What Makes a Good Employee Engagement Survey Question?

A good employee engagement survey question should help establish one of two things: whether an employee displays the characteristics associated with being engaged, or whether they are experiencing the conditions that typically help create and sustain engagement.

This distinction is important.

It is useful to know whether employees are engaged. But if a survey only measures engagement itself, the results may provide limited information about why engagement is high or low — and therefore what the organisation should do next.

At Protostar, our employee engagement surveys assess both sides of this relationship. This approach is based on our research into employee engagement and analysis of more than 50,000 employee survey and focus group responses.

First: What Does an Engaged Employee Look Like?

Before deciding what questions to ask, you need to be clear about what you are trying to measure.

Employee engagement is complex, and there are numerous definitions of an “engaged employee”. Our research suggests that it is more useful to look at the characteristics typically demonstrated by engaged employees.

These include employees who:

• speak positively about their job and employer and feel proud of where they work
• feel motivated at work
• identify with and feel emotionally connected to their organisation
• want to learn, develop and improve
• willingly go above and beyond what is expected when required
• collaborate and work effectively with colleagues
• have a positive relationship with their manager
• feel appropriately rewarded and treated fairly
• experience suitable working conditions
• have a strong sense of wellbeing and work-life balance

An employee engagement survey therefore needs questions that help assess whether these characteristics are present.

But that is only half of the picture.

Measuring Engagement Isn’t the Same as Understanding What Drives It

Imagine that your survey establishes that employees in one part of the organisation are considerably less engaged than employees elsewhere.

That’s important information.

But what should you do about it?

Simply measuring the characteristics of engagement doesn’t necessarily tell you why those employees are less engaged.

To create a meaningful action plan, you also need to investigate the conditions and experiences that could be influencing their engagement.

This is why a good employee engagement questionnaire should contain both measures of engagement and diagnostic questions about its potential drivers.

The MOVIE Model: Looking at the Conditions That Influence Engagement

Protostar developed the MOVIE® Model of Employee Engagement Drivers following an extensive literature review combined with analysis of employee survey data and focus group responses collected since 2007.

The MOVIE Model groups the factors that our research indicates can influence employee engagement into five areas:

Management

The capability of line managers and employees’ relationships with them can significantly influence engagement.

Questions might therefore explore whether employees receive constructive feedback, appropriate recognition, coaching and support, and whether they have confidence in their manager.

Organisation

Employees’ experiences of the organisation itself also matter.

This includes whether organisational values are meaningful and lived in practice, whether employees trust the organisation and its leaders, whether they have confidence in senior leadership and whether communication is effective.

Vitality

Vitality considers aspects of the health and dynamism of the organisation and its people.

This includes whether senior leaders understand the realities employees face, employee wellbeing, acceptance and inclusion, and whether people feel comfortable speaking up, raising concerns and putting forward ideas.

Intrinsic

Intrinsic factors relate to the work itself and the satisfaction or motivation employees can derive from doing it.

These include interesting and meaningful work, a sense of achievement and opportunities to learn, develop and gain new experiences.

Extrinsic

Extrinsic factors concern the environment and context in which employees work.

These can include pay and benefits, working conditions, appropriate resources, hybrid or home-working arrangements where relevant, teamwork, collaboration and being treated with respect.

Together, the five areas of the MOVIE Model help us investigate not simply whether employees are engaged, but the conditions that could help explain the engagement levels we find.

Why Do You Need Both Types of Question?

Consider a survey result showing that employees have relatively low levels of motivation.

That’s a useful finding, but “improve motivation” isn’t a particularly useful action plan.

Diagnostic questions might reveal that those same employees:

• receive little feedback or recognition from their managers
• don’t believe organisational values are demonstrated in practice
• don’t feel comfortable raising concerns
• see few opportunities to develop
• don’t have the resources they need to do their jobs effectively

The organisation now has something much more useful.

Rather than trying to improve “engagement” as an abstract concept, it can investigate the specific aspects of employees’ experience that appear to require attention.

This is why we believe employee engagement surveys should assess both the characteristics of an engaged employee and the conditions that typically influence engagement.

What Does a Good Employee Engagement Survey Question Look Like?

Once you know what needs to be measured, individual questions still need to be designed carefully.

A good question should be clear, focused, neutral and relevant.

Ask About One Thing at a Time

Avoid combining different issues in the same question.

For example:

Less effective:

My manager communicates effectively and supports my development.

Someone might strongly agree with the first part and strongly disagree with the second.

Separate statements provide much more useful information:

My manager communicates effectively.

My manager supports my development.

Avoid Vague Questions

A statement such as:

Communication within the organisation is good.

is difficult to diagnose.

Does “communication” mean communication from senior leaders, someone’s line manager, other departments or colleagues?

More specific questions make the results easier to interpret and act upon.

Use Language Employees Understand

Survey questions aren’t improved by making them sound academic or sophisticated.

Employees should be able to understand immediately what they are being asked.

This is particularly important for international surveys that are translated into multiple languages. Straightforward language reduces ambiguity and can make accurate translation easier.

Keep Questions Neutral

Questions shouldn’t encourage employees towards the answer the organisation would prefer.

The purpose is to understand employees’ genuine experiences and perceptions — not confirm management’s existing assumptions.

Ask Whether the Answer Will Actually Be Useful

One of the most valuable tests of any proposed survey question is:

“What will we learn from the answer?”

Followed by:

“What might we do differently as a result?”

Not every low-scoring question needs to trigger an immediate action. However, there should be a reason for collecting the information.

Questionnaires can become unnecessarily long when different stakeholders each add questions they would be interested to see answered.

The result can be plenty of data but relatively little insight.

Every question should earn its place.

Should Every Organisation Ask the Same Questions?

No.

The underlying characteristics and drivers provide a strong framework, but organisations have different cultures, challenges and priorities.

An organisation undergoing substantial change may need to investigate particular issues around communication, leadership and confidence in the future.

Another may be experiencing high employee turnover and need greater insight into development, management, working conditions or reward.

Protostar’s surveys are therefore tailored to each client’s requirements, context and culture, while retaining the research-based principles of the MOVIE Model at their core.

This provides consistency in what we are trying to understand without forcing every organisation to complete an identical questionnaire.

What About Open-Text Questions?

Rating-scale questions allow organisations to identify patterns, compare different groups and measure changes over time.

But employees’ own words can provide valuable additional context.

Open-text questions can help explain why people have responded as they have and uncover issues that weren’t anticipated when the questionnaire was designed.

This is particularly relevant to the development of the MOVIE Model itself. Alongside published research, Protostar has analysed free-text responses from tens of thousands of survey respondents and focus group participants and looked for relationships with quantitative survey responses.

Qualitative feedback shouldn’t therefore be treated simply as an optional comment box at the end of a survey. Used effectively, it can contribute significantly to understanding what is happening within an organisation.

A Good Survey Should Tell You More Than Your Engagement Score

Ultimately, the quality of an employee engagement survey shouldn’t be judged by how many questions it contains or how attractive the resulting dashboard looks.

It should be judged by what the organisation can learn from it.

A good questionnaire should help answer four important questions:

How engaged are our employees?

What does that engagement — or disengagement — look like?

What aspects of their working experience might be influencing it?

Where should we investigate or act?

By measuring both the characteristics of an engaged employee and the conditions that typically influence engagement, an employee survey becomes more than a measurement exercise.

It becomes a diagnostic tool that can help an organisation understand why its employees feel as they do and make better-informed decisions about what to do next.

The Research Behind Protostar’s Employee Engagement Surveys

Protostar’s MOVIE Model of Employee Engagement Drivers and Characteristics of an Engaged Employee model were developed through a review of published employee engagement research combined with analysis of our own employee survey and focus group data.

Our research draws on more than 50,000 employee survey and focus group responses, alongside our experience surveying employees internationally since 2007.

You can read more about the MOVIE Model and how it was developed, including the underlying research, on our dedicated MOVIE Model page.

Need Help Designing Your Employee Engagement Survey?

Protostar designs and manages tailored employee engagement surveys for organisations internationally.

Our surveys are designed around what each organisation needs to understand while incorporating our research into the characteristics and drivers of employee engagement.

Learn more about our Employee Survey services or contact Protostar for an informal, no-obligation conversation about your requirements.