55 Questions for Your Next Feedback Survey (& Free Template)

Employee feedback surveys are a powerful tool for businesses committed to fostering a thriving workplace culture. By giving employees a platform to share their insights and experiences, companies demonstrate they value their workforce's voice—a key factor in driving performance and engagement.

Just as voting in an election gives citizens the right to stand up and fight for their beliefs, feedback surveys at work allow employees to express valuable opinions about working for your company. 

In this guide, we’ll cover essential steps to create effective feedback surveys and actionable strategies to use the insights gathered for meaningful change.

What is an employee feedback survey?

An employee feedback survey is a short list of questions that ask staff about their experience of working for your company. You'll cover vital topics, including 

• Teamwork
• Internal communication
• Work-life balance
• Company culture
• Personal growth, etc.

Depending on your organizational model, you might also ask about remote or hybrid work where relevant. 

Traditional questionnaires are printed and completed manually, but sending digital surveys is more efficient and produces greater response rates.

Tip: Collect feedback anonymously to encourage more honest survey results. 

How do I create an employee feedback survey?

1. Identify the purpose of the feedback survey

Before creating a survey, you need to define the specific goals you want to achieve. 

For example:

• Are you looking to measure employee satisfaction?
• Do you want to gather feedback on a recent change?
• Are you aiming to identify areas where employees would like to see improvements?

Tip: Be clear about what you want to achieve so you can design questions to help you achieve those goals.

2. Select a survey format

Determine the type of survey format that is best for your needs. Some options include: 

• Online surveys
• Paper surveys (not very remote-friendly, though)
• (In-person) interviews
• Focus groups

Tip: Online surveys are often the most convenient and cost-effective method.

3. Determine the survey content

Your purpose and goals will inform the specific topics and questions you want to cover. So ensure that your questions are clear, concise, and relevant to the purpose of the survey. 

Tip: Consider including open-ended questions allowing employees to provide more detailed feedback.

4. Test the survey

Before distributing the survey, have a small group of employees take the survey and provide feedback. 

Testing before a full launch will help you identify any areas that need improvement before sending the survey to the entire organization.

5. Analyze and act on the results

Once the survey is complete, analyze the data and identify trends and areas for improvement. 

Communicate the survey results to the employees. There's nothing worse than companies that run surveys and call it a day. Your people expect a follow-up. So let employees know that you heard their feedback. 

Tip: Develop action plans to address any areas of concern. 

How long should your survey be?

Your employees are busy, so design a short, meaningful survey that doesn't take up too much of their time. Aim to have them complete it in under 5 minutes—test this out and mention the survey length at the top for extra motivation. 

Focus on survey user experience too. Your questions should be specific, and your employees shouldn't be confused about what you're asking them. Survey response rates can fall if the questionnaire is too wordy or the answer fields don't match the questions. 

️55 Employee feedback survey questions to include

Create your own employee feedback survey by covering questions about different aspects of working life, including the following: 

• Company culture 
• Personal growth 
• Engagement 
• Team collaboration 
• Manager communication 
• Work-life balance 
• Remote work 

Your people's feedback gives you a valuable overview of whether your employees feel aligned with the company culture and your overall mission. But you'll also receive granular insights about how individuals collaborate within teams and communicate with supervisors. This impacts an employee's work-life balance and personal development. 

The below questions use a sliding scale format, where the recipient will choose answers ranging from Strongly disagree (1) to Strongly agree (5).

Survey questions about company culture 

Company culture is crucial to an employee's happiness and motivation in their role. Those who don't fit in or feel their values don't align with the company are likely to disengage and become unhappy in their work. 

Ask questions including: 

• I understand my company's mission and goals
• My organization offers transparent communication to employees
• I believe our organization is better now than it was six months ago
• I am proud to work for this company
• I believe our organization is capable of meeting its goals

Survey questions about personal growth

Employees must feel the potential for personal and professional growth in their current roles. Regular pulse surveys enable HR leads and supervisors to understand if their team members feel supported in their development, whether they have the opportunity to progress, and if they're using their skillset to the best of their ability. Try questions like: 

• The feedback I receive is frequent enough to help me understand how I can improve.
• My company contributes to my professional development. 
• My supervisor offers coaching or mentoring to support my development goals. 
• I have a clear understanding of the career path and promotion opportunities offered by my company. 
• I have a development plan aimed at improving my skills
• I am appropriately involved in decisions that affect my work.

Survey questions about engagement

Employee engagement survey questions reveal so much about job satisfaction.

94.7% of employees who self-identify as highly engaged also feel their employer takes their feedback seriously. Disengagement levels impact retention, so this key metric will also tell you if your employees plan to stay with the company or leave in the near future. 

• I feel motivated to go above and beyond at work. 
• I believe I'll be able to reach my full potential at this organization. 
• I would recommend this company to a friend or colleague. 
• Employee morale is high at this organization.

Survey questions about team collaboration

Teams that can't work collaboratively are usually unproductive, unhappy, and have high employee turnover rates. A survey of more than 1,600 working adults found lack of teamwork contributes to high volumes of workplace stress. In particular, poor communication is responsible for 39% of stress. 

Want to know whether your team is cohesive? These questions about collaboration highlight where the strengths and weaknesses lie and where you need to make changes. 

• I feel that my individual goals strongly align with our team goals.
• I feel connected to my coworkers. 
• My peers are committed to producing quality work. 
• My team shows respect to each team member. 
• I have friends at work that contribute towards a positive work culture. 

Survey questions about manager communication

Employees need to know management teams are hearing their voices and addressing their concerns in a timely manner. Strong communication comes down to the relationship between employees and their direct supervisor. But all too often, this can be lacking, with 69% of managers uncomfortable communicating with their employees. Ask the following questions to establish if communication channels work in your organization. 

• I am satisfied with the frequency I and my manager communicate. 
• I feel comfortable giving opinions and feedback to my manager. 
• My direct supervisor is good at recognizing my contributions at work. 
• Recognition is delivered in a timely fashion. 
• I feel respected by my supervisor. 

Survey questions about work-life balance

A good work-life balance is crucial to employee productivity and motivation. It's also an important part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Employers must strive to help their team members achieve healthy work-life harmony.

Why? Along with being the right thing to do, workplace stress also costs the global workforce an estimated $1 trillion in lost productivity annually. Check how your employees feel about the following statements: 

• I have manageable stress at work. 
• I can maintain a healthy balance between my work and personal life.
• My employer takes action to prevent employee burnout. 
• I can switch off from work easily at the end of the day. 

Survey questions about remote work

There can be ambiguity about what it means to be part of a distributed team for both employees who work from home full-time and hybrid employees.

In a Deloitte "Return to Workplace" survey, 32% of employers consider "maintaining culture" a top concern. If you manage remote teams, your employees should always feel like they are still part of the company culture and have the same opportunities as employees who work in the office. Assess the following: 

• My employer has set clear WFH policies and expectations. 
• It's easy for me to reach teammates and team leaders when I need them. 
• I feel trusted by my supervisors in my remote working role. 
• My employer treats office-based employees and remote-based employees equally. 
• My work environment is set up as a distraction-free space where I feel productive. 

Open text employee feedback questions 

Sliding scale questions are helpful as they allow you to analyze sentiment at both an individual and aggregate level. But you'll gain more detailed insights from open-ended questions.

Ask the following questions to entice more information from your survey recipients. 

Tip: use these sparingly as they're more time-consuming than sliding scale questions. 

• Do you feel like you have a clear understanding of your job responsibilities and goals? If not, please explain.
• What factors motivate you to do your best work?
• What are some of the biggest challenges you face in your role?
• Do you feel like your work is appreciated? Why or why not?
• What are your career goals? Choose 3 and share why they're important to you.
• How can we better support your work and professional development?
• Would you like to receive any training from us? If yes, please provide details. 
• In the past two months, have you interviewed for another job? If yes, please explain why.
• What do you think sets our company apart from competitors?
• Are company leaders positive role models?
• What could our leaders do better? 
• What would you like to see changed about our company culture?
• What should our company start doing/keep doing/stop doing?
• Do you feel like there are opportunities for you to contribute ideas and feedback within your department or the company as a whole? If not, please explain.
• Are there any benefits or perks you would like to see added to our employee offerings?

Survey questions about organizational change

Organizational change can be a major challenge for many employees, and it's important to gather feedback on how these changes are being received and how you can address employee pains related to the change.

Employees are more likely to feel engaged and supportive of organizational change if they feel that their opinions are valued and taken into consideration.

• How do you feel about the recent changes in [department/structure/process]?
• What could be done differently to make the change easier for you?
• Do you feel that your voice is being heard during the change process? If not, what could be done to ensure that your feedback is taken into consideration?
• How has the recent change affected your workload and productivity?
• Are there any changes that could be made to improve your ability to do your job effectively?
• Do you feel that you have a clear understanding of the goals and objectives of the recent changes? If not, what could be done to clarify expectations and provide more information?
• How do you feel about the level of communication during the change process? Are there any areas where you feel that communication could be improved?

Best practices for collecting employee feedback

An employee feedback form must be clearly defined with goals to understand what you're measuring. For better buy-in, you should also set expectations for your recipients. 

1. Anonymity guarantee or transparency

Promise absolute anonymity for employees, and they will likely be more honest when completing your survey. However, if you'll need to share survey data with line managers or Human Resources leads, be transparent about this from the get-go to earn employee trust. 

2. Define the goal of your survey

To get the most out of your survey, you need to understand what you want to achieve. Do you want to improve employee retention? Do you need to increase employee productivity? Only once the goals and objectives for your survey are crystal clear should you start to formulate your questions. 

3. Personalize your survey invitation

A study of over 2,500 respondents revealed a 7% increase in response rates when their name was used in a personalized invite for online surveys.

These people were also 2.6% less likely to drop the survey before completing it correctly. 

What is a good employee survey response rate? 

While incentivizing your workforce to complete their surveys is common (perhaps offering entry into a prize draw), a 100% response rate is often a red flag. This can signal coercion and managerial influence that impacts survey responses and data validity. 

Tip: You also want to avoid response rates that fall below 50%.

When employees don't complete your form, it's often because they're significantly disengaged.

Facebook reports they learn a lot when people don't participate in their surveys. Those who don't are 2.6 times more likely to leave in the next 6 months. 

Response rates between 65 to 85% are the most useful. If you're struggling to achieve this score, try sending out reminders to people who started a survey but forgot to complete it. Also, look at the survey design to improve the UX for participants. 

4. Consider question order 

Drop-offs happen when respondents don't complete your entire employee feedback questionnaire. Start with straightforward questions to minimize this problem. 

Data skewing can also occur when bias creeps into your question order. 

Example: if you ask your survey respondents to list the three main areas your company could improve on, immediately following a question on flexible working, your respondents are likely to include flexible working in their answer. 

5. Define survey frequency 

Survey too frequently, and you risk becoming a nuisance. Survey too little, and you might not collect enough actionable data. 

Bonusly reports that 41.8% of employers solicit feedback from their employees annually or less frequently. When defining your survey frequency, ensure you have enough time to implement changes based on received feedback and measure the impact of those changes. 

How often should you collect employee feedback?

Collecting employee feedback shouldn't be a one-off event, but neither should your workforce feel bombarded with questionnaires. 
41.8% of employers solicit feedback from their employees either in annual surveys or less frequently, according to Bonusly. A better strategy would be to collect responses: 

• During onboarding - New hires are 91% more likely to commit to the company when their new employer requests feedback during onboarding. 
• Monthly - short employee pulse surveys can track the progress of any adjustments since your last check-in. 
• Quarterly - a more in-depth survey to gauge employee satisfaction and identify any pain points.
• Following major organizational change - including restructuring or switching to remote/hybrid work. 

3 Examples: How other companies collect employee feedback

Looking for employee survey success stories? Here are 3 companies who’ve enjoyed great results from investing in feedback strategies. 

Icelandair is dedicated to creating an attractive and welcoming workplace, which it achieves by checking in regularly and listening to employee feedback.

During the pandemic, the airline reduced its flights from 50 to 5 per week, necessitating agile responses to diverse team needs. By collecting insights directly from their cabin crew team, management implemented informed changes, leading to decreased work pressure and improved work-life balance.

Cisco conducts confidential, online surveys to measure key elements of employee satisfaction and engagement. Initially conducted quarterly with a random sample, these surveys evolved into an annual census encompassing the entire workforce. The survey includes 54 core questions across 10 categories, such as job satisfaction, teamwork, and empowerment. In February 2009, a record 80% of employees participated, with 90% agreeing that Cisco is a great place to work, up from 86% in 2008.

By systematically gathering and acting on employee feedback, Cisco demonstrates a commitment to fostering a positive and engaging work environment.

Facebook distributes two internal surveys each year along with more regular pulse surveys.

Why does employee feedback matter?

Companies collect external feedback to determine customer satisfaction rates and understand how their audience interacts with their brand.

Internal employee feedback metrics are just as valuable because they lead to: 

• Improved employee retention rates - 34% of employees reveal managers don't listen to their opinions, and this would contribute to them quitting their job. 
• Increased engagement - 94.7% of highly engaged employees believe their employer takes their feedback seriously. 
• Enhanced employee satisfaction - 68% of employees who receive consistent feedback feel fulfilled in their jobs. 

️How to improve employee satisfaction, retention, and engagement with Deel

Deel's innovative talent management solution, Deel Engage makes it easy for companies to retain high-potential employees and promise them a rewarding future. 

Our feedback modules

Our feedback and survey modules allow you to create a feedback culture on autopilot. You'll schedule regular feedback cycles collecting input from multiple perspectives, including: 

• Upward—team members provide valuable insights about their superiors
• Downward—line managers and supervisors deliver constructive feedback to their direct reports
• Peer reviews—colleagues share advice and guidance for their peers
• Self-feedback—individuals reflect on their own performance based on their pre-defined development goals
• Surveys—the HR team collects insights on various topics, at various cadences, e.g. more frequent pulse surveys focused on narrower themes, and a single annual engagement survey covering multiple themes

Our complementary enablement modules

But what can you do with all this feedback?Our platform supports companies in taking the next steps after measuring the status quo. Whether you're remote, hybrid, or office-based, you'll find it straightforward to transform feedback insights into improved company performance, culture, and well-being. Offer transparency, career growth, align your people on goals, use training journeys for company-wide announcements, and more.

Book a demo to see how you can build a high-performance workplace with Deel Engage.