Sharing employee engagement survey results is only the first step—what you do next matters most. If you want employees to feel heard, hosting a leadership AMA with great questions helps turn data into dialogue.
This article shows leaders exactly how to prepare impactful questions for their next AMA, creating a powerful bridge from survey results to real organizational progress.
Why host a leadership AMA after sharing survey results
After releasing employee engagement survey results, employees almost always have follow-up questions. If leadership moves on without addressing these, people can feel dismissed or unclear about what's coming next.
Hosting a leadership AMA signals you’re willing to be transparent and genuinely want to listen. These open conversations build trust, which global engagement data says is critical—when employees trust their leaders, they're far more likely to stay and contribute at their best. In 2024, only 21% of employees worldwide reported being truly engaged, with the UK at an eye-opening 10% [1]. Clearly, standard surveys aren't enough; people are hungry for more honest, two-way conversations.
This direct, two-way dialogue lets leaders move beyond the numbers to clarify next steps, hear real concerns, and show employees they matter. If you're not hosting these AMAs, you’re missing out on the real engagement insights hiding behind your survey reports.
The best part? Collecting AMA questions is easy with conversational survey pages, which make it seamless for employees to submit what they want to know, no matter where they’re working.
Essential question categories for your post-survey AMA
Organizing your AMA questions by category helps everyone come prepared and ensures no key theme falls through the cracks. Here are the top categories, along with some example questions employees often want to ask:
Action Plans — Employees want to know what leaders will actually do with the feedback they've given.
What concrete changes will leadership make based on the engagement survey results?
Can you share an example of an area we're targeting for improvement right away?
How will you ensure action items actually get done?
Clarification — Sometimes, survey results spark more questions than answers, especially when responses seem vague or contradictory.
Can you clarify what 'communication breakdown' means in our team's results?
Were there any surprises or trends in the data that leadership didn’t expect?
How did the results compare across different departments or locations?
Timeline & Resources — Employees often wonder how and when changes will materialize, and if the company will back them up properly.
What’s the expected timeline for addressing the top issues?
Are new resources or tools being invested to help tackle these areas?
Who will be responsible for tracking progress on these action items?
Personal Accountability — People want to know how leadership will stay involved and model the right behaviors.
How will leadership hold itself accountable for making improvements?
What role will managers play versus senior leadership in following up on feedback?
Will there be regular check-ins to update us on progress?
Smart ways to gather AMA questions from employees
Collecting questions in advance gives leaders the chance to prepare thoughtful, direct responses, rather than being caught off guard or missing what matters most.
Conversational surveys are ideal for this. Instead of sending a clunky form or inbox blast, you can nudge employees to submit AMA questions naturally—as a follow-up to your survey, or as a standalone prompt. Letting an AI interviewer generate smart follow-up questions helps employees dig deeper, and often surfaces worries they couldn’t easily express in a form.
Submission Method | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
Anonymous submission | Encourages honesty; Reduces fear of retaliation; Surfaces hard truths | Harder to get clarifications; May require more effort to translate into action |
Open submission | Enables follow-up; More context for questions; Can personalize answers | Some employees may self-censor; Less candid for sensitive topics |
In my experience, anonymous options see higher participation and more candid input—the kind that shines a light on barriers leadership can actually solve. Specific’s conversational survey format makes question collection easy and low-pressure, breaking down the wall between “us” and “them.”
Making your leadership AMA truly impactful
Smart preparation drives AMA success. Here’s how to make every leadership AMA a culture-building event:
Group similar questions: Before the session, cluster overlapping AMA questions into themes. This shows you recognize patterns and lets you address common threads efficiently—without chasing every one-off tangent.
Share context first: Start your AMA by summarizing the key engagement survey results and what stood out. This helps everyone start the discussion on the same page, especially if you use concrete examples or comparisons to past surveys. (Companies with engaged employees outperform their peers by up to 23% in profits—context matters when discussing progress [3].)
Follow up after: Don't leave employees in the dark once the AMA ends. A short follow-up survey, delivered conversationally, captures immediate reactions and shows your commitment to improvement. With AI-powered response analysis from Specific, you can instantly summarize feedback and look for shifts in sentiment. A conversational approach makes it easy for everyone to chime in, not just the “loudest voices.”
And one more thing: keep your answers action-oriented. Employees want to hear what’s changing and how leadership will stay accountable, not a list of excuses or PR-speak. This is your moment to reinforce trust and model the kind of transparent, growth-oriented culture that boosts real engagement (and that 59% lower turnover rate you read about earlier [2]).
Turn survey insights into meaningful dialogue
A well-run leadership AMA transforms survey data into true engagement momentum. When you collect structured AMA questions, you spark conversations that drive progress—not just reports. Ready to make it real? Create your own survey to gather AMA questions or post-AMA feedback now.