As executives are chasing ambitious market goals and are focused on building impact outside of their teams, the needs and wants of people making up the backbone of the organization may fade into the background.
While C-level executives might feel inspired by greater goals and rapidly growing numbers, the situation is somewhat different for frontline employees. To them, employee satisfaction is often determined by the joy of their daily work – or lack thereof.
To “touch the grass” on the issue and stay in tune with the needs of their employees, C-level executives and HR team leaders have to make listening and collecting feedback a priority. One of the most scalable, organized, and effective ways to do it is by running regular employee satisfaction surveys.
In this post, we will share 7 different employee satisfaction surveys that help get the temperature across various aspects of the organization: its culture, approach to wellness, readiness to retain the workforce, and more.
Feel free to use our free survey for employee satisfaction templates to learn how your talent is feeling about their workplace.
- What is employee satisfaction?
- Why employee satisfaction is important
- How to measure employee satisfaction?
- 7 free employee satisfaction survey templates
- 1. Multiple-question employee satisfaction survey template
- 2. Open-ended employee satisfaction questionnaire
- 3. Sample employee satisfaction survey: self-evaluation
- 4. Workplace culture employee satisfaction survey
- 5. Employee experience satisfaction survey
- 6. Employee satisfaction survey with a focus on retention
- 7. Employee wellness survey
- Frequently asked questions
What is employee satisfaction?
In a broad sense, employee satisfaction is the measure of fulfillment and eagerness to continue working at the company.
A while back, we wrote a post on employee experience that captures the key components of employee satisfaction – relationships, social climate, technology, growth and career development, and others – you can refer to it for a detailed guide to building a fulfilling workplace.
To facilitate measuring employee satisfaction, we recommend approaching it as an umbrella of concepts, namely:
- Workplace culture – how aligned employees are with the company’s mission and vision, how much they feel part of the organization
- Career growth – do teams feel supported and guided through their professional journeys?
- Employee retention – how loyal are people to their workplace or, on the contrary, how willing they are to trade workplaces for benefits like a higher salary?
- Wellness – do teammates feel like the company supports their mental health and protects them from stress?
If an employer scores high in all of the above, it’s safe to assume employees feel happy and fulfilled to be part of their workplace.
Why employee satisfaction is important
Considering the amount of time people spend working, the impact of a fulfilling workplace becomes evident.
In fact, according to a McKinsey survey, job fulfillment contributes to overall life satisfaction by a quarter. Survey respondents also pointed out they care about working on interesting projects and having built fulfilling relationships with management and teammates.
From an executive’s standpoint, employee satisfaction hs shown to increase customer satisfaction and reduce staff turnover.
It positively contributed to the profitability of organizations that have actionable policies in place and correlated with employee productivity increase.
How to measure employee satisfaction?
HR team leaders can take different approaches to gauging employee satisfaction – from personalized one-on-one interviews that give a detailed rundown on how teams feel about the company to standardized surveys that help collect data and identify red flags and opportunities on a wider scale.
Here are the most common and effective ways to measure employee satisfaction:
1. Employee net promoter score
Employee net promoter score is a quick quantitative measure of employee satisfaction. To calculate NPS, ask your team the following questions:
- How satisfied are you with your workplace?
- How close is the company to your ideal workplace?
- Would you recommend the company to your network as a good workplace?
Format the replies as a score on a 1-to-10 scale.
Sum up the points, divide them by three and multiply the result by a hundred to have the final NPS.
2. 1-on-1 meetings
One-on-one meetings are not always the right way to measure employee satisfaction – your teammates might be hesitant to share their struggles on camera without the right to stay anonymous.
Still, setting aside some time for face-to-face interactions will help talent managers connect with teams and show that they genuinely care about providing the best employee experience possible.
3. Employee satisfaction surveys
If you want to have a more detailed view of your organization’s strong suits and shortcomings, run a detailed employee satisfaction survey. Consider adding multiple question types to the questionnaire to get an all-rounded perspective on your team’s satisfaction levels.
When creating an employee satisfaction question bank, follow these quick tips:
- Keep the questionnaire for employee satisfaction brief. It shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes to complete.
- Make the survey anonymous to make sure people can share their opinions openly.
- Don’t make your employee satisfaction questionnaire too specific to not give away participants’ identities.
Below we will share seven employee satisfaction survey templates you can use to effectively measure how fulfilled your talent is.
7 free employee satisfaction survey templates
If you are at a crossroads about improving employee satisfaction and not sure which benefits and practices your team values, there’s only one way to find out. Ask the right questions and listen to what your people have to say.
At oVice, we have long ago discovered the power of employee surveys. They give teams time to reflect on what they value in a workplace and let managers know what they can do better.
We wanted to share some of the employee satisfaction survey questions our HR team regularly uses so we put together 7 fully customizable survey templates. Feel free to use them to collect and act upon employee feedback.
1. Multiple-question employee satisfaction survey template
Link to the template: Google Forms
Time to complete: 5-7 minutes
Multiple choice questions are an excellent way to get your team’s feedback without taking up too much of their time. We prepared a sample employee satisfaction survey covering workplace culture, motivation, collaboration challenges, and other aspects leaders might want to improve on.
2. Open-ended employee satisfaction questionnaire
Link to the template: Google Forms
Time to complete: 10-15 minutes
If you want to know what your employees think without making them fit their answers into the limits defined by multiple-choice questions, running an open-ended survey is an excellent alternative. Keep in mind that these take more time to complete so we recommend running them on a quarterly basis or once in six months.
Encouraging teams to take time for deep reflection will give managers and HR leaders ideas they may not have otherwise considered.
3. Sample employee satisfaction survey: self-evaluation
Link to the template: Google Forms
Time to complete: 7-10 minutes
A company’s ability to drive and oversee employees’ career development is crucial to job satisfaction.
By running a self-evaluation survey, you will give teams a platform for looking back at their career growth and identifying areas for improvement. Also, we added questions like “What tools should a manager provide to help you reach peak performance?” to make sure survey data gives team leaders clear action items.
4. Workplace culture employee satisfaction survey
Link to the template: Google Forms
Time to complete: approximately 7 minutes
In our experience, culture is one of the most important yet underrated aspects of employee satisfaction. At first, it doesn’t seem to directly correlate with productivity or driving revenue. That’s why companies often discover the importance of workplace culture after failing to set it up and having to deal with employee turnover and decaying engagement.
A workplace culture survey will help you determine how fulfilled teams are in interpersonal relationships and how effective your team-building events are.
5. Employee experience satisfaction survey
Link to the template: Google Forms
Time to complete: 5 minutes
A survey on employee experience helps HR leaders make sure that employees have everything they need – equipment, technology, assistance – to do their best at work. Our questionnaire on employee satisfaction and experience also helps pinpoint some EX red flags like workplace discrimination or lack of flexibility.
6. Employee satisfaction survey with a focus on retention
Link to the template: Google Forms
Time to complete: 5-7 minutes
With Great Resignation among the key HR trends in 2021, HR leaders find themselves worried about employee retention. If talent managers don’t actively focus on building workplace loyalty, they might have to deal with the aftermath of multiple resignations.
In our experience, retention surveys are an excellent way to learn what could sway your teams to change their jobs and learn what steps the company can take to keep its top performers.
7. Employee wellness survey
Link to the template: Google Forms
Time to complete: 5-7 minutes
In the whirlwind of daily to-dos, team managers can forget to prioritize the well-being of their teams. By running regular employee wellness surveys, talent managers can help leaders stay accountable and improve employee satisfaction by offering employees health benefits.
Frequently asked questions
1. What is meant by employee satisfaction?
Employee satisfaction is a metric that describes how fulfilled and content employees are at work.
2. Why is employee satisfaction important?
Survey data proves that employee satisfaction:
- Improves workpalce engagement
- Reduces employee turnover
- Increases employee productivity
- Increases the profitability of the organization
3. How can managers improve employee satisfaction with the feedback process
Running regular employee satisfaction surveys is an effective way to learn about the ways managers can contribute to building fulfilling and purposeful work environments.
4. How to create an employee satisfaction survey?
Using employee satisfaction survey samples is a good place to start since these templates give HR teams a reference point. We recommend customizing and reviewing the relevance of survey questions for your organizational needs before sharing employee satisfaction questionnaires with teams.
