Does Your Survey Tool Have These Four Necessary Capabilities?

An effective survey can be an excellent tool to gather data and perspectives to help companies make better decisions.

April 26, 2022
Press the button to generate random icebreaker questions.
There are 300 more icebreaker questions at the bottom of the article
How would you describe your job to a five year old?
What season would you be?
What is a weird food you have tried? Would you eat it again?
What is your favorite holiday tradition?
Would you go in the mother-ship with aliens if they landed on Earth tomorrow?
What is your favorite season?
Do prefer working from home or the office?
What is your earliest memory of this job?
What is the best thing you have bought so far this year?
What is the earliest book you remember?
If you had to move to another country, which one would you choose?
You are the best criminal mastermind in the world. What crime would you commit if you knew you would get away with it?
What is your favorite movie genre to watch?
What was the last thing you ate?
What person from history would you add to Mount Rushmore?
What is a weird fact you know?
What is your favorite part of working from home?
Were the Spice Girls a good team?
Imagine you can instantly learn any language. Which would you choose?
If you could live in any state, which state would you pick?
Which fictional team is the best team of all time?
What did you want to be when you grew up?
What do you usually eat for a quick lunch?
What simple food will you never eat?
Show us the weirdest thing you have in the room with you right now.
Would you rather stay at a hotel or an AirBNB?
What is your favorite movie genre to watch?
Are you more productive in the morning or at night?
Who is someone in your community that makes a difference?
Who was your most unique pet?
Choose one famous person from history you want on your team during a zombie apocalypse.
What is a good way to give back to the community?
Which song could you listen to over and over again?
Is Hugh Grant funny?
What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?
Would you want to have an imaginary friend today? Did you have one as a child?
What actor or actress would you want to play you in the movie about your life?
What is the best super power?
What is your New Years resolution?
You can only eat one food again for the rest of your life. What is it?
What is the best work holiday?
What is the first gift you remember receiving?
Would you rather join Metallica or Backstreet Boys?
What is the best example of a community you have seen?
What is an easy way to do something nice for someone?
Show us your phone background and tell the story behind why you picked this image.
What was your first job?
Pick any band to play at your funeral.
If you could have an unlimited supply of one thing for the rest of your life, what would you pick?
Which superpower would you give to your arch enemy?
What is the most obscure superpower you would want?
What emoji best describes how you are feeling right now?
If you could live in any country, which country would you pick?
Would you rather live in a city or a town?
What is your favorite holiday?
What is something you accomplished as part of a team?
What is your standard office lunch?
What is your most used phone app?
What is your favorite season?
Have you ever won something as a team?
Imagine you are a professional baseball player. What is your introduction song?
Beach holiday or ski trip?
Have you ever been to a funny comedy show?
Would you rather live at the North Pole or the South Pole?
What is your favorite song to sing?
If you could live in any state, which state would you pick?
Imagine you could teleport anywhere. Where would you go right now?
What is the most unusual job you have heard of?
What was the last thing you ate?
You can visit any fictional time or place. Which would you pick?
What do your family and friends think you do all day?
What movie do you wish you could watch again for the first time?
Show us your most-used emoji.
What was the most unique style or fashion trend you ever embraced?
What movie defined your generation?
You are stranded on a remote desert island. Are you alone or with your worst enemy?
What is your favorite knock-knock joke?
Have you ever told someone Santa is not real?
Do you know how to speak more than one language?
On a scale of 1 – 10, how much of a team player are you?
What is your #1 recommendation in this city?
What is your favorite holiday?
What bucket list item do you most want to check off in the next six months?
What is your favorite mythical creature?
What was the first way you made money?
If you could be great at any Olympic sport, which would it be?
Which song could you listen to over and over again?
When did you start liking/hating mushrooms?
Where is your favorite vacation spot?
Do you take your PTO all at one time, or another way?
Which show do you remember most from your childhood?
Which beverage goes best with pizza?
Would you want to have a personal assistant follow you around everywhere and do what you asked of them?
Have you ever met your idol?
What did you want to be when you grew up?
Would you rather live 100 years in the past or 100 years in the future?
What is your hobby?
When you are alone in the car, what volume is the music at?
Imagine you no longer have to work. How would you spend a Tuesday?
What is your favorite type of sandwich?

Let’s take a survey! On a scale of one to ten (one being the least and ten being the most) how important is it for surveys to get the most accurate and honest answers? We’re saying 10 and guessing your answer is probably a high number too. An effective survey can be an excellent tool to gather data and perspectives to help companies make better decisions. An ineffective survey can be a waste of time and actually give the wrong information, which can lead to poor decisions. We don’t want that.

Employee surveys, also known as workplace surveys, are a great tool for getting feedback and better understanding how your employees view their company and the workplace. This information can be used to foster an open and engaging work culture and to make decisions around employee experience. However, to get the most accurate and honest information you need the right survey tool to make the experience efficient, for both the survey taker and conductor. 

So here are four capabilities your survey should have to be the effective tool you need. 

Have Different Answer Formats

One of the most important features a survey should have, especially an employee survey, is ease of use. Basically, if the survey isn’t easy to answer and fill out, your employees are less likely to complete it. You want the survey taker to be focused on giving honest answers, instead of trying to figure how to work the survey. 

One of the best ways to make a survey easy to take is to offer different answer formats for the different questions you’ll have. Sometimes you’ll want to give them space for open-ended answers (“Explain in detail why…”) and other times you want to give them choices (“Which of the following…”). Maybe you want to have a scale from one to ten, like we did. For all your question types, make sure your survey can offer all the answer types.

You also want to make sure the survey-making process is easy for you, too! Make sure your survey tool gives you an easy way to format your different questions, like Assembly’s survey tool. You can easily format each question to your liking, move them around, and create the best survey experience for your employees. 

Schedule for Consistency

Consistency is key and so is frequency for data accuracy. Surveys shouldn’t be a one-time thing for your employees to do. There are so many changes and growth, it should be standard for your company to regularly conduct employee surveys. Like any data collection, the more you do it, the more information you have and the more you can do with that information! Having monthly, quarterly, and/or yearly surveys will allow you to see growth and compare from previous surveys. The more information you have available, the better decisions you’ll make. 

Don’t rely on yourself or a team to remember to conduct the surveys. Make sure your survey tool allows for scheduling so there’s one less thing you have to worry about. Whether it be a cadence or ad hoc, Assembly’s survey can be set up on  schedule that fits your company’s needs. 

Allow for Anonymous or Public Responses

To be, or not to be anonymous, that is the question. There are pros and cons to both survey answer types: anonymous or public. It also really depends on the questions you want to ask. For truly honest feedback, offering anonymous answers will decrease the fear of retaliation. If you’re looking for frank criticisms of what is and isn’t working at a company, anonymity is the better option. If you’re looking for more personalized feedback about a specific team or ways to improve individual experiences, then identified or public responses would be a better fit. 

Either way, your survey tool should give you the option of allowing for anonymous or public responses. Adeptly named, Anonymity is a survey tool from Assembly that gives you the flexibility to set up the survey you need.

Get Actionable Insights 

The most efficient survey is one that you can take an action from! Whether you need to make a decision or want ideas about how to improve employee experience, your surveys should give you the information you need to take those actions. 

And you don’t have to do it alone. An efficient survey tool like Assembly’s Anonymity should give actionable insights to help you make those decisions. Sometimes it can be as simple as clearly showing the participation rate and how many people responded. You can go deeper by looking at easy-to-understand trends and data over time. Anonymity also shows a summary of insights so you can get the information you want in one place. Learn more about how you can customize Anonymity to get the actionable insights you’re looking for here.  

Get Help with Your Employee Surveys

You’re in good company! 2,400+ organizations leverage Assembly as a Digital HQ to support their transition to hybrid work and nurture a positive workplace culture. We have templates and workflows that make it easy for you to create positive employee engagement experiences.

Check out some of the survey templates below and let us know how we can help you engage your employees.

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