Employee Happiness Survey: 20 essential questions you need to ask

In today’s world of hybrid work, economic pressure and evolving expectations, employee happiness is more important than ever before. But in an era where retention and wellbeing are increasingly under pressure, 70 % of UK workers report being satisfied with their job, according to CIPD’s Good Work Index 2024.

Conventional wisdom holds that happy employees are engaged employees. And engaged employees play a significant role in any company’s financial performance. So having satisfied employees and keeping them happy is key to business success.

That’s why it’s so important to keep a pulse on employee happiness. One of the best ways to do this is via an employee happiness survey or an employee satisfaction survey that can later help inform your employee engagement strategy.

This year the work happiness survey will potentially be more important than any in the last few years. It’s your opportunity to measure employee satisfaction and let your team members be frank about how they’re going.

It’s important to remember that every employee survey question you ask implies that you’re going to take action based on the answers you get. When you ask the right questions, focused on morale, wellbeing and team sentiment, you open the door to real change, not just data collection.

What is an employee happiness survey?

An employee happiness survey is a series of questions that you ask your team members to understand how happy, motivated and emotionally supported they feel at work. It helps you to measure job satisfaction, employee wellbeing and overall team sentiment. Also known as employee satisfaction surveys, the answers to these surveys can help you identify any areas in your workplace culture where employees are unhappy and make changes accordingly.

They give you a chance to find out how employees feel and gauge employee happiness. If you can identify the source of low job satisfaction levels, you can take steps to fix the problem and improve employee morale.

Why measuring employee happiness matters

Engaged employees really care about your company and what they’re working on. They don’t have to be pushed, and they happily go the extra mile. They believe in you and your company vision.

Employees tend to be happier if they are in jobs or roles that match both their interests and their skills and feel that they are making a meaningful contribution to their employer and even society as a whole.

More importantly, engaged employees are appropriately recognised and rewarded for their contribution. According to our Work That Works report, employees who feel recognised are twice as likely to report high levels of happiness at work compared to those who don’t feel recognised, highlighting just how important it is to invest in morale and wellbeing.

When you measure employee happiness effectively, you can:

• Improve retention by identifying issues before they lead to turnover.
• Boost productivity through stronger motivation and emotional fulfilment.
• Strengthen company culture by acting on employee sentiment and feedback.

Why not explore our employee retention strategies to help keep your best people.

20 employee happiness survey questions you should ask

As mentioned in our previous post on employee surveys, you have no hope of influencing employee engagement if you do not act on the results. Of course, a staff happiness survey is only as good as the questions.

Here are 20 essential employee wellbeing survey questions to ask your team, grouped into key focus areas.

Questions about business goals and career growth

These questions help you understand whether your employees feel aligned with the organisation’s direction and have room to develop.

1. How well do you understand the strategic goals of the business?

A well-run company will align an individual’s goals with its overarching business goals. This ensures your entire team is moving together in the same direction.

2. Can you see a clear link between your work and the company’s goals and objectives?

Happy employees can clearly understand how their work impacts a company’s overarching goals and objectives. We all like to feel needed and appreciated, and this translates in the workplace.

3. Do you feel like you have opportunities for growth and advancement?

One of the top reasons employees leave their jobs is a lack of professional growth opportunities. Even if your employees are happy with their current job, they will be pushing to advance at some point.

And if you have a team of Millennials, this will be sooner rather than later. If there are no opportunities for development and growth, don’t expect your employees to stick around for the long haul.

Questions about team happiness and motivation

A cohesive and motivated team is key to employe morale. These questions highlight how people feel about collaboration and support.

4. How well does your team work together?

Teamwork and collaboration are vital in most workplaces. So you need to make sure your employees are happy with the dynamic of their team.

5. Are you proud to be a member of your team?

Is your employee happy to be associated with their co-workers?

6. Does your team inspire you to do your best work?

A great team is a team that inspires one another. This is an important question to ask because a smooth-running team within your company will be a team of individuals who help one another do their best work.

7. Does your team help you to complete your work?

If results from the happiness at work questionnaire show signs of employee dissatisfaction, make sure you prioritise team-building efforts so your people can see that you’re following through.

Questions about management and leadership

Management plays a huge role in workplace happiness. Use these to assess leadership transparency, support and trust.

8. How does your manager motivate your team?

There’s a fair amount of truth in the old saying, “You don’t quit your job, you quit your boss.” So it’s important to gauge the degree of satisfaction with direct supervisors.

9. How would you describe the level of support offered by your manager?

Effective management should mean an employee feels supported by their manager. If you consistently see low scores for this question, it’s time to start making changes.

10. On a scale of 1 to 10, how comfortable are you in giving feedback to your manager?

Guess what? Managers don’t always know best. Receiving employee feedback is super important to the effective growth of a company and a strong work culture. Employees should feel confident providing feedback to their manager.

11. To what degree is the management team transparent?

Transparency is an incredibly important factor that contributes to workplace happiness. When it comes to leadership, transparency equates to honesty and openness. You need to find out whether your staff trust your candour.

12. Describe our culture in fewer than 20 words.

Because leadership and culture are intertwined, make sure you find out what your employees think about your culture and whether they believe in your company and vision.

13. On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely would you be to recommend our company’s products or services to a friend?

You want to make sure your employees believe in the product you are selling. If you see low scores for this question, don’t panic.

Think about your internal messaging and staff education. Not all divisions in your company will work directly with your product. Could it be that they simply don’t know enough about it?

Questions about employee recognition and rewards

Recognition is one of the strongest drivers of job satisfaction. These questions explore how valued your employees feel.

14. How strongly do you feel valued at work?

Feeling valued at work is a huge motivator, so this is an important question to gauge how valued your workers feel.

15. How frequently do you receive recognition from your manager?

If employees tell you it’s been weeks since they received any recognition, there’s good chance morale is slipping. And that’s the fast track to zoning out, low productivity and ultimately turnover.

16. What recognition did you receive the last time you completed a big project?

You should also find out how satisfied your employees are with their compensation.

17. Are you satisfied with your compensation and benefits?

While you may not be able to afford to give your employees a pay rise, you may be able to offer them a more generous employee benefits package. Something that doesn’t cost your company directly but all adds up to big value for your employees.

Questions about remote work and productivity

Remote working environments affect happiness differently. These questions help you understand whether people are set up to succeed.

18. Do you have what you need (i.e. space, set-up, internet) to continue being effective while working remotely?

Find out how your employees are set up while working from home. You need to know what’s going on in their workspace if you want to be able to supply them with what they need.

19. Are you able to work productively in your remote-work environment?

It’s not only about their set-up working from home might mean extra pressures from the home environment like navigating home duties while you work or other disruptions by family members. 

Want to know what’s really impacting productivity in 2025? Download our Work That Works productivity report for the latest insights.

20. What is something our company can do to better support you while working remotely?

Sometimes it’s best to just ask directly: “What is something that we can do as a company to support our employees at home?”. Giving your employees the chance to tell you directly how you can support them should be what the employee satisfaction surveys are about.

Tips for running an effective happiness survey 

While the employee happiness survey is a critical component in benchmarking the level of employee satisfaction from year to year, it’s not the end goal.An employee survey has no hope of influencing employee engagement if you do not act on the results.

Before launching your next employee sentiment survey, keep these five principles in mind:

• Keep it anonymous to encourage honest feedback.
• Follow up with visible action so employees see their input matters.
• Avoid survey fatigue by keeping questions relevant and concise.
• Choose the right survey tool to streamline distribution and analysis.
• Repeat regularly to monitor ongoing employee morale and wellbeing.

Here are our five tips to help make your employee happiness surveys really count.

1. Ask the right questions

As a rule, a short survey is a good survey. How many questions you ask depends on your business, but your  focus should stay on key areas such as:

• Management and leadership.
• Manager-employee-co-worker interaction.
• Alignment of individual goals with business goals.
• Recognition and reward.

Ask enough to capture the full picture of employee sentiment but keep it digestible.

2. Ask a number of open-ended questions

Encourage your people to express themselves in their own words. Open-ended questions allow your employees to speak freely and reveal insights you might never have considered. To get the best results, make the survey anonymous; this removes fear of judgement and drives honesty.

3. Communicate the value for employees

If your team believes the survey is just a tick-box exercise, they won’t take it seriously. Show them that their input is the starting point for change. Reinforce that their voices are heard and their feedback is used to shape your workplace and bring about positive change where necessary.

4. Report the survey results and your plan of action

Once you’ve analysed the survey responses, share the results. Be transparent about what you’ve learned, what changes are coming and who’s responsible for driving them. Most importantly, follow through and keep communicating progress over time. 

5. Conduct surveys frequently

You don’t need to wait for an annual check in. Short, regular surveys, either monthly or quarterly, are often more effective for tracking employee morale and maintaining a feedback loop. The key is consistency, action and visibility. 

What should you do with the survey results?

Employee happiness survey results are a goldmine of insights, if you know how to use them effectively. It’s not just about collecting data; it’s what you do next that matters. To make the most of your survey responses, focus on turning feedback into actionable insights and closing the feedback loop within your team.

Analyse the data

• Look for trends, recurring themes and outliers in the responses.
• Segment results by department, team or location to identify specific areas needing attention.

Share key findings

• Summarise the results and share them with employees to show transparency.
• Highlight the wins but don’t shy away from areas needing improvement.

Create an action plan

• Prioritise the most pressing issues raised in the survey.
• Set  goals, assign responsibilities and clearly outline next steps. This is where insight turns into action. 

Communicate progress

• Keep employees in the loop. Let them know what changes are happening and why. Acknowledging their input reinforces that the survey wasn’t just a box-ticking exercise, it was the start of real change. 

Reassess and improve

• Don’t stop at one survey. Continue measuring progress and revisiting key areas with follow-up surveys. This helps strengthen employee engagement and build long-term trust. 

Act on the responses to your employee surveys

Naturally, to get the most out of your employee work happiness surveys, make sure they’re easy to complete, published regularly and focused on the right questions.  Using some or all of the happiness survey questions we’ve provided is a strong place to start.

But, for employee surveys to be effective, you have to act on what you hear.. Too many businesses measure engagement without following through. Consistent listening paired with meaningful action is what really builds trust and drives change. 

You don’t need to stick to the same format every time. Some teams might respond better to quick pulse surveys, other to in-depth check-ins. Try different approaches to see what delivers the most valuable feedback.

If you’re just getting started, a quarterly rhythm can be a good benchmark. Frequent enough to stay in tune with employee morale, without overwhelming your team. 

And remember, the worst thing you can do with your employee happiness survey is to ask for feedback and ignore it.

Ready to start surveying smarter? Employment Hero’s custom survey tools can help you gather insights, track sentiment and take meaningful action. Talk to one of our business specialists today.