Form questions
Benefits survey questions that rank what matters
Twenty questions covers a renewal review and eleven covers a quick check. Three must be there: how each benefit was actually used this year, which three people would keep if the budget shrank, and how easy it is to claim or book one. The first two produce a ranking and the third explains any benefit that scores badly for no obvious reason.
A benefits survey that asks what people would like collects a list of everything, priced at more than the budget. These questions ask what was used, what would be kept if the budget shrank, and what would be given up to fund something better.
The questions
What you used
How much did you use the retirement or superannuation benefit?Rating gridRequired
Row one of a usage grid whose first column is did not know about it.
How much did you use the health cover benefit?Rating gridRequired
Row two.
How much did you use the home office or equipment allowance?Rating gridRequired
Row three.
How much did you use the learning budget?Rating gridRequired
Row four. Learning budgets are the most commonly unused benefit in most surveys.
How much did you use the wellbeing or counselling line?Rating gridRequired
Row five. Expect low usage and high value; never treat low usage alone as a reason to cut it.
How much did you use the extra leave benefit?Rating gridRequired
Row six.
Which three would you keep if the budget shrank?Multiple choiceRequired
State the limit of three in the label, because a checkbox field has no setting that caps how many boxes are ticked.
Which one benefit do you tell other people about?Single choice
A cheap proxy for which benefit does any recruiting work.
The trade offs
If the whole benefits budget were paid as salary, what would you choose?Single choiceRequired
All salary through all benefits, with an even split in the middle. Ask it once and plainly.
Would you give up one existing benefit to fund four extra days of leave?Single choice
Yes, no, depends which one. The third option is the honest answer and should be offered.
Would you take a lower cash bonus for a guaranteed benefit?Single choice
How easy is it to actually claim or book a benefit?Single choiceRequired
Very easy through hard enough that I have given up. A fiddly process depresses every usage row.
Have you ever started a claim and abandoned it?Single choice
Pairs with the previous question and is more concrete than an ease rating alone.
What is missing
Which benefit would make the biggest difference that is not offered?Long text
Ask for one, and ask why. The why is what separates a real need from a wish.
Which of these would you use if it were added?Multiple choice
Volunteering days, study leave, car leasing, subsidised childcare, transport, none of these.
Is there a benefit you have at a previous employer that you miss?Short text
Short text, because the answer is usually two words and never on your list.
How do our benefits compare with what you hear from friends in similar jobs?Single choice
Worse, about the same, better, no idea. No idea is a communication finding.
About you, optional
How long have you worked here?Dropdown
Ends with prefer not to say, like every question in this section.
Do you have caring responsibilities?Dropdown
Children, an adult, both, no, prefer not to say. It is the sharpest cut in any benefits survey.
Which age group are you in?Dropdown
Optional. Superannuation and leave preferences move with age more than with anything else.
Which questions to make required
Four things are required. Every usage grid row is required because a partly filled grid cannot be ranked, and the ranking is the deliverable. The keep three question is required because it is the only question that produces an order rather than a wish list. The salary trade off and the ease of claiming question are required because together they tell you whether the benefits budget is doing anything salary would not do better. The background questions are all optional and each offers prefer not to say.
- How much did you use the retirement or superannuation benefit?
- How much did you use the health cover benefit?
- How much did you use the home office or equipment allowance?
- How much did you use the learning budget?
- How much did you use the wellbeing or counselling line?
- How much did you use the extra leave benefit?
- Which three would you keep if the budget shrank?
- If the whole benefits budget were paid as salary, what would you choose?
- How easy is it to actually claim or book a benefit?
The form built from these questions
A static copy of a form built from part of the bank, exactly as it renders.
How to change this for a different organisation
A company about to cut the budget. Say so on the welcome screen rather than pretending the survey is open ended, and change the keep three question to keep two. People answer a constrained question honestly when the constraint is explained and cynically when it is hidden, and they will work out the real purpose from the question list anyway. Add one question asking what would make a reduction bearable. A workforce with very different lives. Where the company spans graduates and people with school age children, the average preference describes nobody. Keep the caring responsibilities and age questions, report every result cut both ways, and resist designing to the mean. The usual finding is that two small benefits aimed at two groups beat one expensive benefit aimed at everybody. A first benefits survey. If nothing is offered yet, the usage grid has nothing to measure, so replace it with a forced choice exercise: present six plausible benefits with a rough cost each and ask people to build a package inside a stated budget. It takes longer to write, it produces a decision rather than a ranking, and it prevents the survey becoming a list of everything the market offers.
Questions people ask
Why ask about usage and preference separately?
Because a benefit can be highly valued and barely used, usually because claiming it is awkward or because nobody knew it existed. Usage alone would cut it, preference alone would keep everything, and only the pair points at the real problem, which is frequently the claim form rather than the benefit.
Does a pick three question actually limit the answer?
No. A checkbox question has no setting that caps how many boxes are ticked, so the limit lives in the label and in how you read the results. Count only responses that respected the limit for the headline ranking, and report the over ticked ones separately rather than discarding them.
Should the salary trade off be asked at all?
Yes, once, and plainly. It is the only question that tells you whether the benefits budget is buying anything that cash would not buy better. Expect a wide spread by tenure and caring responsibilities, and expect the answer to be uncomfortable for whoever designed the current package.
What do you do with a benefit nobody used?
Look at the did not know about it column first. A benefit with high unawareness is a communication failure, not a product failure, and cutting it is the wrong response. A benefit that people knew about, could claim easily and still did not use is the one to put on the list.
How often should a benefits survey run?
Annually, timed about two months before the renewal decision, so the results can actually change something. Running it in the same month as the decision produces a survey people correctly read as decoration, and running it every quarter produces the same answers with a falling response rate.
Should the results be published?
Publish the ranking, the decision and the reason, including which benefit was kept despite low usage and why. Benefits decisions are read as statements about what an employer values, so an unexplained cut costs more goodwill than the saving is worth. The counselling line is the usual example.
Is low usage a reason to cut a wellbeing benefit?
On its own, no. A counselling line used by three per cent of staff may be the most important thing on the list to the three per cent, and its value is partly in existing at all. Judge it on the keep three answers and on awareness, not on a usage count.
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