How to Make an Employee Recognition Survey

An employee recognition survey is an incredible tool that many organizations are not capitalizing on. While some recognize that it is important to give employees the required appreciation and acknowledgment, getting employees’ input is not always in the cards. No one is denying that managers and business owners may know the best ways to reward employees, but the staff members are always going to hit the nail on the head.

Surveys allow you to get usable employee recognition statistics on the kind of rewards that they would want to receive. Going this route in creating your employee recognition systems creates a situation where the choices made in awarding recognition feel more enriching to the people receiving the items. 

Doing this contributes to job enrichment as whether indirectly or directly, employees like to feel involved in business decisions. This can indeed happen from understanding where tasks fit into the overall company vision but getting some agency in vital considerations also works. It may improve employees productivity.

Creating the survey may not even be as hard as you think. Platforms, such as Microsoft and Google forms, help you to structure questions together very easily. There is also SurveyMonkey, which is specifically built to achieve this kind of objective. Your employee recognition questionnaire needs to be well thought out.

Strategize the Survey

Remember that you do not want your staff members to get the idea that you are trying to influence their responses in one direction or another. You must also make considerations for the confidentiality aspect of things. Even in simple questionnaires in employee recognition surveys that do not have many implications, people may not be inclined to answer openly and honestly if they think others may see and not take too kindly to their perspectives. 

If you are trying to encourage employee motivation or build physical and remote team engagement, it must be a part of your management strategy to decide on a system that caters to the financial and non-financial incentives for employee recognition.

Acknowledge the Opinions

Choosing to get effective feedback from your staff members is the first step when considering the kind of rewards or programs that should be used where employee recognition is concerned. Note that there is no point in choosing to come up with a series of employee appreciation survey questions, getting answers, and then doing nothing with them.

Some organizations only take opinions from staff members to create a facade that they listen to their employees. However, they do not ever do anything with the suggestions, which can contribute to a significant decrease in staff morale. It is in your best interest to not take this route, since you skew your chances of getting important feedback in the future.

If you have no intention of making changes or implementing any provided solutions after receiving insightful information, it would be best to not start the employee recognition survey in the first place. 

No one is saying that you must take every suggestion that is given, since some may not be feasible. Imagine if a staff member indicated that every team member should be rewarded with an office ergonomic chair and adjustable standing desk for everything they do. This would not be a feasible solution as while proper office equipment is important, what would be the point of buying new furniture every time something positive happened? How many sets of furniture would one staff member end up with? How would the business even afford this?

The point is that you can evaluate the responses you get and choose which ones are feasible and helpful and which ones are not. Just do not make the mistake of ignoring all the feedback you get completely.

Examples of Survey Questions

Here are some examples of some of the questions that you can use in creating your employee recognition survey:

1. How often do you believe that a staff member should be recognized for good work? 

a) Once a month

b) Annually

c) Once a week

d) Every time the staff member does something that warrants recognition

e) Never

f)  None of the above 

2. Do you believe that financial or non-financial incentives are better for showing recognition? 

a) Financial

b) Non-financial

c) Neither is better 

d) Both are important in the recognition process 

3. Which of the following examples of potential rewards is most important to you? 

a) Gift certificate to a spa 

b) Amazon gift card

c) Trophy or plaque

d) Verbal recognition from supervisor or management

e) Post on the social media pages

f)  Other (Please specify)

4. What are some of the things that you want to be recognized for? (please select all that apply)

a) The date you began your employment tenure

b) Commendations that you may receive from customers

c) The performance of your team

d) Your individual performance

e) Long service

f)  Any personal milestone you may achieve 

g) Other (Please specify)

5. Is there anything that has not been covered in this survey that you would like to share your opinions on? Please use the area below to submit your answer.

Communicate Your Intentions

Apart from just ensuring that your questions are structured well and you listen to staff members, everyone needs to know what is happening so they can be actively involved. Even if the topic and purpose of your employee recognition survey are interesting, you are not going to get the kind of buy-in you want if nobody knows what is going on.

Indicate your intentions clearly and what you are hoping to do with the information from the staff members. You could let them know that the company has been thinking about the best ways to acknowledge those who are deserving and reward employees in the workplace. Furthermore, you could indicate that the company wants to ensure that the said methods of showing recognition are appreciated and desired.

With that kind of purpose, staff members are more likely to get invested in the festivities. Additionally, even in the context of personal life, it feels that much better to get a say in the kind of rewards that you are getting. While some would argue that it ruins the element of surprise, others would say that it guarantees the element of happiness.