We recommend either using our models or basing your surveys on our question sets where possible. These have been developed and tested by People Insight’s organisational psychologists and will provide the most meaningful survey data.
They are quicker and easier to do, but we know that sometimes you’ll want to customise questions or ask something specific to your organisation. If that's you now, here's our advice:
Step 1 Define Your Objectives
Before drafting questions, be clear about what you want to achieve with the survey. What insight do you want from the survey? This will help you think about the question you want to ask.
Step 2 Define the questions you want to ask
This is the most time-consuming part of running a survey. It's important to invest time in it to get the best results. Our Question Library contains Likert Questions; Net Promoter Score Questions; and Comment Questions.
We suggest you start by searching our Question Library first and try to use one of our questions before creating a new one because then you can benchmark the results against others in the same sector as you.
Step 3 adding new questions
If you are creating your own questions, here's some advice:
Use statements, not questions: Best practice questionnaire design uses statements that respondents can agree or disagree with, rather than actual questions.
Keep your questions short: Your respondent is more likely to stay focused if the questions are succinct and to the point.
Keep the language neutral: Avoid using leading language, so employees are free to respond honestly.
Focus on a single issue Avoid listing a number of issues or groups within a question, in order to focus responses.
Step 4 Consider your survey's length
Ideally, an employee survey should take 10-15 minutes to complete, translating to about 35-40 questions. Pulse surveys are typically shorter, with 10-20 questions. Length is generally acceptable if the survey addresses relevant topics, underscoring the importance of selecting the right questions. Surveys that are too brief may yield insufficient data, requiring additional inquiries to obtain clarity, potentially overlooking key employee concerns. Conversely, overly lengthy surveys risk respondent fatigue, leading to incomplete responses or less thoughtful answers, compromising data quality.
If necessary, review the questions you are asking and potentially shorten them where you can.
Next - start to build your survey.