Employee survey about compensation and benefits

Creating an effective employee compensation and benefits survey can feel daunting, but you can generate a high-quality AI-powered survey in seconds right here. With Specific, you’re in control—just click and get started for free.

Why compensation and benefits surveys matter more than ever

Ignoring compensation and benefits surveys means missing critical insights into what your employees truly value—and why they might leave. Don’t guess what’s on their minds. According to a 2023 survey, 75% of employees are more likely to stay with their employer because of their benefit program [9]. If we’re not asking the right questions, we’re making decisions in the dark and risking costly turnover.

Here’s why these surveys are essential:

• Retention: Employees rank benefits as a top reason to stay or leave. If we don’t measure satisfaction, we can’t spot warning signs until it’s too late.

• Morale and fairness: Only 61% of employees believe they are paid fairly, which is down from 67% in 2022. Clearly, perceptions around pay and benefits are shifting [3].

• Transparency: 67% of employees now want more pay transparency [6], but most companies don’t have a clear channel for honest feedback. Running a regular survey closes that gap.

• Competitive edge: With CEO pay growing 7.7% at top U.S. companies—outpacing inflation and worker pay—the need to benchmark and communicate effectively has never been higher [1].

In short, the importance of employee feedback on compensation and benefits is impossible to overstate. If you skimp on these insights, you risk falling behind on employee satisfaction, transparency, and retention.

Why use an AI survey generator for employee compensation and benefits?

Building a survey used to mean sweating over every question and worrying whether you're actually capturing what your team cares about. Using an AI survey generator changes the game: you get expertise, speed, and real-world relevance in every survey you launch. Specific, as a leader in conversational survey tools, offers a completely different experience compared to traditional survey builders.

Let’s compare:

Why use AI for employee surveys?

• AI leverages industry benchmarks and common pain points—for example, knowing that 60% of tech professionals feel dissatisfied with pay [2], AI will be sure to surface questions about industry comparison and fairness.

• You benefit from the best-in-class user experience that keeps both creators and respondents engaged—making it easy for employees to open up in a chat-based survey format.

If you'd like to see what compelling survey questions look like, check out our guide on best questions for employee compensation and benefits surveys.

Designing better questions for real insight

Generic surveys fall flat. It’s easy to ask something like: “Are you satisfied with your compensation?” but what insight does that actually provide? We’ve seen firsthand that the best surveys dig deeper, and Specific’s AI survey generator helps craft smarter, more actionable questions based on expert templates and best practices.

Here’s an example:

• Bad example: “Do you like your benefits?”

• Good example: “Which elements of your benefits package do you value the most, and what’s missing that would make a real difference to you?”

Specific’s AI automatically avoids vague, biased, or leading prompts by using language tested by HR and research professionals—and dynamically adapts questions based on your objectives and employee demographics. The AI survey editor lets you further refine or change the tone of your questions in seconds, simply by chatting with the AI.

Quick tip: Always follow yes/no questions with a clarifying “why?” or “what could we improve?”. If you’re writing your own questions, think two steps ahead—ask what you’ll actually do with the answer.

For deeper insights on formulating questions for this survey type, our playbook on best employee survey questions for compensation and benefits goes further.

Automatic follow-up questions based on previous reply

One of the most powerful features in Specific’s AI survey builder is the ability to ask smart, automatic follow-up questions—just like a skilled interviewer would. No more chasing people via email or leaving feedback threads open-ended. The AI listens, then probes for clarity, all in real time.

This makes a huge difference. Consider if you don’t use follow-ups:

• Employee: “I’m not happy with the health plan.”

• (No follow-up): You’re left wondering why—provider, costs, coverage?

• AI follow-up: “Can you share what specifically about the health plan isn’t working for you—cost, coverage, or something else?”

Or another example:

• Employee: “The bonus program is confusing.”

• (No follow-up): You don’t know if it’s the rules, timing, or eligibility.

• AI follow-up: “What aspect of the bonus program feels unclear, and how could it be made more understandable?”

With automatic AI follow-up questions, feedback stays focused, actionable, and you get the full story—not a puzzle to solve later.

Followups make the survey a conversation, not just a checklist—this is why we call it a conversational survey. Give it a try and see how directly you can get to the issues that matter.

How to deliver your employee compensation and benefits survey

Once you’ve built your survey, it needs to reach your employees in the most effective way possible. Specific gives you two simple delivery options, each optimized for different situations:

• Sharable landing page surveys — Create a standalone, secure link to your survey. Perfect for internal email campaigns, Slack drops, and easy sharing with distributed teams when you want open access or BYOD completion; ideal for annual compensation reviews or open feedback rounds.

• In-product surveys — Embed the conversational survey directly within your company’s HR portal or intranet. Great for capturing employee sentiment at the right moment—like after a payroll cycle or when rolling out new benefits—when context matters most.

For compensation and benefits, landing page delivery works well for broad, anonymous feedback, while in-product surveys shine for targeted follow-ups (e.g., new hires, people who just changed health plans).

AI survey analysis: instant insights from responses

Once the responses roll in, the real value arrives: AI survey analysis with Specific. There’s no need for spreadsheets or days spent sorting through text. Specific’s AI instantly summarizes feedback, picks up on recurring topics and feelings, and organizes responses into actionable insights. Features like automatic topic detection and the ability to chat with AI about your survey results mean you can dive into specifics—literally. Need to know how to analyze employee compensation and benefits survey responses with AI? It’s all built in for you.

Create your compensation and benefits survey now

Launch your own employee compensation and benefits survey in seconds using Specific’s AI generator—get actionable, honest feedback with a single click, right from this page.