Survey Design

Use these tips to guide you through building your next survey and check out our additional articles per survey type for a more tailored approach.

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

Questions

Avoid using double barreled questions.

Example: My supervisor is respectful and trustworthy
Instead use: Q1. "My supervisor is respectful" and Q2. "My supervisor is trustworthy"

Editing Questions

Don’t edit library/template questions to the point that it changes the meaning of the question. Our library questions are connected to our benchmark data based on the original question text. To maintain the integrity and accuracy of the benchmark reporting, don't over edit the question.

Don’t overwrite a library/template question with your own. If you want a different question, delete the library question and create your own custom question.

Open-Ended Questions

For open ended questions related to responses for previous questions, we recommend including the referred question in parentheses in these items. This will help those who receive comment reports to easily identify the referred question.

Example: If you answered 3 or below to the previous question (The reality of my job matched the expectations I had when I was hired), please explain what was different than you expected

Open ended questions should be used sparingly. These items take longer to respond to and can lead to survey fatigue if there are too many.

Dropdown Questions

Link dropdown questions to demographics. Responses to a dropdown question will not appear in any chart. This question type should only be used for mapping responses to a demographic, or obtaining via raw data export.

Language/Style

Use consistent language throughout the survey.

If you refer to a manager as a team lead, maintain that term throughout the survey.

Use clear, simple language that all participants will understand.

Scales & Answer Choices

Keep a consistent scale throughout the survey. This minimizes errors in how participants respond and prevents survey fatigue.

Don't reverse the scale.

Reporting is designed to report out mean and favorability scores for single-select items. Favorability is always calculated using the top scores (4's and 5's for a 5-point scale), never the lower end of the scale.