How to design an employee experience survey that teams will actually complete

Have you hit a plateau with your employee survey results? Received incomplete feedback after sending out an employee questionnaire? 

Employee experience surveys give team members an opportunity to shape their company culture and values through their feedback. A well-crafted survey helps HR professionals listen and develop their employee experience strategy using engagement metrics. 

By regularly collecting and tracking survey results, organizations can increase retention and build their employer brand. Engaged teams also see 18% higher productivity and 23% higher profitability. 

But employee surveys aren’t just about building up business or collecting employee feedback. Surveys are a dialogue between employees and leaders. It’s an extension of your employer brand, helping organizations understand internal culture, the impact of leadership and brand reputation. 

Designing a successful employee experience survey encourages participation and empowers team members to own their company’s culture. Here’s how to design a survey your employees are actually going to complete. 

Why many employee experience surveys fail

Many cite “survey fatigue” as the main reason employee responses drop off. It happens when employees lose motivation to start a survey, let alone complete all questions thoughtfully. ITA Group’s monthly pulse survey gives team members 10 days to respond to fewer than five questions. It takes most people less than one minute to complete. 

Employees disengage and stop offering feedback when they don’t see its value. They don’t see a visible impact from their answers or understand how their responses are used. They receive too many surveys, or the questionnaires are too long. They disconnect when surveys feel repetitive, or questions don’t apply to their team or role. 

Organizations need clear communication and a strong sense of purpose to take survey findings and turn them into opportunities for team members to drive change. “As leaders, you have to be receptive and be able to listen. It's important to be able to not only hear it, but to really take that feedback to heart and then make a change,” advised Mark Hickman, Chief Human Resources Officer at FirstBank.

​During an ITA Group “Love your people” podcast episode, Mark shared that his team had a 92% participation rate on their first enterprise-wide survey. “We feel really good about that because we communicated it very well,” he explained. “But the survey is just one part of it. Then, when you get the results, how do you act on that? How do you make sure that you're meeting the goals for people?”

Related: [Love your people podcast] HR's role in driving growth

Start with clear employee engagement goals

Your employee experience survey needs a clear objective. Ask your HR team what you want to achieve or what question you’re looking to answer.

​Employee surveys help organizations: 

• Measure employee sentiment 
• Improve onboarding 
• Understand retention risks 
• Evaluate workplace programs 
• Find opportunities to nurture company culture 

All of this informs the type of questions you should ask and who the participants should be. If you want to evaluate customer-facing teams, target an employee segment comprising support, customer success, account managers, and sales.

Teams like IT or legal wouldn’t provide relevant feedback to questions about customer interactions. Sending them questions irrelevant to their roles can lead to confusion and unintentionally relay a lack of care or planning from the organization.

How you set up your survey matters. When employees take the time to share opinions or ideas, HR professionals and leadership need to show they’re listening by segmenting surveys appropriately, sharing results and outlining relevant next steps.

Types of workplace surveys

Not all employee surveys serve the same goal. Employee engagement surveys look into performance and recognition metrics. Pulse surveys monitor ongoing sentiment. Onboarding surveys target new hires in their first weeks of employment.

• Onboarding surveys
• Milestone surveys 
• Exit surveys
• Pulse surveys
• Program-specific surveys

Shorter, targeted surveys often yield better insights than a single, in-depth annual survey. Using targeted surveys throughout the employee lifecycle gives teams a comprehensive view of the employee experience at the company.

When questions and respondents are aligned on a survey, you’re more likely to receive actionable data to guide the next steps in your employee engagement strategy.

Relevant: Top employee engagement trends in 2026 

Keep employee survey questions simple and direct

How you craft employee experience survey questions keeps respondents engaged and generates focused answers that are more actionable. Use simple and direct language. 

Flawed survey questions confuse employees or create bias, making responses ineffective or unhelpful. Work with your team to format your questions and ensure they’re objective and as clear as possible.

• Work environment: On a scale of 1-5, with 5 being Very Likely and 1 being Very Unlikely, how likely are you to recommend this company as a great place to work?
• Leadership support: Does your manager care about your development?
• Recognition: Which behaviors and achievements do you feel aren't being recognized enough?
• Growth opportunities: Use the scale of 1-5, with 5 being Strongly Agree and 1 being Strongly Disagree, how would you rate the following: “I have access to learning and development resources that support my growth.”

Design surveys that increase participation and completion rates

A well-structured employee experience survey not only keeps your readers’ attention but also gets you more effective insights.

Survey design best practices 

1. Share the survey’s purpose

This sets expectations and reminds everyone that answers are anonymous to put employees at ease. 

2. Break up the text

Eyes tend to glaze over when they see a block of text, so stay concise. Create a logical flow of questions that keep employees focused and ensure responses are relevant.

3. Show progress indicators

Time’s valuable. Give an idea of how many questions are complete or left. You can also make survey participation easier with mobile-friendly survey tools like ITA Group’s Cooleaf engagement platform.  

Templates and tools that make manager-level survey deployment easier

Many organizations use standardized metrics, such as employee Net Promoter Scores (eNPS), to track employee satisfaction and loyalty. It’s a simple, fast survey that asks employees how likely they are to recommend their organization as a place to work. 

​ITA Group employee experience experts recommend using eNPS over time to consistently track engagement. As a standard metric, HR teams and employee experience leaders can use eNPS across organizations and teams. These scores help leaders discover and recommend industry best practices to improve company culture.

Along with eNPS, organizations can get more in-depth information with one or two open-ended questions or by administering a longer baseline survey once a year.

Survey technology on Cooleaf makes it fast and easy for teams to set up and consistently distribute pulse surveys. Managers can edit a survey template to suit their needs or schedule a recurring pulse survey. Employees can easily answer questions via the mobile app or on their desktop. As a bonus feature, employee rewards like Cooleaf points can incentivize teams to complete a survey, increasing your survey’s accuracy.

Analyzing is a key step in diagnosing overall employee experience. Platforms like Cooleaf also streamline analysis and reporting, so leaders can view overall trends and filter and sort open-ended responses.

Avoid surveying too often 

Limiting survey frequency will prevent survey fatigue. By understanding your goals, you’ll be able to gather the necessary feedback and set an appropriate cadence for checking in with your employees.

Different survey types set up clear expectations on how often you’ll reach out. Pulse surveys are short, making them a great tool for monitoring sentiment as you test anything new with your employees.  

Examples of survey cadence 

• Pulse survey: 5-10 quick questions, sent monthly or quarterly; focuses on one theme (e.g., workload, manager support, communication).
• Lifecycle survey: Questions sent at 30-, 60-, 90-day milestones for new hires; evaluates the onboarding process and how an employee is adjusting.
• Annual survey: More questions and deeper insights are gathered each year to inform leadership decisions and find areas of improvement. 

How you communicate through your survey can also keep employees engaged. There are opportunities to have fun creating your survey, such as using employer-branded language or incentives.

Ideas to keep employees engaged

• Mark the halfway point with an encouraging message: “Halfway there! Consider this your mid-survey high five.”
• Add personality to change standard questions: “Spring cleaning: what’s one thing in your role that could be simplified?”
• Offer completion incentives: “Complete this survey by Friday for a free lunch!”

This attention to detail encourages employees to complete full surveys and shows your team’s commitment to changing culture.

ITA Group worked with Stability Healthcare to track employee sentiment after a large company restructure. They prompted employees to complete a simple 5-question eNPS survey. To encourage engagement, employees received points to spend in an all-new award storefront. 

Results led the team to discover opportunities to improve communication and offer peer recognition. Today, 94% of Stability Healthcare employees say they feel they can be themselves at work.

Related: Employee recognition supports remote worker well-being

Build trust with employees

Employee surveys are an opportunity to build trust with your team. Confidentiality and anonymity give employees the confidence to respond honestly.

Concise, thoughtful questions and targeting segments gather more effective feedback. And sharing how you’ll use these responses shows respect for employees’ feedback and their time. Employee trust and participation increase when employees see real change. 

3-part loop for post-survey manager enablement

• What you heard: Share results fast
• What you’ll do: Pick 1-3 actions
• What happened as a result: What changed because of your actions?

Design employee experience surveys that drive real change with ITA Group

Effective employee experience surveys require thoughtful design and follow-through. Survey fatigue doesn’t just mean a low response rate. It indicates a lack of strategy or commitment to building positive employee experience.

Surveys are part of your employer brand. It shows your priorities for company culture. Having a survey objective and using concise, relevant questions respects your employees’ time and their feedback. Sharing your results and next steps builds trust. 

To create a survey for your employees to complete, focus on what you want to achieve through the employee experience.

How do you want your employees to feel as you work together to achieve your goals? Take a look at our step-by-step guide on aligning your employer brand with your employee experience.