96 employee engagement survey questions (open & close-ended)

Employees are most engaged when they’re happy and passionate about their jobs. But how do you know when an employee is happy and passionate?

It’s when they’re motivated, involved, and emotionally committed rather than passive and resistant to accountability or change.

Engaged employees feel like they’re contributing to the company’s objectives to reach a higher purpose with the team. They embrace change, enjoy improving their skills, and are present at work. They’re not afraid to be held accountable, and they love challenging the status quo.

Engaged employees feel valued. They feel like their opinions matter and that the whole team welcomes them. These people are happy with their responsibilities, love coming up with new ideas, and are pleased with their salaries and benefits.

But gauging what inspires employees and deciding on the future engagement strategies you should use to improve engagement is no easy task.

This is where surveys come in.

In this article, we’ll help you analyze how engaged your employees are by giving you 96 employee engagement survey questions you can use to conduct an effective employee engagement survey.

Before looking at the best survey questions to measure employee engagement, let’s take a look at how to set up your survey.

Table of contents:

How to structure engagement survey questions
36 open-ended employee engagement survey question examples
60 close-ended employee engagement survey question examples

How to structure your employee engagement survey questions

When structuring your engagement survey, stay organized by separating your questions into thematic units. You can use a form builder software or learning experience platform like Totara Engage to help you structure your survey.

We recommend the following employee engagement survey themes:

Involvement
Satisfactio
Experience
Inspiratio
Leadership
Future

Feel free to change up these themes or add to them if needed.

For example, you could also include themes like ‘Work environment,’ ‘Communication,’ or ‘Recognition.’ It’s also possible to include themes that are directly related to your employees’ roles.

For example, if you own a private tutoring organization, you could include themes like ‘Curriculum’ or ‘Reports.’

The questions you choose for each section can make or break your engagement survey. The key is to put yourself in your employee’s shoes, rather than writing questions from an HR manager’s perspective.

What do your employees complain about?
What is their miserable amount?
What improvements have they asked for that were ignored?
Did you solve any previous complaints?

Keep all of this in mind when structuring your questions.

To help employees respond truthfully, consider conducting an anonymous survey — you can even do this digitally so that handwriting can’t be recognized.

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Before officially conducting your survey, consider creating a readiness assessment . Are your top, middle, and low-level managers equipped to lead any changes that come from the survey? Are your employees open to providing honest feedback?

Make sure to communicate why you want to conduct the survey in the first place. Are you interested in scaling the business and need feedback from the employees who are closest to stakeholders? Have you gotten a lot of complaints recently and want to prevent them going forward?

Whatever you do, don’t conduct a survey and do nothing with the results. Find a way to use those results to provide a meaningful change or risk losing trust with your team.

Next, we’ll give you 60 close-ended example questions and 36 open-ended example questions you can include in your thematic units.

36 open-ended employee engagement survey question examples

Open-ended employee engagement survey questions allow you to go deeper because they can surface important points you never would’ve considered touching on. They also give employees the much-needed but seldom provided opportunity to voice their concerns in a flexible and authentic way.

Here are some examples of open-ended questions that measure employee engagement:

Involvement survey question examples

What would you like employee involvement to look like?
What’s a fair way to embrace new ideas and suggestions?
What would you like your involvement to be in the decision-making process?
What kind of involvement opportunities would you like to have?
How do you feel about having a dedicated amount of time each week to work on new ideas?
What would make you feel more connected with your coworkers and managers?

Satisfaction survey question examples

How can we improve our corporate wellness program?
What perks, rewards, or benefits do you think we’re missing?
What do you think about our company’s quality management system ?
What kind of new employee benefits would you like to see?
How can we improve your work environment?
What would improve your overall satisfaction at work?

Experience survey question examples

What would you change about your role and job requirements?
How would you improve our corporate wellness program?
What kind of wellness events would you like to attend?
How can we help you achieve a better work-life balance?
What would you change about your team?
What would make you more interested in your job?

Inspiration survey question examples

What inspires and uplifts you at work?
What changes do we need to make regarding our company values and objectives?
What would make our products and services better?
What makes you feel inspired to succeed?
How do your managers inspire you?
How do your coworkers inspire you?

Leadership survey question examples

What leadership skills do you think are most important?
How can management improve at our organization?
What kind of leadership opportunities do you crave?
What projects or initiatives would you like to lead? Why?
How can we foster a more inclusive, diverse, and equal work environment?
How should leaders handle conflicts and difficult decisions?

Future survey question examples

What does success look like?
What new things do you want to learn or have added to corporate elearning and training programs?
How can our company succeed in the future?
How does your role affect the future success of our company?
What are you most looking forward to in our company’s future?
How can we use these survey results to improve our company?

Answers to these open-ended questions can help you innovate and improve employee engagement to the next level.

60 close-ended employee engagement survey question examples

In this section, we’ll take a look at some close-ended questions.

Feel free to have employees answer with a straight yes or no, or add a few other choices, like ‘maybe’ or ‘sometimes.’ Alternatively, you can have employees answer based on a scale of one to five or 10.

Involvement survey questions

To gauge whether or not employees feel like they’re involved at work, consider asking the following questions:

Do you feel involved in the decision-making process at work?
Do you feel like you have an impact on the organization?
Are your ideas and suggestions celebrated?
Have you ever led any important projects?
Do you feel like other employees have more involvement opportunities?
Have you ever been turned away when offering to participate in important projects?
Have you ever felt alienated, excluded, or discriminated against when trying to participate at work?
When new concepts or requirements are introduced, do you get a say?
Have you ever been allotted a certain amount of time to come up with fresh ideas, inventions, or processes?
Do you feel connected with your work peers and managers?

One of the worst feelings a high-performing employee can have is feeling like an outsider in a workplace that’s controlled by a few select employees or upper management.

On the other hand, low-performing employees love being excluded because it means they can get away with doing minimal work.

Satisfaction survey questions

Here are some questions to help you understand how satisfied your employees are:

Are you proud to work for our organization?
Are you happy when you go home after work?
Are you pleased with your performance?
Are you satisfied with your job requirements and targets?
Do you get the opportunity to develop your skills ?
Do you get the opportunity to learn new skills?
Do your employee benefits meet or exceed expectations?
Are you happy with your work environment? (lighting, space, office, air quality)
Are you satisfied with the amount of recognition you receive?
Are you satisfied with our conflict resolution process?

Feeling satisfied at work definitely contributes to happiness. Keep in mind that low-performing employees tend to feel satisfied when completing minimal job expectations, while fully engaged employees thrive on exceeding expectations and improving their skill set.

Experience survey questions

The following questions can help you discover how employees feel about their experience working for your organization:

Are you pleased with your team?
Are you happy with your specific role and job requirements?
Do you think your salary is fair based on your job requirements?
Do you feel open to ask questions or ask for help whenever you need clarification?
Do you feel like our organization cares about your physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing?
Do you think we need to improve our corporate wellness program?
Do you wish we hosted more wellness events like 5k races, for example?
Are you able to achieve a work-life balance with your current role?
Do you feel safe and comfortable at work?
Do you feel interested and excited about your job?

Remember that an employee who is unhappy with their experience will have more reason to leave negative complaints about your company on various job boards (especially when they leave).

Inspiration survey questions

Inspiration fuels motivation and dedication. It lights a fire under employees to go after their dreams with purpose and meaning.

Here are some questions to help you understand how inspired your employees are:

Do you feel inspired and uplifted at work?
Do you feel indispensable?
Are you aligned with our company’s values and objectives?
Are you inspired to be your best self at work?
Do you believe in the products and services our company sells?
Do you look up to your managers and co-workers?
Are you inspired to succeed every day?
Do you feel encouraged to grow into high-level positions?
Do you get new creative ideas often at work?
Do you honor your dreams?

An inspired employee can be a tremendous asset to your company.

Leadership survey questions

The mark of a good company is in its leaders. Leaders set the bar for company values, goals, processes, and handling challenges.

Here are some questions to help you gauge how your employees feel about the leadership at your organization:

Do you feel confident in your manager’s leadership skills?
Do you have a good relationship with your manager?
Are you happy with corporate communication ?
Do you have leadership opportunities in your department?
Do top-level managers work to create a positive work environment?
Do you think our company strives to improve its leadership regularly?
Do you think our company is dedicated to creating a diverse, inclusive, and equal workplace?
Do you think our leadership is efficient?
Do you think our leaders handle challenges and difficult decisions well?
Are you given opportunities to learn leadership skills or attend leadership training?

Without proper leadership (whether it’s centralized or decentralized), an organization can’t thrive.

Future survey questions

Disengaged employees typically don’t care about the company’s future, while engaged employees are excited about what lies ahead for their organization. Engaged employees feel confident that they’ll be able to succeed and grow alongside the business.

Do you see our company succeeding in the future?
Do you see yourself succeeding in the future?
Do you think you’ll be with us long-term?
Do you have fears about your future with us?
Do you think we’re approaching employee growth and development the right way?
Are you confident in our organization’s financial stability?
Do you think your role impacts the future success of our company?
Do you think your manager’s role impacts the future success of our company?
Are you excited about our company’s future growth?
Do you think the results from this survey will positively impact our company’s future?

With the right tools, goals, and action steps, a company can create a hopeful future for itself and its employees.

Employee engagement surveys don’t have to be challenging

We hope these 96 question examples and survey tips will bring tremendous value to your organization.

Whatever method and questions you choose, conducting employee engagement surveys can help you retain top talent and receive valuable insights on how to improve your organization as a whole.

Author Bio

Stefan Debois is the founder and CEO of Survey Anyplace , an online software tool to create engaging surveys, assessments and personalized reports. Besides kitesurfing, Stefan is passionate about using technology to build professional relationships with people at scale.

Author bio: Hassan Uddeen is a freelance writer, content strategist and SEO