Satisfaction is about the deal people get: the job itself, pay and benefits, workload and the people they work with. These questions find which part of that deal is letting people down — and whether anyone is thinking of leaving because of it.
We've ticked a short starter set. Change it to suit you.
Overall
Pay and benefits
Work and conditions
Manager and leadership
Looking ahead
6 questions selected
Tips for a better employee satisfaction survey
Keep it anonymous; pay and leaving questions get honest answers only when nobody can be traced.
Compare the "thinking about leaving" answers with satisfaction scores to see what drives people out.
Run it once or twice a year, and use a short pulse survey in between.
How to run an employee satisfaction survey
1Pick the areas you want to measureMost surveys cover the job itself, the manager, pay and benefits, growth and the working environment. Leave out anything you can't act on.
2Use the same scale throughoutOne rating scale for every question makes results easy to compare between teams and from one year to the next.
3Keep it anonymousSay so at the start, and only report results for groups of five or more.
4Leave it open for two weeksSend a reminder after the first week, and make sure people who don't sit at a desk can answer on their phone.
5Share the results within a monthShow the headline numbers and two or three things you will change. Silence after a survey is the fastest way to lower next year's response rate.
6Repeat once a year, with pulses in betweenAn annual survey shows the trend; a short quarterly pulse tells you whether the changes are working.
Common questions
What is the difference between employee satisfaction and employee engagement?
Satisfaction is how content people are with their job, pay and conditions. Engagement is how committed and motivated they are. Someone can be satisfied without being engaged, so many companies measure both.
How many questions should an employee satisfaction survey have?
Fifteen to twenty-five for a yearly survey, and five to ten for a quarterly pulse. Past that, answers get rushed.
What is a good employee satisfaction score?
There is no universal benchmark worth trusting. The useful comparisons are your own last survey and the difference between teams.
How do you get more people to answer?
Keep it short, make it work on a phone, explain why you're asking, and show what changed after the last survey. Most people stop answering when nothing happens.