Best Practices
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      1. People Element Knowledge Base
      2. Best Practices

      Build Your Exit Surveys

      The following recommendations are a compiled list from our People Element experts of overall best practices when designing your exit survey.

       

      Read this article for standard tips we recommend for all surveys.

      Length

      An exit survey should be 45-50 questions. Asking too many questions can lead to survey fatigue, but not asking enough can lead to unclear feedback. On average, taking a survey with 50 questions takes 8-10 minutes.

      Survey Design

      Use the designated questions in the library for red flag and rehire report categories.
      Two reports available for exit surveys include red flag and rehire potential. These reports can be very helpful if the correct questions are used within your survey. To access and pull these reports, the below library questions should be used. Custom questions or other library question will not be pulled into these reports.
      Rehire report questions include (Rehire Category):
      • I would consider returning to the organization
      • I would consider returning to the same department
      • I would consider returning to the same manager
      • What would it take for you to return to the organization?
      • If you responded with a 3 or above to any of the Rehire Potential questions, the organization is interested in receiving your information. All your other answers to this survey remain confidential. Do you give permission for us to share your name, contact information, and comments from the Rehire Potential section with the organization regarding future potential employment?
      Red flag report questions include (Compliance Category):
      • Have you ever witnessed any conduct by an employee, volunteer, contractor or agent that you would characterize as either unethical or illegal?
      • If yes, please describe what you witnessed
      • Have you ever been asked to engage in conduct that you believe to be either unethical or illegal?  If yes, please explain.
      • If you know of any compliance or integrity issues that have not been addressed with the organization (e.g., improper, unethical or unlawful behavior), please explain.
      • (Answer only if you responded to the previous question) The organization takes these issues seriously and would like to be made aware of them. We will be forwarding this issue/s to the organization. As much information as you can share will be most helpful (i.e., department, location, job titles, etc.). All your other answers to this survey remain confidential. Do you give permission to identify your name with this specific comment? If yes, this will give the organization an opportunity to follow up and you may be contacted for more information

      Settings

      Set up

      Always On - this will keep your survey open forever to allow for continuous feedback.

      Assign Participants

      Trigger Events - our platform can automatically assign your exit survey to your list of participants who meet the criteria of the trigger event. For example, if you want your exiting employees to be assigned to the your exit survey two weeks prior to their term date and allow them to respond for up to 4 months post term, use the trigger event set up as shown below.
      If possible, adding your termed employees to the survey prior to their term date allows for more ways to connect with the employee (work and personal email) resulting in higher participation.

      Using trigger events does not mean survey invited will automatically send to employees once assigned to the survey. Set up your survey invitations in the Email/SMS/Kiosk section.

      Email/Text/Kiosk

      Email & SMS - With always on surveys you wants to use "select day of week" to send your survey invitations via email or SMS. This allows the notifications to automatically send on the selected day of the week to assigned participants that have not yet completed the survey (up to 4 emails).

       

      Phone Collection

      Effectively capture feedback from your hard-to-reach population or provide your survey participants more opportunities to debrief their experiences and feel heard. Reach out to your People Element contact about incorporating phone interviews into your data collection methodology.

      Complete a full survey quality check prior to launching your survey. Utilize our survey pre-launch checklist here.