As an internal communicator, it is essential to know how to harness the power of an employee communication survey. By exploring key aspects such as survey content, how to conduct surveys, and analyzing employee survey questions, you can acquire comprehensive data to help with strategic decision-making.
Table of Contents
- Importance of Employee Surveys
- Why Conduct an Internal Communications Survey?
- Employee Communication Survey Content
- 30 Employee Communication Survey Questions and Answer Options
- How to Conduct an Employee Communication Survey
- Analyzing Employee Communication Survey Questions
- Integrating Employee Communication Survey
In this blog post, we’re going to delve into the importance of employee surveys and the role they play in enhancing employee engagement. We will look specifically at the internal communications survey and help you to conduct and measure internal communications survey questions.
You will find that you can use surveys very successfully to assess the effectiveness of existing internal communications and identify areas for improvement. This can also reduce costly misunderstandings and miscommunications. By asking specific internal communications survey questions about each employee’s understanding and overall satisfaction, you can get a clear picture of how your internal communications are resonating within the organization.
Importance of Employee Surveys
In its 2022 Culture Report, The Tech-Enabled Employee Experience, Achievers Workforce Institute (AWI) highlights four key areas that will benefit from technological investment. These bring people together and improve employee engagement, particularly in a dispersed workforce.
- Network: Employees with digital connection tools were found to outperform in productivity, engagement, trust, and belonging.
- Recognition: When there is a recognition platform, employees say they feel more meaningfully recognized.
- Wellness: Organizations that provide wellness tools say fewer employers suffer from burnout.
- Feedback: More than anything else, gathering and acting on employee feedback drives strong business outcomes that have three times more commitment, engagement, trust, and belonging — which is where internal communication surveys come into play.
“Feedback is key. The first step is to gather feedback in a range of ways to ensure employees are able to communicate their needs in a manner that is comfortable to them. Some will prefer a conversation with their manager, while others will want to provide anonymous feedback through a chatbot or survey.”
AWI 2022 Culture Report
To keep engagement high during periods of intense growth or unforeseen circumstances, leadership teams need to find ways to check in with their employees more often.
One of the employee survey questions AWI asked was “Which of the following tools does your company provide?” The results varied between employees from the different countries surveyed, namely the U.S., Canada, UK, Australia, and Singapore. While 46% of companies in the U.S. are using communication tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams, fewer (33%) use employee listening tools like surveys and chatbots. In Canada, the numbers are similar, 45% vs 37%.
Despite this, in the U.S., only 18% of organizations regularly seek feedback on important issues, and only 18% take meaningful action on employee feedback.
Why Conduct an Internal Communications Survey?
There are many reasons why you might want to conduct an employee internal communication survey. Here are a few of the most common:
- To assess the effectiveness of your current communication channels and strategies.
- To identify areas where you can improve your internal communications.
- To gauge employee engagement and satisfaction with your employee internal communications efforts.
But as internal communicators, we need to understand the importance of different types of employee surveys. The procedure requires careful preparation, well-considered distribution, and proper survey data processing. Be aware that it is frequently lengthy and difficult. Nevertheless, there are steps you can take to simplify and improve procedures.
The importance of employee surveys lies in the actionable insights they provide. Going beyond just data collection and analysis, it is especially important to then look at recommendations and best practices based on successful engagement strategies. Identify areas for improvement on how to enhance your internal communications. Ultimately, this process drives higher levels of employee engagement and satisfaction.
Employee Communication Survey Content
Conducting an employee communications survey may seem straightforward, but there is a lot to it. And it takes lots of planning and proper execution. Additionally, there are certain kinds of questions that will be more helpful than others. For example, ask questions about observable behavior rather than thoughts or motives. This way, you won’t be inviting biased thoughts and opinions. You want to receive feedback about measurable behaviors, which is easier to measure, analyze and respond to.
30 Employee Communication Survey Questions and Answer Options
The specific employee survey questions you ask will depend on your particular needs and objectives. However, Momentive research found that there are distinct shifts that affect employee communication survey questions. Specifically, there is a growth of gender inclusion, an increase in response using mobile devices, and accepted modern survey best practices.
“The questions people ask in surveys reflect the big topics they care about and they are likely struggling with. They want to know how other people feel about these topics so they can develop the appropriate response.”
Momentive state of surveys report
Gender Inclusion
A decade ago, most survey questions had only two gender-related answer options — male or female. By 2020, about 54% were offering three or more options. This percentage, says Momentive, has increased to 62.3% and includes transgender answer options. This approach applies to any questions that you ask about gender. Additionally, Momentive suggests allowing people to answer questions in the gender they identify with most. They also suggest allowing employees to skip questions if they wish.
Please answer these questions in the gender you identify most closely with. If you feel uncomfortable you can skip questions:
- How would you rate the inclusivity of gender-specific language used in internal communications in the organization?
- Are there any areas where you feel gender-related topics could be better addressed in our company communications?
- In your opinion, how effectively does the organization communicate about gender diversity and inclusion?
- Do you think internal communications adequately reflect the diverse perspectives of all genders within the company?
- Are there any instances where you believe gender stereotypes are perpetuated in our internal messaging?
- How well do internal communications support work-life balance, considering gender-related expectations and responsibilities?
- In what ways can internal communications better highlight the achievements and contributions of employees of all genders?
- Do you feel comfortable raising gender-related concerns through our current internal communication channels?
- How would you rate the visibility of gender-related policies and initiatives in our internal communications?
- Are there specific suggestions you have for making communications in the organization more gender-inclusive and supportive?
Mobile Responses
The use of mobile devices to answer survey questions is rising. However, at 43.7%, it is still less than those collected on non-mobile devices including desktop computers. The dilemma is how to accommodate all respondents. Momentive suggests optimizing surveys for mobile respondents by keeping questions short and simple, and using multiple-choice questions. For example:
- Rate your comfort in using communication channels to share feedback or concerns.
- Very comfortable
- Comfortable
- Neutral d.
- Uncomfortable
- Very uncomfortable
- How often do you feel well-informed about company updates?
- Always
- Often
- Occasionally
- Rarely
- Never
- On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate the overall communication experience at our company?
- 1 (Poor)
- 2 (Below average)
- 3 (Average)
- 4 (Above average)
- 5 (Excellent)
- How clear is the language used in our internal communications?
- How satisfied are you with our internal communication overall?
- How effective do you find leadership communication within the company?
- Which methods of communication do you use most frequently?
- Do you think your firm listens to you when you speak?
- Do you understand the company’s goals and objectives clearly?
- What are your suggestions for improving internal communication at your company?
Survey Best Practices
One of the most important best practices is to keep surveys as short as possible. Preferably, they should fit on one page and not contain any more than 10 questions.
Here is a 10-question survey example you could use to assess employee fears and concerns about an upcoming merger:
- What specific concerns do you have about the upcoming merger?
- How do you think the merger will impact your current role and responsibilities?
- Are there any uncertainties about the merger that you would like more information on?
- How confident are you in the communication and transparency surrounding the merger process?
- What potential changes, positive or negative, do you foresee as a result of the merger?
- Are there specific aspects of the merger that you believe need more attention or clarification?
- How do you feel about the level of support provided to employees during this merger transition?
- What steps do you think the company should take to address employee concerns during the merger?
- In what ways can the organization ensure a smooth transition for employees during the merger?
- Do you have any suggestions for maintaining a positive work culture throughout the merger process?
How to Conduct an Employee Communication Survey
Once you have developed your survey questions, you need to decide how you will administer the survey. You can conduct a pulse survey into your email blasts. This way, you can send important, relevant information along with gauging employee communication satisfaction. You can send through cross-channel comms – Teams, Slack, and Sharepoint.
A clear and straightforward call to action should be included if you are emailing the survey to respondents. Giving workers enough time to complete the survey and provide feedback will help them understand the value of employee surveys.
Survey Timing Tips
Survey Monkey analyzed a random sample of 500,000 individual respondents who received survey invitations. The question was: “How long should you really wait before starting to analyze your results?” The majority of responses to surveys using an email collector were gathered in the first few days to a week after email invitations were sent:
- 80% of responses were collected within 7 days
- 66% of responses were collected within 3 days
- 41% of responses were collected within 1 day
This goes to show, you might want to wait until day 7 to run a significant analysis. And, if you’re trying to generate more responses, you might consider sending out a reminder email after a week to see if that triggers a bump from your internal communications survey laggards.
Momentive Inc., a Survey Monkey company, discusses what’s trending in its The state of surveys 2023 report. It also looks at how companies are changing the way they create surveys and the principles they used to catch people’s attention.
They also wanted to find out when time surveys so to garner the best/maximum responses.
They found that most surveys (87.4%) are taken during the workweek, with most of these (55.9%) taken between Tuesdays and Thursdays. A mere 12.6% are taken over weekends. Additionally:
- Sundays and Saturdays hold the lowest ends of the response pattern (5.6% and 7%), followed by a jump in responses for Mondays and Fridays (15.8% and 15.5%) and again for Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays (roughly 18.5%).
- Respondents are more likely to take surveys on their mobile devices over the weekend than over the workweek (58% compared to 41.3%).
- Nearly half (48.8%) of surveys in the US were one page or less.
The bar chart below shows the breakdown visually.
Analyzing Employee Communication Survey Questions
Once you have collected the survey data, you need to analyze the results. This will help you identify areas where you can improve communication. You can then develop a plan to implement these improvements.
Understanding the effectiveness and importance of your employee surveys is essential for improving employee engagement. Comprehensive engagement metrics allow you to measure the impact of your messages. Tracking key metrics with these communications such as click rates, click-through rates, and so on, provide valuable insights. These metrics will help you identify trends, areas for improvement, and successful communication strategies, ultimately enhancing engagement and satisfaction within your organization.
Here are some tips for analyzing and acting on internal communication surveys:
- Review the survey objectives: Start by revisiting the objectives and goals of your employee communication survey questions. Consider what specific aspects of employee communication you were trying to assess. This will help you maintain focus during the analysis and ensure you extract relevant insights.
- Use descriptive statistics: Start by summarizing the data using descriptive statistics. Calculate frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviations for each question or response category. This will give you an overview of the distribution of responses and help identify any trends or patterns.
- Conduct thematic analysis: Identify key themes or patterns within the employee communication survey responses. Group similar comments or responses together to gain a deeper understanding of the underlying issues or concerns. This qualitative analysis will provide additional insights beyond the numerical data.
- Cross-tabulate data: Cross-tabulation allows you to examine relationships between different variables. For example, you can cross-tabulate survey responses based on employee demographics (for example department, tenure, location) to identify any variations or trends among different employee groups.
- Communicate findings and recommendations: Create a thorough report that includes a summary of the survey’s findings, major conclusions, and suggestions for improvement. Share the report with the appropriate parties and utilize it as the foundation for debate and decision-making, such as senior management or the internal communications team.
- Track progress: Finally, track the implementation of any recommended changes and monitor the impact on subsequent surveys or communication metrics. Regularly evaluate and adjust your communication strategies based on ongoing feedback and analysis.
Integrating Employee Communication Survey
Employee communication surveys are a valuable tool that can help you improve your internal communication efforts. By asking specific employee communication survey questions about their communication preferences, their understanding of company information, and their overall satisfaction with your communication efforts, you can get a clear picture of how your internal communications are resonating with your workforce.
With the right internal communication platform, an employee communication survey can be easy to integrate into your messages, improving the procedure even more. Cerkl Broadcast has the tools to integrate pulse surveys into your newsletters, making it easy to gauge success. This information can then be used to develop a plan to improve your communication and increase employee engagement.
By following these tips, you can conduct an employee communication survey that will provide you with valuable insights into how to improve your internal communication efforts.
What’s Next?
We’ve looked at the importance of employee surveys and discussed why you should bother to conduct them. We talked about survey content and provided you with 30 possible survey questions and answer options. Also, we suggested ways to analyze the answers to questions. All in all, we’ve given you a lot of info to get started with your employee communication survey. But we know that many internal communicators will be looking for even more advice. That’s why we have designed a sample survey to get you started. You can download our employee engagement survey template here — and it’s free.
As you embark on this project, think about how you will share results and recommendations with leadership or business partners. We hope that this worksheet can help your team identify which channels your employees enjoy the most and which types of content they’re consuming.
FAQ
Ask questions that are more quantitative or based on behaviors that can be measured. It is a lot easier to use information about how often they respond to a pulse survey in an email blast than to ask if they like it. Liking something is subjective, but if they respond 100% of the time regardless of their feelings, then you know it works.
While communication surveys can vary, they can range from short answer questions, scalar questions, and multiple choice questions. Typically, they revolve around how they are responding to the communications and what you can do to improve.
Some of the most common kinds of employee surveys are pulse surveys, focus groups, or even suggestion boxes.
There are many ways to evaluate employee communication. But one of the most effective ways to do so is to measure the reach it has on your employees. With things like Acknowledgements and analytics—coupled with surveys—you can get a holistic evaluation.
