A guide to employee engagement surveys for SMEs

Employee engagement surveys are a simple yet powerful way to measure how your team feels about their work, their colleagues, and your organisation. This guide will help you understand why these surveys matter, what to include, how to create them, and how to act on the results. 

What is employee engagement?

It’s important to understand what you mean by employee engagement before measuring it. The general consensus is that employee engagement is the emotional commitment employees feel toward their organisation. It encompasses areas such as job satisfaction, working with colleagues, and motivation to perform well.

The value of employee engagement surveys 

If you’re a senior leader at a small to medium-sized enterprise (SME), you know how critical your team is to your success. Keeping employees happy, motivated, and productive isn’t just nice to have, it’s essential for the success of all SMEs. Employee engagement surveys are a way to check in with your employees and understand how they feel about their work, their team, and the company, as well as track changes at a company-wide level over time. They provide valuable insights into areas like job satisfaction, communication, teamwork, and leadership. For SMEs, these surveys can: 

1. Improve retention: Spot and address issues early 
2. Boost morale: Show employees their opinions matter 
3. Enhance productivity: Identify barriers and motivators 
4. Foster better workplace culture: Encourage open communication 

In short, engagement surveys can help you build a stronger, more motivated team aligned with your goals. 

When shouldn’t you run a survey? 

If you have less than 10 people in your company, it can be hard to ensure anonymity and, as a result, people may not answer truthfully enough for the survey to be useful. Instead, you could have an anonymous feedback or suggestion box to gather feedback. This could be a physical box in the workplace, an anonymous webform using a tool like Microsoft Forms or Google Forms or a combination of both.  

It’s also not a good idea to run a survey if you don’t have the time or resources to act on feedback. Frustration and negative sentiment can be created when an employee takes time to give their thoughts but feels they aren’t heard or acknowledged. 

What to include in your survey 

Start by defining your goals, this will help you decide what questions to ask. Are you uncovering underlying issues, assessing leadership, or identifying development needs?  

Focus on areas where you have the resources and motivation internally to act. Employees can become frustrated or disinterested in future surveys when feedback isn’t acted on. 

Categories to consider: 

1. Job satisfaction: Are employees happy with their role and responsibilities?
2. Organisational alignment: Do they understand and believe in your mission?
3. Wellbeing: Are they supported and feel they have good work/life balance?
4. Work environment: Does it foster productivity?
5. Communication: Is information shared effectively?
6. Leadership: Do managers inspire confidence? 
7. Teamwork: Are teams collaborative and cohesive?
8. Learning and development: Are there opportunities for growth? 

While every category may feel important, be mindful of how long your survey takes to fill in. Prioritise the area’s most relevant to your organisation. Long surveys are unlikely to get much uptake when teams are busy and employees might rush answers, rather than provide meaningful data. Up to 10 minutes for a survey is a good rule of thumb.  

Survey frequency and pulse surveys 

To maximise engagement, balance frequency with meaningful follow-up. Consider conducting comprehensive engagement surveys annually to capture in-depth insights. Supplement these with quarterly or monthly pulse surveys – short, targeted surveys – to track progress and address ongoing concerns. For example, a pulse survey could focus solely on workload or team dynamics, ensuring you remain responsive without overburdening employees.

Creating your survey 

Once you’ve identified which areas your survey will focus on, it’s time to create it! Find in the downloadable resource below a template survey, and here some pointers to get you started:

• Make it anonymous: Anonymous surveys encourage honest feedback, especially about leadership. Tools like Google Forms and Microsoft Forms can ensure anonymity without costing lots of money.  
• Use a Likert scale: This is a rating scale used to measure survey participants’ opinions, attitudes, motivations and more. This popular format asks employees to rate statements on a scale, such as Strongly Agree, Agree, Neither, Agree, nor Disagree, Disagree Strongly etc.

This method provides easily analysed data while capturing a wide range of opinions. Always include a neutral option to avoid forcing responses. Ensure you have an open comment box after each statement. This ensures you have both quantitative and qualitative data for deeper insights. 

Interpreting results 

Once responses are in, it’s time to analyse them for actionable insights: 

1. Spot trends: Identify areas that consistently score high or low. 
2. Highlight strengths and weaknesses: Celebrate successes and prioritise key issues.
3. Group open feedback: Cluster similar comments to uncover recurring themes.
4. Quantify data: Summarise findings with percentages or averages (e.g., “75% of employees feel supported by their manager”).
5. Compare groups: If applicable, look for differences between teams or departments. 

Acting on the results 

The real value of surveys lies in how you use the feedback. Here’s how to ensure meaningful action: 

1. Share results: Be transparent. Present key findings (both positive and negative)to your team to show you value their input. 
2. Prioritise key issues: Focus on one or two areas to address first, such as communication or workload.
3. Create an action plan: Outline specific steps and timelines to tackle issues. This could be adding a check-in on a problem area to the monthly team meeting to improve communication.
4. Involve employees: Ask for their input on solutions to increase buy-in.
5. Follow up: After implementing changes, use pulse surveys or informal check-ins to gauge improvement. 

Communication tips 

Before the survey:

• Explain why you’re conducting the survey and how results will be used. 

• Reassure employees of anonymity. 

• Set clear expectations for the timeline. 

• Get managers on board to encourage participation from their teams. 

After the survey:

• Share results promptly. 

• Thank employees for their feedback. 

• Clearly communicate your action plan and follow through on commitments. 

• Before your next survey, share what actions you took based on the last survey’s feedback to encourage future participation.  

Externally:

• Highlight your engagement efforts in recruitment materials such as your website blog or LinkedIn account to attract talent. 

• Avoid overpromising or misrepresenting results publicly. 

Final thoughts 

Employee engagement surveys are a vital tool for SMEs to foster a positive, productive workplace. By regularly gathering and acting on employee feedback, you can address concerns, celebrate successes, and continuously improve your organisation. Keep surveys simple, act on insights, and stay committed to building a workplace where everyone thrives. 

A huge thank you to our ambassador 10x Banking for helping to produce this guide!

This was updated in February 2025 by Heart of the City with the help of 10x Banking. We’ve created these resources for individual SMEs to use. None of our content is to be adapted, reused or repurposed for commercial use.