Employee Surveys
Maximising business success through employee surveys
Employee satisfaction drives business performance. Motivated staff deliver better service, stay longer, and cost less to replace. Yet most businesses invest heavily in customer research while measuring employee sentiment only occasionally, if at all.
Regular employee surveys change that. They give you a continuous read on morale, engagement, and the issues that erode productivity before they become problems. Whether you run quick pulse surveys to track sentiment week to week or deeper satisfaction surveys to understand the full picture, the data you collect directly informs decisions that improve retention, performance, and customer outcomes.
The businesses that do this well treat it as ongoing practice, not a one-off exercise. SmartSurvey gives you the tools to make that straightforward.
What can you measure using HR surveys?
Recruitment
Use advanced logic, survey scoring, CV uploads and piping to quickly identify exceptional candidates and match them to roles and organisations.
Onboarding
For most employees, the first few weeks and months are key to how well they settle in, engage and become successful long-term members of staff.
Training
Training surveys let you keep track of course quality and satisfaction levels. Use our free templates to create, collect and analyse real-time data.
Salary & benefits
For many employees the benefits they receive are as important as their salary. Measure how satisfied your own staff are with a benefits survey programme.
Employee pulse
Employee pulse surveys make it easy to gather regular feedback quickly, helping you identify and respond positively to developing trends or workplace issues.
Job satisfaction
What motivates your workforce? What affects the mood in the workplace? Use job satisfaction surveys to better understand and support your employees.
Staff motivation
Better understand your business from the perspective of your employees and find out the views and opinions they hold toward the company and their role.
360 feedback
360-degree surveys are a powerful tool but can be complex and time-consuming to deliver. Save time and effort with our managed 360 survey service.
Employee engagement
Employee engagement is a measure of the emotional commitment your workforce have toward their work, the business and shared company goals.
Staff wellbeing
Prioritising employee wellbeing can improve job satisfaction, reduce absenteeism, lower staff turnover, and drive business success. Use surveys to identify staff concerns.
Work life balance
Work life balance is important for maintaining good health, improving productivity and job satisfaction, and sustaining relationships. Find out how your employees are managing.
Employee NPS
Discover how Employee Net Promoter Score℠ helps you measure employees' happiness and their willingness to recommend your company as a great place to work.
Exit interviews
Gain the insights you need to reduce employee churn and foster better working environments by running surveys alongside employee exit interviews.
Anything else
If you have an HR survey requirement that isn't covered here, why not speak to our friendly team? We're confident our survey software can work for you.
Smarter employee survey software
Question types for every requirement
From multiple choice and free text, to more advanced question types, it's easy to meet your survey needs.
Smart logic and actions
Build surveys that are easy to complete. Use logic and personalisation to maximise your survey’s response rate.
Perfectly reflect your brand identity
From your logo, fonts, and colours to your survey messaging, build branded surveys with our customisation tools.
Start with our employee survey templates
Report the results of your employee surveys
Real-time data
The ability to view survey responses as and when they are collected makes it easier and quicker to make the decisions and changes you need.
Easy to share
Download and print responses, or send your results via a password-protected link, it's simple to share your survey findings with the people who need them.
Simple to analyse
Export data into multiple formats, and turn your results into a range of graphs and charts, making it easy to analyse your survey insights.
Frequently asked questions
Employee surveys give you a direct line to what’s working in your organisation and what isn't. The insight they provide helps you retain good people, improve day-to-day working conditions, and build a culture that supports performance. Regularly asking for feedback also signals to staff that their views matter, which itself has a positive effect on morale.
A well-designed employee survey is one of the most practical ways to facilitate two-way communication across a business. Whatever you choose to measure, the benefits tend to compound over time:
- Improved efficiency — when employees feel heard, their motivation to do a good job increases, and output follows
- Staff development — motivated employees set personal goals and actively pursue their own growth
- Increased commitment — satisfied staff put more effort into the work they're given
- Decreased turnover — building commitment reduces churn, which lowers recruitment costs
- Greater satisfaction — fulfilled employees have a positive knock-on effect on business performance
From an HR point of view, going digital offers significant advantages over staying with paper-based systems.
Centralised record keeping
From staff performance appraisals and training and development to employee satisfaction feedback, digitising and centralising this data makes it easier to find, access and share with others. That ultimately benefits both your employees and your business.
A clearer audit trail
HR teams are involved in many policies and practices, from hiring and employee benefits to performance appraisals and job termination, and there are associated laws to adhere to throughout. Digitising these processes makes them far easier to review for auditing purposes and helps you stay compliant.
Minimised risk in HR legal cases
With all staff records clearly and efficiently documented, digitisation helps you quickly locate and present the evidence needed to show that processes were correctly followed.
This depends on your company size and the areas you've identified as important to measure. Most employee surveys run to around 30 to 40 questions in length and ideally take no longer than 10 to 15 minutes to complete. Keeping surveys focused on specific topics, rather than trying to cover everything at once, generally produces better response rates and more useful data.
SmartSurvey supports the full range of HR and people survey types. You can run pulse surveys to gather quick, regular feedback; satisfaction surveys to understand how staff feel about their role and workplace; onboarding surveys to assess how well new starters are settling in; 360-degree feedback surveys to support performance and development; and exit interview surveys to understand why people leave. Templates are available for all of these, so you can get started quickly without building from scratch.
Yes. SmartSurvey gives you full control over anonymity settings. You can run surveys in anonymous mode so that individual responses cannot be traced back to a specific employee. This is particularly useful for sensitive topics such as management feedback, wellbeing, and pay satisfaction, where respondents are more likely to give honest answers if they know their identity is protected.
Response rates tend to improve when surveys are short, clearly purposeful, and distributed through familiar channels. Sending surveys by email or SMS, keeping them mobile-friendly, and communicating what will be done with the results all help. SmartSurvey's logic features let you tailor questions based on previous answers, so respondents only see questions relevant to them, which reduces drop-off. Following up on results and showing staff that their feedback led to action is one of the most effective ways to maintain engagement in future surveys.
Yes. SmartSurvey is ISO 27001 certified and Cyber Essentials Plus accredited. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, hosted in UK data centres, and we are fully compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). We also meet the NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit requirements.
Yes. You can sign up for a free trial and get started straight away, with no credit card required. If you'd prefer a guided walkthrough of the platform for your specific HR use case, book a demo and we'll take you through it.
Pricing depends on the plan and features you need. You can review all options on our pricing page. A free plan is available, with paid plans starting from a low monthly fee. For larger teams or specific requirements, book a demo to discuss what works for you.
Build your employee survey
