An employee survey for employees are essential to measure employee satisfaction, engagement, and organizational health. However, creating a good survey is a delicate process that involves properly choosing questions. A weak survey will give unreliable results, a low response rate, and low credibility among employees. Below, we explore the questions you should avoid in employee surveys and why steering clear can result in a more effective and meaningful survey process. Here you will find an article with the questions you should ask in an employee survey.

Overly Broad Questions

Vague questions may lead to employees’ misunderstandings and provide imprecise answers. For example, a question like, “How do you feel about your work?” is too umbrella and not well-articulated. Employees could be content with the organization’s culture and policies but not happy with how they handle the workload—a detail that does not show when using a general question.

Why to Avoid: General questions generally produce ambiguous responses that are hard to understand or apply. They fail to uncover specific issues that need attention.

Better Alternative: Turn general questions into specific ones, such as, ‘How well are you satisfied with the level of support provided by your manager?’ or ‘Are you overwhelmed by the amount of work you are expected to do?’

Leading Questions

Lead questions direct employees to answer a certain manner, thus tainting the survey’s credibility. For example, asking questions like, “Don’t you think the management communicates effectively?” suggests the right answer and may coerce employees.

Why Avoid: These questions can also bias the results because the employees may feel they must provide positive answers while holding a different view.

Better Alternative: Ask questions that do not take sides, such as, ‘On a scale of 1 to 5, how well do you think management has communicated? This makes it easier to get truthful and non-biased answers.

Questions That Are Too Personal

Surveys should not be conducted casually, and people’s privacy should be observed. Some examples include: “Do you have any financial problems that may be affecting your work?” or “Are you planning to start a family?” These are invasive.

Why to Avoid: Asking for personal information may make employees feel awkward and will decrease trust. They may not respond to such questions at all, or, even worse, they may completely avoid the survey.

Better Alternative: Stick to job-related issues such as, “How well can you achieve work-life balance?”

Double-Barreled Questions

Double-barreled questions combine two different questions into one, so the participant does not know which part of the question has been answered. For example, “Do you feel valued by your manager and your peers?” is invalid because an employee may feel valued by their manager but not by peers or peers but not by the manager.

Why to Avoid: This question confuses the respondents and generates unanalyzable data.

Better Alternative: They should be presented as distinct questions like, ‘Do you feel appreciated by your supervisor?’ and ‘Do you feel appreciated by your colleagues?’

Questions With Jargon or Complex Language

Using industry-specific terminologies or complicated language in questions presented to employees is counterproductive. For example, a question like, “What do you think is the extent of the cross-functional integration in your department?” can be problematic to people who do not understand the term.

Why to Avoid: The question’s ambiguity may lead to employees misunderstanding it or simply refusing to answer it, which means the data collected will be inaccurate.

Better Alternative: For instance, ask questions like, “To what extent do the teams in your department collaborate?”

Overloaded Surveys

Requesting too many questions or asking questions that require elaborate answers may be stressful for employees. Closed questions such as, “Do you have any thoughts on the company’s strategic vision, and if so, what would you change?” are also likely to scare people off.

Why Avoid: Long or complex surveys are tiring and result in low response rates and low-quality responses due to over-surveying.

Better Alternative: To get diverse feedback, make the surveys short and combine multiple-choice, scaled, and open-ended questions.

Some of the Things That Employees Cannot Answer

Do not ask questions that employees may be unable to answer because they lack adequate information or experience. For instance, “How efficient is the company’s global marketing strategy?” would not be useful to personnel outside the marketing department.

Why to Avoid: Useless questions annoy workers and reduce the survey’s reliability.

Better Alternative: Ask questions related to employees’ employment and experience, such as, “Do you think the goals of your team are in harmony with the goals of the company?”

Negative or Blaming Questions

Questions that seem confrontational, such as, “Why do you think the team’s productivity is low?” or “What do you think is wrong with the current leadership style?” can be off-putting to employees and cause them to defend themselves.

Why Avoid: This may lead to employees not wanting to give their best answer or being unwilling to participate in similar surveys.

Better Alternative: Reframe them constructively, for example, ‘What should be changed to boost the team’s effectiveness?’ or ‘In what ways might management be more useful to employees?’

Questions Employees Cannot Answer

Each question in a survey must be specific. Questions like “What is your favorite workday lunch option?” are not very purposeful unless the survey is on the lunch menu at the cafeteria.

Why to Avoid: This misdirects the employees and water down the objective of the survey.

Better Alternative: Make sure that each question supports the purpose of the survey; for instance, if facilities are of interest, a sample question should be, “How satisfied are you with the facilities?”

Sure-Fire Ways of Hiding Identity but Suggest Otherwise

If a survey has assured confidentiality, questions such as ‘What do you think about your team lead’s decision to restructure the department?’ will likely break the confidence.

Why to Avoid: Workers might fear consequences and decision-making or sharing their opinions.

Better Alternative: Questions that may lead to the identification of the respondent should be avoided where the respondents will be anonymous.

Repetitive Questions

On that account, things that may annoy employees include repeating the same questions in different forms. For example, “Do you feel valued in your work?” can be followed by “Do you feel valued by your manager?” may seem repetitive.

Why to Avoid: Repeated questions are unproductive and can result in hasty or lack of attention to the answer.

Better Alternative: Simplify the survey and ensure every question is unique and essential.

Yes No Questions for Complex Topics

Yes/no questions are not a good way to convey much information. For instance, questions like, ‘Do you think the company promotes the growth of its employees?’ are quite generic and do not include specifics such as whether there are adequate training courses or chances to ascend the corporate ladder.

Why to Avoid: It is impossible to gain useful information from binary responses.

Better Alternative: Review-based questions can be used, such as, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how much does the company support your career development?” or “In what other ways do you think that can help promote your professional growth in this company?”

Employee Survey: Conclusion

It is equally important to know what not to include when conducting a successful employee survey. This will help to reduce the chances of asking questions that are too general, leading, or off-topic. Avoiding overly broad, leading, or irrelevant questions ensures clarity and reliability. Organizations can gather important information through specific, targeted, and impartial questions to improve the working environment. In conclusion, a well-designed survey helps the organization and its employees and makes the organization listen to them.