Employee survey questions your team will actually answer
You want honest feedback from your team, but long surveys with leading questions get rushed answers. This prompt has your todo.is agent write a short anonymous employee survey with balanced rating questions and a few open ones, then later turn the exported answers into a clear summary.
The prompt
- Write an anonymous employee survey for [COMPANY SIZE AND TYPE]. The main goal is to understand [MAIN TOPIC]. Keep it under [NUMBER OF MINUTES] minutes. Use a 1 to 5 agree scale for most questions, 2 or 3 open questions, and no question that could identify a person in a small team. Group the questions by theme (work and workload, manager, growth, tools, belonging). Add a short intro text that explains why we ask and how answers stay anonymous. Give me the survey as a Word document and as a CSV with columns question, type and options so I can build it in [SURVEY TOOL].
What to change
- [COMPANY SIZE AND TYPE]: Who takes it, e.g. "a 35-person software company, mostly remote".
- [MAIN TOPIC]: What you want to learn, e.g. "why people feel burned out" or "how new managers are doing".
- [NUMBER OF MINUTES]: How long it should take, e.g. "5" or "10".
- [SURVEY TOOL]: Where you will run it, e.g. "Google Forms", "Microsoft Forms" or "Typeform".
Example result
- Employee survey (about 6 minutes)
- Intro: We run this survey twice a year to find out what to fix. Answers are anonymous and we only share results for groups of 5 people or more.
- Work and workload (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree)
- • My workload is manageable most weeks.
- • I can switch off after work hours.
- • I know what is expected of me.
- My manager
- • My manager gives me useful feedback at least once a month.
- • I feel comfortable raising a problem with my manager.
- • My manager recognizes good work.
- Growth
- • I am learning new skills in my role.
- • I can see a path to grow here in the next two years.
- Tools and processes
- • I have the tools I need to do my job well.
- • Meetings are a good use of my time.
- Belonging
- • I feel respected by the people I work with.
- • I would recommend this company as a place to work. (0 to 10)
- Open questions (optional)
- • What is one thing we should start doing?
- • What is one thing we should stop doing?
- • Anything else you want leadership to know?
- After the survey
- • Share a summary within 2 weeks, even if results are hard to hear.
- • Pick 2 or 3 actions, name an owner for each, and report back next round.
- How the CSV looks
- • question, type, options
- • "My workload is manageable most weeks.", scale, 1-5
- • "What is one thing we should start doing?", text,
How to do it with todo.is
- Copy the prompt and change the brackets to fit your team and your goal.
- Send it to your agent from todo.is, WhatsApp or Telegram.
- Get the survey as a Word file and a CSV, then build it in your survey tool.
- After people answer, attach the exported results and ask your agent for a summary with themes and charts.
Tips for a better result
- Keep it short. A 5-minute survey gets more honest answers than a 20-minute one.
- Do not ask for team, age and location together in a small company. That can make answers easy to trace back to one person.
- Ask the same core questions every round so you can compare results over time.
- Close the loop: share results and the actions you picked, or people stop answering next time.
- Make it recurring: ask your agent to remind you every 6 months to send the survey again.
employee survey: FAQ
- How often should you run an employee survey? Many companies run a full survey once or twice a year and a short pulse survey every month or quarter. Choose a rhythm you can actually act on.
- Should an employee survey be anonymous? Usually yes, people answer more honestly. Only report results for groups large enough that nobody can be identified.
- How many questions should an employee survey have? Around 12 to 25 rating questions and 2 or 3 open ones is a common size. That keeps it under 10 minutes.
- Can my agent analyze the survey results? Yes. Attach the exported CSV or Excel file and it summarizes scores by theme, groups open comments into topics and can make charts in Excel or PowerPoint.
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