Employee Surveys Key Terms

Terms you might run across when exploring the topic of employee surveys

By Ann Starr

Employee surveys are an effective way to find out how your employees feel about working in your organization. This type of survey is usually tied to business objectives and can provide management with a view of how well the company is being managed and what can be done to increase productivity and profitability. A survey can be developed and administered in-house or there are a number of consultants who can do this for you. The advantage of having a survey done by a knowledgeable and experienced consultant is that employees are more likely to be candid because of the confidentiality guarantees that can be made when it is outsourced.

Employee engagement

Employee engagement surveys is a distinct type of employee survey that assesses the level of commitment and involvement employees feel toward their work. This type of employee survey measures how enthusiastic employees are about their work and is usually linked to business outcomes. The theory behind this concept is that if employees feel highly engaged, they can better understand how to help an organization be more successful.
Try: BlessingWhite has more information on why this is important to measure as well as the five levels of employee engagement.

Exit surveys

Exit surveys, another very typical kind of employee survey, are usually given when an employee has tendered their resignation and measure what the organization should or could have done to keep the employee.
Try: Grapevine Surveys describes this type of survey and also explains the benefits of doing one of these in your organization.

Double barreled questions

Double barreled questions allow for different responses to subparts. In these questions you might answer yes to one part and no to another part. Employee surveys shouldn't have these types of questions as they are too confusing to the responder.
Try: There is more information on this type of question found on Blurtit.com.

Dichotomous questions

Dichotomous questions are yes or no questions and are a very common type of question found in employee surveys.
Try: QuestionPro Survey Software has a good discussion on how to use this type of question to get more in-depth information from respondents on employee surveys.

Open-ended questions

Open-ended questions are one of the most effective ways of finding out how someone feels about an issue, product or proposition. They typically begin with words such as "Why," "How," or "Tell me about." Commonly used at the end of an employee survey, these types of questions can often be the most enlightening for management when they really want to know what is on the minds of their employees.
Try: Good examples and a comparison between open-ended and closed-ended questions can be found at MediaCollege.com.

Normative database

A normative database contains information on relevant industries that are comparable on a variety of factors. Comparing one company's results from an employee survey to others in the same or a similar industry is a good way to determine how well the company is functioning and what could be done to improve it.
Try: The GelFond Group has normative databases on employee surveys for a variety of comparable companies.