A score tells you where you are. The drivers tell you which one thing to fix first.
An engagement survey is the long one, run once or twice a year. Its job is not to produce a number, because eNPS already does that in one question and does it more often. Its job is to tell you which specific parts of working here are holding the number down.
An engagement survey asks about the things that reliably drive whether people stay and put effort in: clarity, workload, recognition, growth, trust in leadership, and the immediate manager. Each is measured separately so the result points at something you can act on.
Once a year, or twice if you are actively changing things. Run a pulse survey in between rather than repeating the long one.
The questions, in full
Every one of them is on this page before you sign up for anything. The line under each question says what it is for, and what it is deliberately not asking.
The chart that suits the question, and a paragraph under it.
Numbers get the widget built for them. Written answers get grouped into the things people kept saying, with a count on each and every original answer still readable underneath, word for word.
Everything a results page holdsWhat goes wrong with a engagement survey
- Producing one blended engagement percentage. It moves by two points, nobody can say why, and nothing gets fixed.
- Asking about things you have already decided not to change. People notice, and the open answers turn sarcastic.
- Segmenting down to teams of three. It breaks anonymity and people work that out fast.
- Sharing results only with leadership. If the people who answered never hear back, next year's response rate answers you instead.
How long should an engagement survey be?
As long as it takes to cover the drivers you intend to act on. Most land somewhere between twelve and twenty questions with one open box at the end.
Engagement survey or eNPS?
Both, at different rhythms. eNPS is one question you can run every quarter. The engagement survey runs once a year and explains the number.
Are the answers anonymous?
Yes unless you add a question asking who somebody is. Nobody needs an account to answer, and no identity is recorded with a response by default.
Often run alongside this one
eNPS survey
Employee Net Promoter Score borrows the NPS® question and points it at the people who work for you. It is a good measure and an easy one to ruin, because the moment somebody suspects their answer is traceable, you stop measuring morale and start measuring caution.
Pulse survey
A pulse survey is short, repeated, and always asks the same core questions so you can watch a line move. The point is not the score in any single month. The point is the shape over six of them.
Exit interview survey
The face to face exit interview has a known problem: almost nobody uses it to be candid, because they want a reference and they want the last two weeks to be pleasant. A written survey, sent after the notice period rather than during it, gets closer to the truth.