Learn Four Tips for Surveying Employees About Remote Work + Sample Survey

Download our sample employee survey

We’ve designed a survey for business leaders as an easy way to get started. This 8 question survey is designed to be short, sweet, and provide valuable feedback regarding what your employees think and feel about returning to an in-person option.

As restrictions begin to lift, employers are wondering what to do next regarding their return-to-office plans. While some leaders are mandating returns to the office, others are taking a more empathic approach and surveying employees to see what priorities they have and then choosing which move to make.

Getting employees’ feedback is a great way to get data, sure, but it also signals a company’s care for its people. When decisions are made transparently and with input from a variety of perspectives, people feel like they are part of a greater whole.

Radious is in a lot of conversations with business leaders and we’ve gained insightful advice for when you plan to survey your workforce. Here are 4 tips and reminders:

1 - Don’t ask questions that won’t help you make decisions.

You may think that asking a question like “would you like to return to the office some of the time” may get you an idea of employee sentiment, but there may be so many factors affecting their answer, whatever they select in your survey may end up being meaningless to you. When someone says “I want to go back to the office,” what they often mean to say is “I feel isolated at home” or “I am experiencing burnout and need better work-life separation” or “I have too many distractions here.” There are countless ways to solve the problems of loneliness, burnout, and distractions besides returning to a central office, so you’d be better served to ask how people feel about their current situations and get to the root of these sentiments.

2 - Be careful how you word things: It’s not “return to work”

We’ve seen this in so many company surveys, the inevitable question “How do you feel about returning to work?” Although you may not mean it the way it reads, this can come off as offensive. Your employees have been working through the global pandemic, through uncertainties, and through all of the loss we’ve faced.

What you really mean to ask is “How do you feel about returning to the office?” and you should use this terminology. (And while you’re at it, feel free to send a message of gratitude to your workforce for working through all those things mentioned above, just an idea!)

3 - Ditch the binary thinking

This might be a hard one to grasp, but it’s not remote vs the office. There are other solutions out there, like Radious. As a leader, you should be looking for creative solutions to today’s unique business challenges, not simply going back to what was “normal.” Things have changed.. Your business should too.

4 - Consider the entire working environment

There are a lot of factors to consider when thinking about going hybrid or staying fully remote. Your employees have gotten used to making their own lunches, taking a break to pick up their kids, quickly huddling on a project via chat, etc. When designing survey questions take these into consideration and don’t forget to think about the small stuff. ‘Cause it adds up to the whole employee experience.

It’s okay not to have all the answers.

As we continue to adapt to the changing world around us, it will take empathic and forward-thinking leaders to create working environments that serve everyone. Thankfully solutions such as Radious can help you meet diverse needs and working styles.

Download our employee survey