier employees.   

How would employees rate their job performance and satisfaction? Measure employee performance by asking them to evaluate themselves. This enables managers to pinpoint areas for improvement and identify where additional support is required.

Job satisfaction is critical to employee retention efforts. A job satisfaction survey measures how fulfilled employees feel in their roles and helps maintain high morale.

A comfortable work environment and strong company direction are key to a happy and productive workforce. Measure employee satisfaction to improve retention and company culture.  

Related reading: Employee satisfaction—Why it matters and how to improve

Pulse surveys are an effective way to track employee sentiment over time and assess the impact of company changes. Pulse surveys are sent regularly to gather employee feedback and identify emerging issues early. 

Gauge employees’ opinions on their managers by sending out a survey. This survey ensures supervisors and managers are communicating expectations, goals, and company vision to direct reports. 

Exit surveys enable departing employees to share insights that can help improve onboarding and overall employee satisfaction in the future. Find out why people leave and what you can do to keep others in the fold.

Wondering what employees think about company events and what they’d like to see? Send out an event survey to make your next event or meeting even better. 

Additional employee survey template pages to check out:

Here are some sample questions to get you started. Explore our survey template library, featuring over 400 expert-written surveys.  

To maximize the impact of your surveys, you need the right strategy. Deploy these employee survey tips to gather the most accurate data, empowering you to make confident, data-backed business decisions.

Your overarching goal will dictate the survey's scope, the types of questions asked, and ultimately, how the results are interpreted and used. Without a well-defined objective, the survey risks becoming a collection of disjointed questions that yield ambiguous or unactionable data.

Benchmarking allows you to strategically compare internal teams and identify trends in employee well-being. The secret to reliability is consistency: use the same questions every time with every group to establish accurate benchmarks and track the impact of your support initiatives.

For global organizations, surveys must be multilingual. Distributing surveys in multiple languages ensures clarity and yields more accurate responses across the entire workforce.

Respect employee time by keeping surveys concise and limiting questions strictly to necessary information. This is also best practice for maximizing completion rates.

Make the most of your time by leveraging SurveyMonkey’s 400+ free survey templates. These templates provide a foundation for your survey and are easily customizable to meet your specific needs. SurveyMonkey also gives you access to the survey tools you need to easily deploy and analyze your HR survey, empowering you to make smarter decisions.

Remember that you’re not asking a one-time customer about their experience. You are surveying your colleagues whom you work with every day; therefore, giving critical feedback may not be comfortable, although necessary. You can gather candid, actionable feedback by making your survey anonymous. Anonymous employee surveys are the gold standard when it comes to workplace feedback.

Send your survey when you know employees will be working. That may be between 9-5 pm during the work week. Or if they work third shift, 7 PM on a Saturday. Sending your survey when employees are maximally engaged ensures a higher likelihood of participation. 

Close the feedback loop by sharing key findings with your team. This transparency builds trust and clearly demonstrates that leadership values employee input.

You’re not done after the first survey. After you act on previous feedback, you should measure employee perceptions to measure the efficacy of your changes. Even better, you should regularly deploy regular employee surveys to monitor employee sentiment. That may look like monthly employee pulse surveys, quarterly performance reviews, or yearly eNPS surveys.

Employee surveys enable business leaders and HR teams to monitor employee engagement, satisfaction, and other key metrics. By applying the tips and best practices we provided, you can begin gathering valuable data from employees. 
SurveyMonkey is your partner in creating and sending employee surveys. Our platform makes it easy to get started today.