Create your survey

Create your survey

Create your survey

How to create employee survey about workload and stress

Adam Sabla - Image Avatar

Adam Sabla

·

Aug 20, 2025

Create your survey

This article will guide you on how to create an Employee survey about Workload And Stress. With Specific, you can build a high-quality conversational survey in seconds—just generate your survey and get deep insights instantly.

Steps to create a survey for Employee about Workload And Stress

If you want to save time, just generate a survey with Specific.

  1. Tell what survey you want.

  2. Done.

You honestly don’t even need to read further. The AI takes care of everything, using expert knowledge to generate an effective survey. It’ll even ask personalized follow-up questions so you get quality, actionable insights without lifting a finger. For custom surveys, just start from scratch with the Specific AI survey builder—no extra effort needed.

Why run an employee workload and stress survey?

Let’s be real: workplace stress is everywhere, and ignoring it is a missed opportunity. According to worldmetrics.org, 83% of workers suffer from work-related stress, and 46% call workload the top reason [1]. If you’re not running these surveys, you’re missing out on catching major burnout triggers before they cost your team—and your business—big time.

  • Health and productivity impact: Burnout can raise risk of heart disease by 79% [3]. That’s not something you want spreading in your office.

  • Financial fallout: U.S. companies lose over $300 billion each year from absenteeism, turnover, reduced productivity, and medical bills related to stress [2].

  • Support gaps: More than 50% of employees say they need help learning to manage stress [1]—that’s a clear gap, and a survey helps you see where support and recognition are missing.

  • Prevention pays off: Smart organizations are slashing sickness absence costs by 20% with proactive stress management [4].

The bottom line? Understanding the “why” behind employee stress and workload pain points gives you the power to act—before people burn out, quit, or disengage. That’s why the importance of employee recognition surveys and benefits of employee feedback can’t be overstated.

What makes a good workload and stress survey?

Not all surveys are created equal. A solid workload and stress survey will use clear, unbiased questions that relate directly to specific pain points or opportunities in your workplace. But honesty only comes from a conversational, friendly tone—no one wants to feel like they’re being cross-examined.

The measure of a good survey is simple: you want a high response rate (so it’s easy to take) and high-quality answers (so it’s worth your effort to ask in the first place). Here’s a quick table to show what works—versus what doesn’t:

Bad practices

Good practices

Jargon, confusing language

Simple, plain language

Long lists of questions

Conversational, bite-sized questions

Only closed questions

Mix of open, closed, and follow-up

No follow-ups

Relevant follow-up questions

One-and-done “annual” surveys

Regular, short check-ins

If all you collect is checkbox data, you’ll miss the real stories behind stress—make it easy, honest, and open!

Types of questions for an employee survey about workload and stress

The right question format can turn a bland survey into a goldmine of insight. Here’s how different question types shine in a workload and stress survey:

Open-ended questions let people express their actual frustrations or wins in their own words. Great for digging up “unknown unknowns” or letting staff describe subtle causes of stress or satisfaction.

  • What’s the biggest source of stress in your current workload?

  • Is there anything your manager or company could do to support you better with your current tasks?

Single-select multiple-choice questions are quick for your team to answer, and they’re great for highlighting patterns across the organization.

Which factor is most impacting your workload right now?

  • Unclear priorities

  • Not enough time

  • Team understaffed

  • Other (please specify)

NPS (Net Promoter Score) question helps you track employee advocacy over time. It’s simple, but powerful—the results can show major shifts in mood across teams. You can generate a ready-to-go NPS survey for this exact purpose here.

How likely are you to recommend our company as a healthy workplace to a friend or colleague? (0–10 scale)

Followup questions to uncover "the why": These enable the survey to dig into details. For example, if someone cites “Unclear priorities,” a smart followup could uncover if the problem is communication, task switching, or something else. When to use these? Anytime you want context—not just a label.

  • Can you share an example of when unclear priorities affected your work recently?

If you want to see more question ideas, templates, and expert tips, check out Specific’s guide to the best questions for employee surveys about workload and stress.

What is a conversational survey?

Unlike traditional survey forms, a conversational survey feels like a natural chat. Instead of static forms or endless radio buttons, respondents get questions that flow and change based on their answers—so it rarely feels repetitive or robotic.

Using an AI survey generator means you’re not just creating a form—you're setting up an interview with a virtual expert. It slashes the time you’d otherwise waste tinkering with spreadsheets, formatting, or multistep survey builders. AI-generated surveys adapt in real time to responses, delivering richer, more actionable insights than copy-paste forms.

Manual surveys

AI-generated surveys

Rigid, one-size-fits-all

Personalized, adaptive questioning

Often ignored or rushed through

Feels like a real conversation, boosting engagement

Manual follow-up (if any)

Automatic, contextual follow-up in real time

Difficult to analyze free-form responses

AI summarizes and surfaces insights on demand

Why use AI for employee surveys? It’s simple: you get higher response rates, better data, and less busywork. The AI handles the hard parts—question design, follow-ups, and summarizing responses—so you can focus on what matters: acting on insights. Want to see how it works? Read this guide on analyzing survey responses in Specific.

Specific truly stands out for its conversational survey experience. Respondents—and survey creators—love how easy and engaging the process is, making feedback collection and analysis nearly effortless.

The power of follow-up questions

If you only ask surface-level questions, you’ll get surface-level answers. That’s where Specific’s automatic AI follow-up questions feature comes in. The AI asks smart follow-ups, tailored to each user’s previous answer. It creates a dynamic back-and-forth—like interviewing each employee, but at scale and in real time.

  • Employee: "I feel stressed because deadlines are tight."

  • AI follow-up: "Can you give an example of a recent deadline that felt especially unmanageable?"

Without that follow-up, you’d just see “deadlines = problem.” With it, you see whether it’s process, communication, or something else causing stress.

How many followups to ask? Generally, 2–3 thoughtful followups are enough. Anything more can feel overwhelming. If someone’s already told you what you need, you can configure Specific to gently skip further probing and move to the next topic—no manual effort required.

This makes it a conversational survey: As follow-ups adjust dynamically, the survey starts to feel like a real-time conversation, not a static form—which is the core of what makes conversational surveys so powerful.

AI-powered survey analysis is easy: Even with loads of open-ended replies, AI can summarize them, extract themes, and let you chat with your data for instant insights. Dive deeper in this article on AI survey analysis.

Don’t take our word for it—generate a survey and see how automated followup questions reveal insights no static form ever could.

See this workload and stress survey example now

See what’s possible with a truly conversational, AI-powered workload and stress survey for employees. Capture honest feedback, discover hidden causes of stress, and let the AI handle the heavy lifting—so you can focus on what matters most. Create your own survey today and experience the difference.

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Sources

  1. World Metrics. Work Stress Statistics: Data & Studies on US & Global Workforce Stress

  2. LinkedIn Pulse. 50 Important Workplace Stress Statistics

  3. Gitnux. Workplace Burnout Statistics

  4. MyShortlister. Workplace Stress Statistics: Impact & Trends

Adam Sabla - Image Avatar

Adam Sabla

Adam Sabla is an entrepreneur with experience building startups that serve over 1M customers, including Disney, Netflix, and BBC, with a strong passion for automation.

Adam Sabla

Adam Sabla is an entrepreneur with experience building startups that serve over 1M customers, including Disney, Netflix, and BBC, with a strong passion for automation.

Adam Sabla

Adam Sabla is an entrepreneur with experience building startups that serve over 1M customers, including Disney, Netflix, and BBC, with a strong passion for automation.