I need to create a simple yet effective questionnaire for my office regarding satisfaction and areas for improvement. Does anyone have any ideas?

My husbands firm did this, too. Maybe instead his could be questions sent via email that one could type & answer then print out & turn in. That way the answers to the survey are not penned in and are anonymous.

Whatever you do, make sure the questions you ask are very neutral. I was asked to do an evaluation of my bosses once, and I was honest and shortly thereafter fired. I thought I was being fair. I put 5 good traits and 5 not so good traits about each one of the vets I worked for. I guess they didn’t really want to know what we thought! We were supposed to do this annonymously, but the doctor I was writing a not so good review of overheard me check the spelling of a key word in his review. He fired me two weeks later. He gave other reasons, but we were all sure it was because of my review.

Here is a list of sample survey questions.

Perfect! Thanks for the great answers! :D – LB

I have seen this site used for surveys in the past. I believe the responses can be anonymous, but you may want to check…

Be sure you allow some space for comments—“verbatims,” if you will. Such questionnaires typically force certain responses that the employee may not feel give a realistic picture or may not afford a chance to say the things he or she would really like to say. Space for free-form text provides an opportunity to bring out some things that the questions may not touch on at all or to give a response that simply isn’t accounted for in ‘strongly agree . . . strongly disagree’ ratings from 1 to 5.

You (or the partners) should also have a very clear idea of what they are going to do with the responses and how they are going to act on them. This can affect the structure of the questionnaire and even the specific wording. Also, watch out for anything that might be ambiguous or that people could interpret in such different ways that the results will be useless.

For example, suppose you put a statement on there (for that old 1 – 5 rating) that says something like “Work should be fun.” One person thinks this means “I should enjoy my work for its own sake—it should seem like fun to me” and strongly agrees. Another thinks it means “We should have social activities at work” and strongly agrees. And another thinks “I don’t want to screw around with potlucks at work—I just want to do my job and go home, and I’ll have my own fun, thank you” and strongly disagrees. What do the results mean?

For another example, suppose you include a statement such as “I feel safe voicing my opinions even when others disagree” and this person does NOT feel safe, not even safe enough to answer this one truthfully! Then what?