Here are some of the best questions for an employee survey about employee engagement, plus tips for designing them. You can use Specific to instantly build your own conversational employee engagement survey in seconds.
Best open-ended questions for employee engagement surveys
Open-ended questions are the backbone of employee engagement surveys when we want authentic, actionable insights. These questions let people share their thoughts deeply—no boxes, just real talk. This matters, especially with only 23% of employees worldwide engaged at work, which means there’s a huge opportunity for deeper understanding and improvement here. [1]
Here are 10 powerful open-ended questions we recommend for employee engagement surveys:
What motivates you to do your best at work each day?
Can you describe a recent moment when you felt proud to be part of this organization?
What aspects of your job do you find most meaningful or fulfilling?
Is there anything holding you back from contributing your best work?
How could your manager or team better support your growth and development?
When do you feel most recognized or appreciated at work?
How clear are you about your goals and expectations in your role?
What changes (big or small) would make your work experience more positive?
If you could improve one thing about our company culture, what would it be and why?
What would make you more likely to stay with this organization long-term?
Open-ended questions are perfect for surfacing issues you didn’t expect. They let employees voice concerns and ideas you might otherwise miss. That’s critical—organizations with highly engaged employees see a 59% reduction in turnover, so it’s worth exploring what really matters to your people. [5]
Want to get started quickly? Try an AI survey builder to generate open-ended questions tailored to your team’s needs.
Effective single-select multiple-choice questions for employee engagement
Single-select multiple-choice questions are our go-to when we want to measure or quantify feedback—or just make it easier for employees to respond without overthinking. Sometimes, people prefer options to spark a conversation. These questions are also simple to analyze, letting us spot trends fast.
Here are three examples you can use in an employee engagement survey:
Question: How satisfied are you with the recognition you receive for your work?
Very satisfied
Somewhat satisfied
Neutral
Somewhat dissatisfied
Very dissatisfied
Question: Which of the following best describes your sense of connection to the company culture?
Very strong connection
Strong connection
Neutral
Somewhat disconnected
Very disconnected
Question: What is the biggest factor impacting your engagement at work?
Opportunities for growth
Recognition
Work-life balance
Manager support
Other
When to follow up with "why?" Adding a “why” follow-up unlocks the story behind every answer. If someone says they’re dissatisfied with recognition, we can prompt: “Can you share a recent moment when you felt overlooked, or a way we could improve?” That’s where the real insights emerge. You rarely need this for every single question, but smart follow-ups boost survey depth tremendously.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? If you’re not sure your list of answers is comprehensive, always include “Other.” A well-placed open field with “Other” lets employees surface perspectives or issues you didn’t see coming—sometimes, these surprise responses spark the best ideas. Make sure there’s a follow-up for “Other” so you can dig into these unexpected insights.
Using an NPS question for employee engagement surveys
Net Promoter Score (NPS) isn’t just for customers—it’s a gold standard for gauging employee engagement, too. The classic NPS question for employees is: “On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this company as a great place to work?” Not only does it deliver a simple benchmark, but it can be tracked over time to see whether engagement is improving or slipping.
If you want to generate a ready-to-use employee engagement NPS survey, Specific makes it instant. NPS works beautifully alongside open-ended and multiple-choice questions, bringing both numbers and context under one roof.
This is critical, especially now—employee engagement in the U.S. has declined in recent years, falling from 36% in 2020 to 31% in 2023. Consistent, easy-to-track NPS trends help us stay alert to changes and take action fast. [2]
The power of follow-up questions
Not all responses are clear or complete, especially for open-ended questions. That’s where automated AI follow-ups shine. Instead of chasing down unclear answers later, Specific’s AI-powered follow-up question engine listens to a response and instantly asks a personalized question—just like a sharp interviewer would.
Why does this matter? Follow-ups clarify, deepen, and enrich your responses with minimal extra effort for you or your employees. Engaged employees are 21% more productive, so getting clarity right now can have real business impact. [4]
Employee: “I sometimes feel disconnected.”
AI follow-up: “Can you share a specific example of a time you felt disconnected, or suggest something that would help you feel more included?”
Employee: “Recognition could be better.”
AI follow-up: “What type of recognition makes you feel valued? (e.g. public praise, private acknowledgment, rewards, etc.)”
How many followups to ask? Generally, 2–3 well-targeted follow-ups are plenty before moving to the next question. You want insight, not interrogation. With Specific, you can adjust this setting, or simply collect open, in-depth answers until you have the info you need.
This makes it a conversational survey: Follow-ups turn the survey into a genuine conversation, not just a form. Respondents engage more, and everything feels more natural and human.
AI survey response analysis: Even though you’ll collect lots of open-ended, text-rich answers, analyzing them is easy. With AI-powered analysis, you quickly spot big themes—read more about analyzing employee survey feedback using AI, or try out the chat-based response analyzer for exploring your results with AI.
These powerful follow-up features are new—try generating a survey to see just how naturally they work. You’ll never look at traditional survey forms the same way again.
How to compose the perfect prompt for generating employee engagement survey questions
Get the most from AI tools like ChatGPT or Specific’s AI survey builder by nailing your prompt. Start simple, then give context to get tailored, sharp questions out of the AI:
Begin with a prompt like:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for employee survey about employee engagement.
Add more context for better, more targeted ideas—the AI shines when it knows your industry, culture, or goals:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for an employee engagement survey at a fast-growing tech company. The team is mostly remote, values open communication, and we want to understand what motivates people to stay.
Once you review the questions, ask the AI to group them for easy survey design:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Now, focus—pick a category that matters (for example “Manager Support”), and dig deeper with a follow-up prompt:
Generate 10 questions for the “Manager Support” category that will help us understand what employees expect from their managers.
That’s how we get more relevant, actionable question sets for employee engagement.
What is a conversational survey—and how does AI survey generation change the game?
Modern engagement surveys shouldn’t feel like forms—they should feel like a thoughtful conversation. Conversational surveys use AI to adapt in real time, ask smart clarifying questions, and make people comfortable, which means better data and higher engagement.
Traditional employee surveys take hours to create and analyze. With an AI survey generator, we can generate, edit, or launch comprehensive feedback surveys in minutes, and instantly analyze the results. AI-powered tools, like those in Specific, can craft “best survey questions” that feel human—then summarize and chat about the results for you. This replaces tedium with insight.
Manual survey creation | AI-generated surveys |
|---|---|
Time-consuming, error-prone | Instant, expert-level prompts |
Static questions, no adaptation | Dynamically follow-up, personalized |
Harder to analyze long-form answers | AI summarizes and finds themes fast |
Lower engagement, survey fatigue | Conversational, more fun and engaging |
Why use AI for employee surveys?
Because AI-powered survey builders delight both creators and respondents: they’re fast, adaptive, and achieve far richer engagement insights. Plus, respondent experience is elevated—AI surveys feel like chat, not chores. Try creating your own with this guide to building an employee survey using AI or check out our AI survey editor for natural language editing.
Specific is best-in-class for conversational surveys—quick to set up, easy to customize, and designed to help teams unlock actionable feedback while making the process as smooth as chatting with a colleague.
See this employee engagement survey example now
Jumpstart your next survey and discover how conversational AI can transform your employee engagement—and your bottom line. Create your own survey in less than a minute with expert-level questions, smart follow-ups, and AI-powered analysis, all in one place.