Best questions for employee survey about team collaboration

Here are some of the best questions for an employee survey about team collaboration, plus tips on how to create them. You can build powerful conversational surveys in seconds with Specific's AI survey generator.

Best open-ended questions for employee survey about team collaboration

Open-ended questions are powerful. They invite employees to share stories, frustrations, or ideas—helping us spot nuances we’d miss with quick polls. Using these in a team collaboration context helps reveal what truly works (or doesn’t), while cultivating trust. These are best used when we genuinely want to hear every angle and aren’t just tallying up numbers.

Consider: open-ended questions offer more than data—they offer voice. Organizations have uncovered hidden friction simply by analyzing detailed answers. For example, a tech startup discovered a 30% dip in engagement scores, but the real “why” only emerged when reviewing open-ended comments: developers felt ignored. After adding weekly listening sessions, morale shot up 15% in just two months. [1]

Here’s a list of 10 open-ended questions for team collaboration that will get people talking:

1. What aspects of our team’s collaboration do you value most?

2. Can you describe a recent project where teamwork exceeded your expectations?

3. What challenges get in the way of effective collaboration in our team?

4. How supported do you feel by your teammates when you need help?

5. When have you felt your ideas were truly heard by the team? Tell us more.

6. What would you change to make working together easier or more enjoyable?

7. How do communication styles within the team affect your ability to collaborate?

8. Describe a situation where a misunderstanding slowed progress. What could have prevented it?

9. Do you think our current processes encourage open sharing of feedback? Why or why not?

10. Is there anything else you wish we knew about your experience with team collaboration?

While rich, these answers can be time-consuming to analyze. This is where AI-powered platforms like Specific shine, summarizing and contextualizing responses instantly so that you get actionable insights without drowning in text. Want to learn how this works? We go in depth on how to analyze responses from employee surveys about team collaboration.

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for employee survey about team collaboration

Sometimes, we need to quantify or break the ice with a lightweight question. That’s where single-select multiple-choice questions come in handy—think of them as a conversation starter or a quick pulse-check. It’s perfect if you want to spot patterns or compare responses over time. Plus, for some employees, these questions feel easier and less “risky” than writing out their thoughts from scratch. From there, we can dig deeper with follow-ups.

Here are three strong examples:

Question: How well do you think our team collaborates to achieve common goals?

• Very well

• Somewhat well

• Needs improvement

• Poorly

Question: How comfortable are you sharing your ideas with the team?

• Very comfortable

• Somewhat comfortable

• Uncomfortable

• Very uncomfortable

Question: What’s your biggest challenge when working with teammates?

• Communication barriers

• Conflicting priorities

• Lack of alignment

• Other

When to followup with "why?" It’s smart to ask “why?” as a follow-up when you want employees to elaborate on their choice. For example, if someone selects “Needs improvement” on team collaboration, a follow-up like, “Can you share an example or describe what made collaboration difficult?” can unearth the core issues. The real insight comes not just from what people pick, but from understanding their reasoning behind it.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Including an “Other” option gives space for genuinely unique perspectives or challenges that our options might overlook. With a smart follow-up like “Can you elaborate on what you mean by ‘Other’?”, we often discover insights we never would have predicted.

Should you include an NPS-style question for team collaboration surveys?

Net Promoter Score (NPS) isn’t just for customer feedback. For employee surveys, especially on team collaboration, an NPS-style question offers a reliable, comparable measure of sentiment. Asking, “How likely are you to recommend working on this team to a friend?” (on a 0–10 scale) captures a gut reaction about team cohesion. It gives us a baseline, and with follow-up questions, we start seeing what makes someone a true promoter or a detractor. You can instantly build an NPS survey tailored to this topic with our NPS survey maker for employee team collaboration.

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-up questions turn a static survey into a living conversation. Instead of flat responses, we get richer stories, recipe-level details on what works (and what doesn’t), and actionable next steps. With Specific, automated follow-ups are generated on the fly. The AI listens, responds contextually, and asks deeper questions in real time—so you capture the full context, not just the headline.

This unlocks productivity: you won’t need to send a dozen emails chasing people for clarity. Instead, the conversation unfolds naturally, collecting actionable feedback that’s actually worth reading.

• Employee: "Collaboration is fine but sometimes meetings are confusing…"

• AI follow-up: "Can you share what makes meetings confusing or suggest what might help make them clearer?"

How many followups to ask? In most cases, two or three follow-ups are enough to get meaningful context. Sometimes, a single probing question gets you there. That’s why platforms like Specific let you configure exactly how many follow-ups to use, and even allow respondents to skip to the next question once the info you need is collected.

This makes it a conversational survey—people feel heard, giving you insights that go way beyond checkbox data.

Analyzing responses with AI is a breeze—read more in our guide on AI survey response analysis. Even with lots of unstructured feedback, AI can quickly find patterns, main themes, and next steps.

Automated follow-up questions are a game-changer—try generating a conversational survey and see just how much richer—and easier—the process becomes.

Prompt engineering: how to generate great questions for employee team collaboration surveys

When you want AI to generate survey questions for you, start simple—then guide it. My go-to opening prompt:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for employee survey about team collaboration.

But adding more context always helps. For example, tell the AI more about your industry, team dynamics, or what you want to learn:

We are a 50-person software company with mostly remote teams. Suggest 10 open-ended questions to uncover friction and bright spots in our team collaboration.

Want to bring order to brainstormed questions? Guide the AI with:

Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.

Zero in on areas you care about most. If you want deeper insights into communication, for example, write:

Generate 10 questions for categories: communication breakdowns, feedback sharing, remote collaboration.

What is a conversational survey?

Conversational surveys are interactive: they feel like messaging with a real person, not filling out a static web form. You ask a question, the respondent answers, the AI listens, probes deeper, and adjusts its next move. This chat-based format improves response rates, honesty, and context, compared to old-school, rigid surveys. When you use something like Specific’s AI survey generator, your survey can launch in minutes and adapt dynamically to answers—without any technical setup. Manual surveys just can’t keep up.

Why use AI for employee surveys? AI survey examples for team collaboration enable rapid questionnaire creation, instant follow-up, and deeper analytics—all in one place. The AI survey builder works like a research co-pilot, bringing expert-level logic to your questions, making the process smooth, and reducing bias.

That’s why, if you care about making feedback simple and smooth for both creators and respondents, Specific’s conversational survey tools are best-in-class. Curious about setup? See our quick guide: how to create an employee survey about team collaboration.

See this team collaboration survey example now

Get a head start on understanding team dynamics with a conversational survey that’s easy to launch, insightful, and adapts in real time. See how Specific unlocks more meaningful, honest employee feedback—you’ll notice the difference.