Form questions

Employee engagement survey questions

Ask twenty five to thirty five once a year, grouped into four or five sections. Three are never cut: one statement about knowing what is expected, one about whether a problem can be raised safely, and one open question asking what to fix first. The open question is where every action plan actually comes from.

An engagement survey earns its length only if every statement belongs to a section somebody owns and can act on. Built as five grids rather than forty loose questions, the results arrive already sorted into the conversations that follow them.

The questions

My role

  1. I know what is expected of me at workRating gridRequired

    All five sections are agreement grids on a one to five scale. Keep three as the true middle rather than labelling it neutral, or it becomes the parking space for every unanswered row.

  2. I have the tools and access I need to do my jobRating gridRequired

  3. My work uses what I am good atRating gridRequired

  4. I have enough say in how I do my workRating gridRequired

  5. The amount of work I am given is realisticRating gridRequired

  6. I can usually finish my day without working lateRating grid

  7. I understand how my work is judgedRating grid

  8. I have enough uninterrupted time to do focused workRating grid

My manager

  1. My manager gives me feedback I can act onRating gridRequired

  2. My manager is straight with me about how I am doingRating gridRequired

  3. My manager removes obstacles rather than adding themRating gridRequired

  4. I could raise a problem with my manager without it counting against meRating gridRequired

    The psychological safety row. If only one manager statement survives a shortening, keep this one.

  5. My manager notices work that goes wellRating gridRequired

  6. My manager makes time for meRating grid

  7. My manager helps me think about where I am headingRating grid

My team

  1. People in my team do what they say they willRating gridRequired

  2. Disagreements in my team get settled rather than avoidedRating gridRequired

  3. New people are brought up to speed properlyRating gridRequired

  4. My team can say no to work that does not fitRating gridRequired

  5. I would recommend my team to somebody joining the companyRating gridRequired

  6. My team has the mix of skills it needsRating grid

  7. We learn from things that go wrongRating grid

  8. I know what the teams next to mine are working onRating grid

The company

  1. I understand how my work connects to what the company is trying to doRating gridRequired

  2. Decisions are explained, not just announcedRating gridRequired

  3. Pay and progression are handled consistentlyRating gridRequired

  4. The company acts on what it hears in surveys like this oneRating gridRequired

    The row that predicts next year's response rate more than any other.

  5. I trust the information leadership gives usRating gridRequired

  6. Poor performance gets dealt with hereRating grid

  7. The company keeps the commitments it makes to customersRating grid

  8. I would be comfortable raising a concern about conductRating grid

Staying, and in your own words

  1. I expect to still be here in a yearRating gridRequired

  2. I would apply here again knowing what I know nowRating gridRequired

  3. I see a next step for me hereRating gridRequired

  4. I would tell a friend to applyRating gridRequired

  5. What is working here that should not be changed?Long text

    The question that stops a survey being used only as a list of complaints.

  6. What is the one thing you would fix first?Long text

  7. What did last year's survey change, as far as you can tell?Long text

    A blank answer here is itself a finding, and it is the honest test of whether the exercise is worth repeating.

  8. Which team are you in?DropdownRequired

    Include a prefer not to say option, and never report a team with fewer than five or six responses.

  9. How long have you been here?Dropdown

Which questions to make required

The grid rows are required and everything written is optional, which is the opposite of what most people expect. The grids are the measure, they take seconds per row, and a half answered grid cannot be scored. The three open questions are optional because they are the ones that take real thought, and a required text box at the end of twenty five statements is where a survey loses the people who had most to say.

The form built from these questions

A static copy of a form built from part of the bank, exactly as it renders.

Page 1 of 4

Engagement survey 2026

Five sections of statements on a one to five agreement scale, then three written questions. About twelve minutes. The only thing recorded about you is the team you pick on the last page.

My role

Answer each statement for the last three months rather than for your whole time here. One means strongly disagree and five means strongly agree. There is no neutral label on purpose, because three should mean the middle rather than no opinion.
1 Strongly disagree2345 Strongly agree
I know what is expected of me at work
I have the tools and access I need to do my job
My work uses what I am good at
I have enough say in how I do my work
The amount of work I am given is realistic

Three ways to change this bank

For a site or shift based workforce, replace the company section with the shift: whether the roster is published far enough ahead, whether breaks are taken, and whether equipment is available at the start of a shift. Head office statements about strategy read as noise on a factory floor. For a shorter version, take the first five rows of each section and both of the first two open questions, which gives twenty five rows and about seven minutes. For a follow up wave, run the same instrument next year without changing a word of it, and add one new question at the end asking what changed. Changing the wording between waves is the most common way a company loses the only thing an annual survey produces, which is the line on the chart.

Questions people ask

How long should an engagement survey be?

Twenty five to thirty five statements, which is ten to twelve minutes. Grids make that feel much shorter than the same number of separate questions. Past forty rows the final section is answered down one column, and a straight line of fours tells you nothing except that the survey was too long.

Can it really be anonymous?

It can be built so that nothing identifying is collected: no name, no email, no login, and one team question as the only segment. That is as close as a form gets. What breaks anonymity in practice is reporting a team of three, so set a floor of five or six responses before any group is shown separately.

How often should it run?

Once a year for the full instrument, with short pulses in between if you want more frequent signal. Running the full survey twice a year usually produces the same numbers and half the response rate, because nothing visible has changed between them and people notice.

What response rate should I expect?

Whatever you got last year, plus or minus what you did about it. Organisations that publish results and name the changes see rates hold or climb; those that go quiet see them fall each cycle. Treat a falling rate as the finding rather than as a distribution problem.

Should managers see their team's results?

Yes, with a minimum group size and after their own manager has seen them. The written answers need more care, because they are passed on as typed and a single sentence can identify somebody in a team of six. Have a people lead read them before they are circulated.

How do the grids come out in an export?

Each grid becomes one CSV column, with every statement and its answer joined together in that column rather than split across columns. For an annual survey scored in a spreadsheet, plan a parsing step, or split a grid into separate single choice questions and accept the extra length.

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Other question banks

Pulse survey questions

A pulse survey works because the questions never change, so the interesting thing is the line rather than this month's number. Six fixed statements, one workload question and one rotating topic is the whole instrument, and adding to it breaks the point of it.

Manager effectiveness survey questions

Upward feedback is only worth collecting when the person answering believes it is anonymous, and belief comes from the form rather than from a promise in the invitation email. No name field, no email field, no login, and every statement about behaviour somebody could have watched.

Onboarding survey questions

An onboarding survey is worth running three times with identical questions, because the interesting figure is the movement between day 7 and day 90 rather than any single score. That means writing questions that survive being asked again.

On writing the questions themselves, read How to write survey questions. For everything the builder can do, see the form maker. Step by step: Create a form with AI, then View, export and manage your responses.

Sources

Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked .