Here are some of the best questions for an employee survey about work-life balance, with tips on building them thoughtfully. You can use Specific to generate a work-life balance survey for your team in seconds—just build your survey here and get started right away.
The best open-ended questions for employee survey about work-life balance
Open-ended questions uncover the “why” behind employee opinions and encourage honest, detailed responses. They work best when you want authentic stories, pain points, or improvements employees see for work-life balance. These insights become invaluable for shaping truly effective workplace policies.
How do you currently manage your workload and personal commitments?
What helps you feel balanced between your work and personal life?
Can you describe any challenges you face when trying to balance work with your personal life?
What would the ideal work-life balance look like for you at this company?
Have you noticed a change in your work-life balance over the past year? If so, what changed?
What support, resources, or changes could help improve your work-life balance?
How do you feel about our company’s approach to remote or flexible work?
Are there any company policies that make it easier or harder to disconnect after work?
How does work-life balance impact your motivation and engagement at work?
Can you share a recent example where your work-life balance was especially good or bad?
Remember, open-ended questions often lead to richer feedback and, according to research, employees who experience good work-life balance are 21% more likely to feel engaged and 28% more satisfied with their lives. [1]
The best single-select multiple-choice questions for employee survey about work-life balance
Single-select multiple-choice questions are perfect when you want clear, quantifiable answers or when you’re starting a conversation. They help reduce decision fatigue, letting employees quickly select what fits best—then you can dig deeper with follow-ups.
Question: How satisfied are you with your current work-life balance?
Very satisfied
Somewhat satisfied
Neutral
Somewhat dissatisfied
Very dissatisfied
Question: Which of the following impacts your work-life balance the most?
Workload
Commute
Flexible schedule
Support from managers
Other
Question: How often do you feel stressed because of work-life balance issues?
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always
When to follow up with “why?” It’s smart to ask why when you want to move from surface-level responses to actionable insights. For instance, if someone selects “Somewhat dissatisfied,” a natural follow-up would be “Why do you feel dissatisfied with your current work-life balance?” This gets beyond the rating into specific stories or blockers.
When and why to add the “Other” choice? Use “Other” when your list may not cover every scenario. Follow up by asking, “Can you describe what you meant by ‘Other’?” These responses can reveal issues or needs you didn’t expect, helping you make more comprehensive improvements.
NPS-type question for employee survey about work-life balance
NPS (Net Promoter Score) questions boil feedback down to one actionable metric: “How likely are you to recommend our company as a place with good work-life balance to a friend or colleague?” It’s a single rating (0–10) and, when used with thoughtful follow-ups, reveals both promoters and detractors—and why they feel that way.
This type of question makes sense as work-life balance strongly influences retention and advocacy. Remember that 78% of employees are more likely to stay if offered flexibility—a clear signal from your promoters. [3] If you want to use an NPS format for this, try generating a work-life balance NPS survey instantly on Specific.
The power of follow-up questions
Follow-up questions make your survey dynamic and personalized, instead of a static form. Instead of guessing what’s unclear, AI-powered follow-ups drill into ambiguous answers and mine for detail—automatically. You’ll find more on this in our feature guide on automatic AI follow-up questions.
Specific uses AI to ask smart, in-the-moment follow-ups. This saves huge amounts of time (no more emailing for clarification!) and makes responses richer. Here’s how a lack of follow-ups looks in real life:
Employee: “I sometimes struggle to finish my work on time.”
AI follow-up: “Can you tell me more about what makes meeting deadlines challenging?”
If you just collect the first answer, you’re left with a vague idea. With a targeted follow-up, you get real, actionable feedback.
How many follow-ups to ask? We recommend 2–3 smart follow-ups for each open-ended answer, with an option to skip to the next question once you have what you need. In Specific, you control this intensity for the best experience.
This makes it a conversational survey: AI-generated follow-ups turn the survey into an actual conversation—helping employees open up like they would in a real dialogue.
AI survey response analysis: Even with all that unstructured text, it’s easy to analyze answers using AI. See our guide on analyzing qualitative survey answers for practical tips.
If you haven’t tried an automated follow-up experience, use Specific to generate a quick conversational survey—you’ll see instantly how much better the insights are!
How to craft a ChatGPT prompt for great employee work-life balance survey questions
If you want AI to help develop a great survey, try starting with this broad prompt:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for an employee survey about work-life balance.
You get even better results by giving the AI more context—describe your company, what you hope to improve, specific concerns, or your team’s size:
Our company is 200 people, fully remote, and growing quickly. Suggest 10 open-ended questions for an employee survey about work-life balance. Focus on flexibility, burnout risk, and communication.
Next, ask GPT to organize questions by theme for you:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
From there: pick a category that needs the most exploration, then prompt the AI:
Generate 10 questions for categories “Flexible Work Arrangements” and “Workload Management.”
This approach surfaces the best work-life balance questions for your situation—and using an AI survey maker like Specific moves you from prompt to polished survey fast.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey feels like a natural chat, not a rigid form. Respondents engage more deeply, because the AI asks clarifying questions, shows empathy, and adapts to what’s said—rather than just boxes to check.
Here’s how manual vs. AI-generated surveys compare:
Manual Survey | AI-Generated Survey |
|---|---|
Static list of questions | Dynamic, adaptive conversation with follow-ups |
No personalized probing | Asks tailored follow-ups in real time |
Long, form-like | Shorter, more engaging chat-like flow |
Prone to vague or incomplete answers | Clarifies ambiguity instantly |
Manual analysis required | AI analyzes responses, distills insights |
Why use AI for employee surveys? AI-generated surveys take the guesswork out of survey creation: questions are context-aware, follow-ups happen automatically, and analysis is fast. You’ll get feedback that’s specific (pun intended) and practical. There’s less fatigue for employees, higher quality insights for teams, and it’s all possible with zero survey design experience.
If you want to see just how easy it is to create a conversational survey for employees, read our guide to making work-life balance surveys. Specific delivers a best-in-class experience both for you (the creator) and your employees, making the feedback process much smoother and more engaging than anything traditional surveys can offer.
See this work-life balance survey example now
Explore how conversational surveys powered by AI can transform your employee feedback—go from question to insight in minutes, uncover deeper stories, and make your workplace more engaging. Start building your survey with Specific and experience effortless, actionable results.