36 Remote Working Survey Questions to Ask Your Employees

Using remote work surveys is an excellent way to gauge the productivity and performance levels of remote-based employees. The year 2020 saw tremendous growth in remote work - and that trend looks set to stay. An estimated 70 percent of the workforce might be working remotely at least five days a month by 2025. 

Since the pandemic, several businesses switched to a remote work style. Leading companies struggled to ensure that their staff had all the requirements they needed. Now that some firms are committed to never returning to the office, the emphasis is on optimizing the work-from-home environment. 

It is crucial to understand whether your company has taken up remote work by choice or need. This may help establish how your staff have adjusted their needs, and how well supported they feel. 

However, it is necessary to collect this data strategically and to seek input from distant workers intentionally. Employee recognition surveys and retention surveys were the traditional methods of analyzing employee performance and feedback. 

In this new era of a distributed workforce, how do your team members cope? Are they as satisfied as they are productive? The following article aims to find out what questions to ask remote workers when creating a work from home questionnaire for employees. 

Why You Should Get Survey from Remote Workers

While some studies have shown remote workers to be more satisfied and appreciated, they also found that their engagement with their fellow employees is weaker. These studies were also pre-pandemic, and workers who were forced to work from distant abruptly may not have been enthusiastic about the move. 

Further studies (post-pandemic) have revealed that 72 percent of remote workers wish to return to their workplace. What are the causes for that? Researchers believe that socialization with employees and collaboration are driving factors. 

Hence, it is essential to check-in with members of your remote working team. Employees may not feel good or isolated and need further support. The right questions from the working from home survey can help determine the level of assistance required from staff.

An easy way to evaluate your organization is to distribute a working from home survey including thoughtful work from home questions. You can perform a small working from home survey with questions to ask remote employees to: 

• Evaluate how successfully staff adapt to remote work
• Identify resources and instruments from home that employees can utilize for work
• Compare your home productivity work with the productivity of your workplace work 

These benefits of employee surveys can be implemented into various designs of surveys. 

Methods to Conduct Remote Surveys

Meeting One-on-One

Since there are more remote workplaces, successful one-on-one talks have become even more vital. Whether your company is only starting with one-on-one interviews or has been using them for years, managers need to discuss their employee's performance. Work from home questions ensure a solid line of communication between both the employee and organization. 

In the following scenarios, one-on-ones can be exploited:

1. Detect emotions, goals, or difficulties faced by employees.

The question of whether you can adapt yourself to remote work or connect to the business culture offers you a greater degree of personal feelings and concerns. You can find out whether you or your employees can help to address these issues.

2. To assist employees with difficulties communicating or meeting performance standards.

Any successful team must have good communication skills. However, remote work adds tests as there might be a lack of communication or increased misunderstandings. You may quickly discard the procedures, the quality, or deadlines of your project. 

The most significant way to help a manager or employee discuss difficulties is to understand the level of administration and accountability endeavored. This is to find a solution that works for all sides. 

3. Target alignment check-in.

Remote work has some advantages, but the change can be unpleasant if the staff are new. Taking time to match objectives and aims gives clarity and promotes concentration on priority items. 

These are remote working survey questions to ask remote workers to discover important pain areas and opportunities: 

1. What worries you about remote work?
2. Are you in need of more material, training, or office equipment?
3. Are there barriers that need to be resolved to achieve your objectives?
4. Is there something management can help you with?
5. Are there ways you better help our entire team?
6. Could the organization do anything to help its employees better?
7. How do you want the group or organization to proceed in the processes or practices?
8. What method or technique do you want the team or organization to review or stop?

 Additional remote working survey questions: 

1. Do you feel that your teammates and team leaders have enough communication?
2. How happy are you about the frequency of leadership’s communication?
3. Which modes of communication work best for you?
4. If you need them, is it easy to reach your teammates and team leaders?
5. Do you have all the equipment and remote work tools to do your job as usual? If not, what are you supposed to have?
6. What can management do to help you work from home?
7. How happy are you about the quality of leadership’s communication?
8. Do you believe that your team leader supports and trusts you?  

Pulse Surveys

One way to understand more closely the situations of your employees is by using survey data. Pulse surveys assist firms to quickly learn how employees feel about crucial issues such as communication, remote working skills, and work-life balance. 

These surveys with suitable questions to ask remote employees provide an instant overview of how employees do things and allow supervisors to dive into the data through demographics or teams, to target their activities accordingly. Getting their insights from employees is a crucial technique of getting staff involved – regardless of where they go. 

Requesting feedback using some lightweight surveys shows that you care for your staff. It also gives you real-time insights to adjust and navigate your business using a remote or "return-to-work" plan.

Ask your staff when you decide whether a topic is appropriate to ask: 

1. Does the company get to decide how this matter may affect employee feedback or perceptions? 

Don't include it in your survey if employee opinion doesn't impact how you handle a particular problem. 

2. Is the company able to respond to the results of the survey? 

Limit your study to subjects that your team can adequately answer or consider. 

3. Can you monitor specific concerns with your employees?

In a company-wide survey, avoid incorporating questions about particular employee needs. These are probably better addressed in a one-on-one dialog between the employee and its management.

Transition to or from a remote working environment can significantly influence the experiences of the employees. Empathizing and listening to your staff can help you make better decisions and successfully support your team.

One method is to start a pulse survey using remote survey questions that measure the perceptions of employees.

These surveys might help you learn how to support staff, prepare yourself for queries, and answer them transparently. 

Pulse remote working survey questions examples: 

1. My direct co-workers answer promptly to keep me going with my task (1 = very much disagreement; 5= strongly agree). - Various options: 1-5
2. Other teams react promptly to keep me working on my job (1 = strong disagreement; 5 = strong agreement) - Various options: 1-5
3. When appropriate, other teams decide promptly to keep work on track (1 = strongly opposed; 5 = highly supported) - Various options: 1-5
4. I know what I need to do to help achieve the priorities of my team (1 = quite unanimous; 5 = firmly in agreement) - Various options: 1-5
5. I have access to the resources and tools I need to get my work done (1 = strongly disagree; 5= strongly agree) - Multiple choice: 1-5
6. I feel driven (1 = strong disagreement, 5 = strong consent) - Various options: 1-5
7. Management's/leadership support me (1 = extreme disagreement; 5= strong agreement) - Various choices: 1-5
8. Leadership has broad communication (1 = strong disagreement; 5 = strong agreement) - Various choices: 1-5
9. What can your boss, team, or management do to assist you? (Open question)
10.  What is the greatest challenge to your remote work? (If any) (open question) 

Employee Evaluation Forms

Employee assessment forms are used to monitor employee progress by gathering information on employees' abilities, objectives, and achievements. You may collect online answers to your employees' performance effortlessly using various retention remote working survey questions to uncover areas for improvement. 

When your employee reviews are completed on your computer, tablet, or mobile device, they should be stored online or backed up for safety reasons. This makes the processing of reviews easier and allows conversion to printable PDFs.

You may need a superb employee assessment form template if you want valuable employee assessments in your firm or HR department. Start with a ready-made assessment form and customize it to create a suitable evaluation form for your purposes.  

Rearrange the design of your template, add questions, change questions, upload your logo, and more. You can monitor staff progress online with many free employee assessment forms to reduce paperwork and employ more effective assessments.

Types of remote working survey questions for Form Evaluation:

1. How do you feel at home while working? - The tone of the quiz is set for the remainder of the questionnaire
2. Have you previously been working from home? - If an employee has a new experience, they may require additional help to guarantee they can adapt to this new working method
3. Have you set up a nice routine for work? - Employees may need alternative working hours because of childcare. However, it may not be a healthy situation if someone logs in intermittently during the day and night
4. Do you take breaks regularly? - We spend a lot of time away from our desks, from walking to the printer to preparing coffee. However, if you're home and haven't sat down to work, it's easy to feel guilty
5. Have you got a healthy working and living balance at home? - Whether it is lunchtime, a break in the garden, or a workout, it is crucial to receive fresh air
6. Are you not as productive as when you work in the office? - When the answer is yes, then obviously, there is a difficulty. Still, suppose an employee is at least as productive as the office. In that case, it might be possible to work remotely in some capacity permanently
7. Have you had an appropriate workspace? - A workstation helps people get into work mode - whether it's an office or a dining table. The appropriate home office furniture may be required for optimum performance. Items like an office standing desk or office chair are available of employee purchase programs
8. Are you equipped to fulfill your task according to your regular standard? - Your employees need the same equipment as their office colleagues could otherwise impact and stress their performance
9. Do you feel that your organization offers the proper support? - Once again, you must examine any unfavorable responses and see what employees think they need from you
10. Do you have faith in working from home? - It would help if you found out why the response is no because it is unsuitable for morale purposes 

Do's and Don'ts of Remote Work Surveys

Do 

• Be the primary way of tackling the personal and family circumstances of individual employees.
• Use employee input or collect more ideas to comprehend issues and realities to recognize the broad spectrum of human characteristics.
• Keep ongoing discussions on their well-being and nudging teams with employees to make the appropriate decisions. 

Don't

• Ask about personal or family circumstances.
• Apply an all-inclusive approach to employees or make a blanket application for volunteers to go home.
• Ask general questions of well-being or emotions which can be misunderstood or altered every day. 

Final Thoughts

It is not impossible to remain connected and aligned with remote team members. However, it is very practicable to know how everyone does it and ensure that people stay engaged and productive. 

The ideal way to do this is through remote employee pulse surveys. These brief and frequent surveys ensure a deeper awareness of the present difficulties and what needs to be done to prepare and address these hurdles by HR professionals and managers.