Q - Questionnaires for staff (A to Z Tips)
Staff surveys: love them or hate them, staff surveys are necessary to help you understand how your team is feeling at any given point in time.
One of the easiest ways to improve engagement with your team is via regular staff surveys, requesting frequent feedback from your team to gain a continuous stream of helpful comment. A Salesforce study revealed that staff who feel their voices are heard are almost five times more likely to give their best performance.
To get the most out of your survey, you need to ask the right questions at the right frequency. Giving staff the chance to respond anonymously increases the chance of honest, helpful, and productive feedback.
The main purpose of staff surveys is to maintain staff satisfaction by identifying and working on weaknesses, improving strengths, and identifying opportunities to increase staff engagement.
Through regular staff questionnaires, you can:
• Give your staff a voice and the chance to share their concerns and suggestions
• Measure and improve engagement levels
• Give your SLT a greater opportunity to act wherever necessary
• Improve the effectiveness of your communication with your team
First, and most importantly, you need to ask questions relating to your staff’s satisfaction to identify their overall engagement. In addition, questions about satisfaction can uncover primary issues that could be disengaging some staff members.
Below are some sample questions to help to get you started:
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how happy are you at work? Start with this question and ask it regularly to allow you to track it over time. The key is consistency.
• Would you recommend someone to work here? If a member of staff is unhappy with their job, they will not be positive about the school when discussing it with their friends.
• Do you have a clear understanding of your career or promotion path? A Gallup poll has established that staff who get the opportunity to continuously develop are twice as likely to stay in their job.
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your work-life balance? Staff need to be able to balance their work and their personal life in order to avoid burnout.
• Hypothetically, if you were to resign tomorrow, what would your reason be? The answers will enlighten you to underlying issues.
• Are you satisfied with the perks that you are receiving? Staff perks are important for job satisfaction levels.
• Do you feel valued at work? Research shows only 21% of employees feel strongly valued at work.
• How frequently do you receive recognition from your line manager? Identify how the leadership team is performing. Staff should not go for longer than two weeks without recognition.
• The last time you accomplished a big project, did you receive any recognition? Feeling valued at work is a huge motivator.
• Do you believe you will be able to reach your full potential here? Staff want to work in a place where they are valued and encouraged to flourish. The greater the opportunities for development, the better staff retention will be.
• If you were given the chance, would you reapply to your current job? If the answer is no, it gives you a chance to establish why.
• Do you foresee yourself working here one year from now? If the majority of staff say they don’t see themselves at the school in one year, you need to make some changes, fast.
• Do you believe the leadership team takes your feedback seriously? No one wants to be ignored; it makes team members feel undervalued.
• Do you feel like your colleagues respect you, and each other? If your teams do not support one another, they will not display a united front.
• Do you believe we live by our school’s values? Do staff feel the school’s values or are they just words?
• Does our SMT contribute to a positive work culture? This question allows insight into how well your SMT are upholding the school’s culture.
• Do you have fun at work? Do your staff enjoy coming to work? Is your school’s culture worth getting up for?
• Are there any new responsibilities, you would like to take on? In a recent study, only 29% of staff were happy with the career advancement opportunities available to them. How would your school score?
• What type of new projects would you like to be involved in? Boredom, or job fatigue, is often cited as the main reason for leaving a job.
• Are there any new skills you would you like to develop? If they align with the strategic development plan—provide your team with the resources.
• Do you feel you have enough learning opportunities in your current role? Even mature, seasoned team members should have the opportunity to add to their skill set and the opportunity to continue to grow professionally.
The beauty of employee feedback surveys is that there are many ways to ask each question and the act of doing so will improve staff engagement levels, your understanding of your team and their drivers, with relatively little investment.