Employee Engagement Surveys: Purpose, Benefits, and Types

There's no denying that people are the most valuable business asset. They're the ones making the magic happen, so their satisfaction has to be a priority.

Employee engagement is all about the emotional investment of a company's staff. It represents an individual's desire to continuously excel at work and the drive to put forth their utmost effort, making a contribution that helps the organization achieve its objectives. Such employees are often more focused, satisfied with their role, and tend to take fewer sick days.

Yet, most business leaders only assume that everything is okay, which leads to employee engagement becoming a significant obstacle. Failing to make a meaningful connection with the people onboard can result in decreased productivity, higher turnover rates, and other negative consequences like the need to overspend on recruitment, onboarding new hires, and so on. A lot of this can be avoided if management notices their employees' challenges and makes timely changes. 

What if you don't want to lose your employees? And is there a smarter way to evaluate engagement than guesswork? Running surveys can help you get meaningful data, empowering you to take action. The anticipated result? You get an organizational culture where everyone feels acknowledged and valued, boosting the overall employee well-being.

On this page, we'll introduce you to such surveys, covering the main employee engagement survey purpose, reasons to use this tool, which advantages it can bring, and what kinds of surveys exist.

What Is an Employee Engagement Survey?

What are employee engagement surveys? These are valuable questionnaire tools used for understanding how employees feel about their work experience, enabling business leaders and organizations to assess their workforce's levels of engagement, motivation, dedication, and satisfaction.

Although these are abstract feelings, surveys can help transform them into insights that can drive action. They evaluate and capture employee sentiment at a specific time, allowing for data collection and strategic planning.

What do such surveys consist of? The questions are usually thoughtfully constructed and aimed at uncovering the employees' attitudes toward their work. Surveys can be run traditionally, say on paper or in the face-to-face format, or with the help of online survey tools for additional anonymity and more enhanced analytics.

What Is the Purpose of an Employee Engagement Survey?

Connecting with every single employee in the company personally could be tough for HRs and leadership levels. After all, it's common that teams are in multiple locations, and the spread of hybrid and fully remote work has only made it even harder. 

That's why the purpose of employee engagement survey usage is that it serves as a means that lets people share their thoughts and express their views.

In turn, leadership can analyze the responses and utilize such feedback to uncover the levels of employee satisfaction, what drives engagement most, and which roadblocks exist. The findings could highlight problematic areas that may be limiting them to perform at their best. For instance, if the survey reveals that an internal process or workflow is ineffective, or if there are not enough tools to help employees cope with their tasks more efficiently, these can become vital points to act on.

Importantly, such surveys can provide both qualitative and quantitative data. And the obtained metrics and comments may surely help measure satisfaction and make more informed decisions.

Employee Survey Objectives

If you plan on making the most of your employee engagement surveys, the questions must focus on a few critical areas that influence engagement:

• job satisfaction;
• loyalty and intent to stay in the company;
• current involvement;
• future commitment;
• motivation;
• pride in the company;
• willingness to recommend the company to others;
• challenges faced;
• a sense of belonging.

Surveys vary significantly in length, ranging from a few questions to as many as 50-60. Some questions may be open-ended, but generally, employees are asked to give their responses according to a five-point scale from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree". Either way, getting a score or metric measuring engagement is one of the main objectives of employee engagement survey usage.

How often should you run these surveys? Well, the optimal frequency really depends. But doing so regularly is certainly an employee engagement best practice. Some organizations conduct them on an annual or bi-annual basis, while others run surveys quarterly or even every month.

Storing the results is also integral, as comparing them lets you identify trends, monitor engagement dynamics, and check whether the introduced changes are working.

Why Are Employee Engagement Surveys Important?

According to recent research, the global employee engagement rate falls in the 60-70% range. However, other findings suggest that those organizations that manage to transform employee feedback into action can boost it up to 80%. Do you see why employee engagement surveys matter?

Another resource states that two out of three employees say that it matters to them when leaders listen to their feedback. Perhaps, this is why if the feedback program is regularly held, engagement could grow.

What else does this mean for business? Engaged teams and satisfied employees are more productive and sell more. While those who are burned out are twice as likely to go job hunting and are 63% more likely to take various types of paid time off like sick days.

All of the above underscores the importance of employee engagement surveys and why they shouldn't be neglected. After all, if you don't ask directly, how else will you know for sure?

Employee Engagement Survey Benefits

Having an inspired and hardworking workforce is the dream. And surveys could be an effective means for getting closer to obtaining such teams. Let's go over the major benefits of employee engagement surveys.

Driving Employee Engagement 

Employee engagement surveys are the cornerstone of a robust listening strategy. People have a voice, and many of them want to be included and heard. So surveys could be the means to align the HR team's or management's views with what employees actually feel and experience.

What you think might be way off from where things stand, oftentimes there's a big difference (worse than expected). But surveys could provide a realistic outlook, and a lot can be done when you have insights into the workforce's real sentiments. It lets you learn more about how to attract and retain talent now and in the future.

Reducing Employee Dissatisfaction and Turnover

Are you noticing a decline in morale or sensed a drop in team spirit? Have several employees handed in their resignations? Well, "happy employees = happy business".

Employee engagement surveys help keep your hand on the pulse. They allow you to monitor workplace sentiment and proactively address potential issues before they escalate. Preventing such unfavorable scenarios can help the company save talent and money.

The fewer people in the workplace are passive means more are delivering at their best. This could mean additional perks like higher productivity, recommending the company to others, supporting the brand, and so on.

Allocating Areas for Improvement

It's always nice to give yourself a pat on the back, knowing that you're doing everything right business-wise and your employees are happy. Nonetheless, if you aim to uncover major challenges with staff and the hidden business opportunities in this respect, surveys could be the go-to tool.

What's working well? What processes need change? Dialogue matters if you really care. With proper survey integration, feedback could become a continuous loop that aids in transforming workplace culture and tackling major issues that are harming productivity and other areas. In the end, your efforts are more focused, letting you hit the target precisely.

Increasing Levels of Trust

Topping that, when employees feel that their opinion matters and see the difference, their levels of motivation can visibly go up. Honestly, what's the point of participating in employee surveys if nothing changes?

If things do change for the better, trust becomes a two-way road. To demonstrate proactiveness, share the survey results, what you've discovered, and what you plan to enhance (and in which timeframes). It works both ways and can definitely be a closer step to a healthier work environment and stronger, longer-lasting relationships. Do we have to emphasize that this is one of the main reasons why employee engagement surveys are important?

Improving the Management's Image

Company culture is essential, as not only money matters nowadays. People care about the mission, the delivered value, and who they work with. Supportive and initiative-taking management that listens and actually does something instead of giving unkept promises is what shapes the culture and builds trust. This can help retain employees and may boost the likelihood of them referring the company to their acquaintances, which can cut costs on recruitment and help get more awesome people onboard.

Data-Backed Strategic Improvements

Operating based on assumptions or guesses is rather risky. When you have data with context (both provided by surveys), it becomes much clearer where you're going and why. Meaningful changes are what make the workplace better. When those working for a company are happy, other parts of the puzzle begin to find their place as well.

Even more so, you can look into the data that was collected over time, making you do year-over-year comparisons. This can help you track the dynamics, find out what worked and what didn't, and improve your strategies.

Less Wasted Money

It is estimated that numerous companies waste up to 10k USD per year on keeping a disengaged employee on board. The numbers could really add up, as dissatisfied employees are much less productive, deliver worse quality, and generally spend more time off work than actually performing. Why conduct an employee engagement survey, you ask? It's a rather effortless way to find out the truth, save resources, and make a change for the better.

Types of Employee Engagement Surveys

Employee surveys also come in various forms. All in all, their volume, aim, and level of intricacy could differ too. Here are a few of the most common types.

• Annual or quarterly surveys — Such general surveys are like a health check that's held once in a while to measure overall employee engagement; the covered topics often include fundamental business pillars like job satisfaction, management and leadership effectiveness, and workplace culture.

• Opinion or feedback surveys — Conducted with the objective of finding out the employees' points of view on a matter in focus, such as company policies (for instance the PTO policy and how it can be improved) or can have to do with the team dynamics or management practices.

• Pulse surveys — These are not as lengthy as annual surveys and could be conducted more often (say, on a monthly or quarterly basis), targeting specific business issues or particular areas of concern with the aim of getting quick insights into employee sentiments like regarding the immediate effects of new initiatives or changes.

• Lifecycle surveys — Such surveys are conducted at key points in an employee's journey (like onboarding or during exit interviews), the main purpose of an employee engagement survey of this kind is to collect feedback that deals with the specific stage, for instance, for evaluating the company's onboarding process.

But how are they created and conducted? As we've mentioned, some hand surveys out old-school style on paper or hold one-on-one meetings. But those who want to squeeze the most out of them typically use specially designed tools, as they offer the utmost customization, analytics, and other opportunities that you won't get on paper.

One such solution is OrgaNice. Its survey feature is a perfect fit for companies using Slack, as it lets you run surveys right in the workspace without having to use a separate third-party tool. This team survey Slack bot makes it super easy to listen to your employees' voices. Besides, the surveys are easy to customize, and you can get started with them in several minutes using one of the ready-made templates. Topping that, the stats are collected in a neat dashboard, letting you stay in the loop and harness the collected data.

Major Takeaways on Employee Engagement Surveys

Employee engagement surveys serve as vital tools for tapping into and understanding your workforce and the company climate. If well-executed, such surveys can really make a difference, as they provide valuable insights and help you spot trends, monitor dynamics, and act timely based on data.

Why do employee engagement surveys work? By actively listening and analyzing feedback, companies can initiate real change, demonstrate genuine concern, and cultivate a workplace culture with open dialogue, transparency, and ongoing development. Ultimately, it's a win-win for everyone.

If you don't know how to get started with employee surveys, you can take a shot at OrgaNice. It integrates seamlessly with Slack and can make surveys happen directly in the workspace that all your employees use daily. There's no need to "lure" them to some external tool, waste hours on putting together and setting up the survey, or go through the trouble of collecting and storing data. The bot can get your surveys running in minutes.

And a few cherries on top? OrgaNice is an entire collection of HR tools, including an org chart builder, time off tracking solution, birthday celebration bot, and more neat stuff. You can get access to them completely free of charge if your team has fewer than 36 people, and the low pricing for bigger teams may surprise you as well. Feel free to reach out to us if you want to learn more!