Most employee survey tools fail to capture the real friction points in hybrid work policies because they stick to surface-level questions.
Asking great questions for hybrid work means understanding that remote and onsite employees experience company policies in different ways.
Let’s dig into how to craft questions that surface the pain points that actually matter—and how the right approach reveals insights you can act on.
Why generic questions fail hybrid teams
When I see a survey that asks, “How satisfied are you with our hybrid policy?” I know the results won’t be helpful. Responses to generic questions barely scratch the surface—remote and onsite employees are living entirely different realities.
For example, remote workers might find it hard to use clunky collaboration software, while onsite staff could feel left out of decision-making since most communication happens online. These kinds of policy friction points rarely surface unless you dive deeper.
The issue? Most surveys lump everyone together, failing to segment questions by where and how people work. When you ignore segmentation, you miss the context that determines what really needs fixing.
If you want survey results that drive meaningful improvements, you have to design different question flows for different employee segments. With tools like the AI survey generator, it becomes easy to create targeted surveys that actually reflect your team’s unique work arrangements.
In fact, 60% of employees believe feedback mechanisms in hybrid settings are less effective than in traditional workplaces, which shows just how important it is to ask better, more focused questions.[1]
Questions that uncover what’s actually broken
Remote employee questions:
What’s the biggest challenge you face while working remotely under our current hybrid policy?
Which collaboration tool or process creates the most friction during your typical week?
When it comes to office resources (like supplies or travel reimbursements), what do you wish worked differently?
Follow-ups dig deeper: “Which policy detail causes friction with that tool?” or “How often do you feel stuck waiting for decisions because you’re not onsite?”
Onsite employee questions:
Have you felt excluded from conversations that mostly happen online? If so, when does this happen most?
What’s the most frustrating thing about collaborating with remote teammates?
Are any aspects of our hybrid policy creating confusion for those working onsite? Please describe the situation.
Great probes include: “When do you feel most disconnected from remote colleagues?” or “Which meeting formats cause the biggest headaches?”
That’s the big advantage of dynamic conversational surveys—they let you dig deeper or branch into different topics based on each response, driving richer insights than any static form ever could.
After all, 82% of employees say that meaningful survey feedback helps company leaders understand expectations and improve performance.[2]
Segment your questions for clearer insights
If you mix all your employee responses together, you’ll get a soup of half-helpful data. Hybrid work isn’t one-size-fits-all—segmentation is how you go from confusion to clarity.
Start by segmenting questions by work location (remote, hybrid, onsite). Here’s how the clarity changes:
Mixed responses | Segmented responses |
|---|---|
Vague: “Collaboration is sometimes difficult” (from both onsite and remote employees) | Precise: Remote staff struggle with meetings; onsite staff lack timely updates |
Generic: “Policy is clear to me” | Actionable: Tenured managers find policy clear; new hires need more support |
You can—and should—segment responses by department, seniority, or tenure, too. It’s the only way to see which hybrid policy changes need to be location- or team-specific.
Modern tools also let you spot hidden patterns with AI-powered response analysis. When you chat with your data, you can instantly ask, “What themes stand out for remote engineers?” and get a focused summary.
It’s no surprise that 85% of HR professionals now track employee well-being by segment in remote and hybrid environments. [3]
AI prompts to build your hybrid work survey
With the right prompt, you can generate a complete survey flow that adapts to your team's hybrid structure. Here are prompts you can use for different hybrid challenges:
Analyze remote employee friction points
Create a conversational survey for remote employees to identify friction in our current hybrid work policy. Ask about their top challenges, what tools or policies cause frustration, and if they feel included in decision-making. Probe for examples and ask follow-up questions based on their responses.
This generates a targeted set of questions (with follow-ups) that dig into remote-specific pain points.
Probe onsite collaboration challenges
Draft a survey for onsite employees to uncover gaps in collaboration with remote colleagues. Include questions about communication, information sharing, and meeting formats that work or don’t. Add follow-ups to discover specific instances where hybrid policies create confusion.
With this prompt, AI builds separate flows to highlight when and where onsite teams feel left out.
Explore manager perspective on hybrid coordination
Generate a survey for team managers to understand how well coordination works between remote and onsite staff. Focus on the tools, policies, and communication habits that either help or hurt hybrid teamwork. Include follow-up questions about recent coordination issues and policy suggestions.
Each of these prompts produces a different logic structure behind the scenes—making sure you surface actionable challenges for each segment. You can further customize your flows with the AI survey editor by describing tweaks in plain language, letting the AI instantly update your draft.
From employee insights to better policies
Even the smartest questions aren’t worth much if they don’t drive improvements. The real power of conversational feedback is in turning honest responses into clearer, more equitable policies.
For example, you might discover that remote staff crave consistency in async updates—meaning, they want clear guidelines for communication when working across time zones. This kind of detail only comes out when you let people elaborate in their own words, not just click a multiple-choice survey option.
AI-generated summaries highlight recurring pain points across your segments, making it easy to spot top themes quickly. With periodic pulse checks—like using shareable conversational pulse surveys—you can track whether your policy tweaks are having the right impact over time.
Continuous feedback loops ensure your hybrid policies stay fresh and grounded in the real, evolving needs of your workforce. The result: fewer surprises and a more engaged team.
Ready to understand your hybrid workforce?
Start with real employee feedback—not assumptions. Conversational surveys uncover the friction points and opportunities that forms miss, segmenting responses for actionable clarity in your hybrid policy. Create your own survey to uncover hybrid work friction points.