An employee benefits survey is an invaluable way to ensure the perks and benefits (that you’ve so thoughtfully chosen to offer your employees) are doing what they’re supposed to: keeping your employees happy and able to bring their best selves to work.
Your benefits should be keeping your employees happy and able to bring their best selves to work. If they’re not, you’re doing it wrong. Click to tweet.
But unless your employee benefits survey has the right questions and is designed to capture the most relevant insight possible, you might end up with very few clues about how satisfied your employees really are with their benefits.
And what’s worse, you might not realize that you’re failing to offer adequate support to your employees as they're forced to adapt to remote work and changing working conditions. Your benefits should adapt to your employees' current work-from-home set-up, their unique definition of health and wellness, their learning and development goals, their family and home life, and so on.
Benefits have taken on a whole new meaning for employees in the world of work we experience today. With the rise of virtual work, the increased transparency of the workplace due to digitization, and younger generations’ prioritization of company culture over salary, offering meaningful and diverse benefits has become a crucial differentiator in the war for talent.
In other words, your benefits are a powerful tool for retaining AND attracting employees.
In this article, we’ll cover the important things to consider when setting up your employee benefits survey, including:
- Why benefits surveys are crucial
- What benefits you should be asking about
- How to measure employee benefits satisfaction
- Other information to gather in your survey
- Common example employee benefits survey question formats
- Ready-to-use employee benefits survey questions for popular categories
- What to do after collecting survey responses
Which benefits do employees care about?
SHRM’s 2022 Employee Benefits Survey revealed the importance of various benefit categories, as ranked by HR professionals. Not surprisingly, traditional benefits like health coverage, retirement savings, and time off top the list but the data also reveals growing trends in wellness and education perks. These survey results are a strong indicator of the most widely offered benefits—but in order to deliver what your employees need to feel supported and engaged, you need to identify what they actually want. And while the most common benefits are likely on their radar, they may have other specific ideas that can set your organization apart from your competitors. The goal of an employee benefits survey is to discover what matters most to your employees and to open up a dialogue around ways you can better support them, so they can more easily balance the demands of their work and personal lives.
What benefits you should be asking about
To start, your employee benefits survey should cover everything that’s included in your current benefits program, whether they fall under:
- Sick days and PTO / vacation
- Remote work benefits
- Health and wellness benefits
- Transportation / commuter benefits
- Paid paternity/ maternity leave
- Childcare / family benefits
- Disability insurance
- Work-life balance
- Internet / technology
- Learning and development benefits
- Tuition reimbursement
- Flexible lifestyle benefits or stipends
It’s also critical that any employee benefits survey given in 2023 or later covers how your benefits are in relation to the impacts of the current challenges in the workplace. Some things to think about as you create your survey:
- Have your benefits adapted to their remote life?
- Do your benefits reflect your company priorities in this challenging time? (such as employee engagement, high performance, family-focus, etc.)
- Are your benefits relevant to different stages of life?
An easy way to make your employee benefits survey address these things is by adding to the end of each survey question something like the following:
- "especially while working remotely"
- "especially in light of COVID-19"
- "especially for working parents"
How do you measure employee satisfaction with their benefits?
One huge factor in getting valuable information from a survey is knowing what you're trying to measure. For your employee benefits survey, are you trying to offer better benefits than your competition as a recruitment strategy? Do you want to know whether the new benefits you rolled out last year are well received? Are you looking to revamp your perks and benefits and would like employee feedback first? Keep those top business goals in mind as you decide what your survey questions are measuring. Here are some effective question types:
Comparison questions:
“The benefits I receive are as good as most other organizations offer.”
"Is your employer’s benefits for [category ] better or worse than that over other employers?"
Satisfaction with current offering questions:
“I am satisfied with the benefits I receive.”
"My employer offers a generous learning allowance"
Employee benefits recommendations and preferences:
“My company offers the kind of benefits I want.”
“Do you have any additional recommendations for improving our employee benefits plan?”
“What do you like the most about our current benefits plan?”
“What do you like the least about our current benefits plan?”
Employee comprehension of benefits
“How well do you understand your wellness benefits”
“Do you have all of the information you need to utilize your remote work benefits?”
"I know how to use my internet reimbursement"
"Do you know how your benefits impact your total compensation?"
Other information to gather in your employee benefits survey
It's typically very helpful to also capture employee-specific information in your employee benefits survey so that you can better segment and analyze your survey data. You can do this by incorporating some combination of questions for these pieces of information:
Age group: “Which age group do you belong to?”
- Under 25
- 26 – 34
- 35 – 44
- 45 – 54
- 55 or older
Department: “Which department do you belong to?”
- Drop-down list
Location: “In which office are you based?”
- A drop-down list of company offices and include a remote-working entry if applicable to your company
Employment status: “What is your employment status at [company]?”
- full-time
- part-time
- contractor
- intern
How long they’ve been with the company: "How long have you been an employee at [company]?"
- less than 1 year
- 2-3 years
- 4-5 years
- 6 years or more
Should employee benefits surveys be anonymous?
There are many good reasons to keep employees anonymous when conducting benefits surveys. AllVoices’ State of Employee Feedback 2021 report links anonymity with higher survey response rates, lower levels of fear, increased engagement, and increased feelings of trust. Simply, conducting an anonymous benefits survey allows employees to answer honestly without concerns of consequences and the mere act of collecting feedback anonymously demonstrates that you care about employees’ opinions and priorities—while signaling that you’re not looking to root out naysayers.
Common example employee benefits survey question formats
Scale question format: On a scale of 1-10, how important is [ ] to you?
Answers: 1-10, with 1 being least important and 10 being most important
Satisfaction question format: Are you satisfied with your options for employee benefits?
Answers: Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, somewhat satisfied, quite satisfied, extremely satisfied, somewhat dissatisfied, quite dissatisfied, extremely dissatisfied
Comparison question format: Is your employer’s benefits for [ ] better or worse than that over other employers?
Answers: Much better, Better, About the same, Worse, Much Worse
Fairness question format: How fair is your employer’s [ ] policy?
Answers: Extremely fair, very fair, somewhat fair, not so fair, not fair at all
Ready-to-use employee benefits survey questions for popular benefit categories
Health and wellness benefits survey questions
I am satisfied with the level of health insurance provided by my employer
- strongly agree
- agree
- neither agree nor disagree
- disagree
- strongly disagree
How do you feel about the level of health insurance coverage you have?
- It’s the right amount
- Too much coverage (I don’t use it all)
- Not enough (lacks coverage that I want/need)
Using my wellness benefits has been straightforward
- strongly agree
- agree
- neither agree nor disagree
- disagree
- strongly disagree
I feel confident that my wellness benefits will meet my needs in the future.
- strongly agree
- agree
- neither agree nor disagree
- disagree
- strongly disagree
I feel confident that my wellness benefits will meet my needs in the future
- strongly agree
- agree
- neither agree nor disagree
- disagree
- strongly disagree
I know my company cares about me as a human being because of my employee benefits
- strongly agree
- agree
- neither agree nor disagree
- disagree
- strongly disagree
Learning and development benefits survey questions
I know how to request tuition reimbursement
- strongly agree
- agree
- neither agree nor disagree
- disagree
- strongly disagree
I understand how my company's learning and development benefit policy applies to me
- strongly agree
- agree
- neither agree nor disagree
- disagree
- strongly disagree
I have used my company's learning and development benefits
- yes
- no
- not aware of benefit
My employer offers a generous learning stipend / allowance
- strongly agree
- agree
- neither agree nor disagree
- disagree
- strongly disagree
I can use my learning allowance to develop a skill I wouldn’t have otherwise studied
- strongly agree
- agree
- neither agree nor disagree
- disagree
- strongly disagree
My learning and development stipend has helped or will help advance my career.
- strongly agree
- agree
- neither agree nor disagree
- disagree
- strongly disagree
Childcare and family benefits survey questions
I am a parent or primary caregiver to a child who lives in my home.
- yes
- no
I am the primary caregiver to an elderly family member.
- yes
- no
I am satisfied with the family support employer provides me.
- strongly agree
- agree
- neither agree nor disagree
- disagree
- strongly disagree
Having childcare support from my employer makes it easier to do my job
- strongly agree
- agree
- neither agree nor disagree
- disagree
- strongly disagree
Having childcare available through work is important to me.
- strongly agree
- agree
- neither agree nor disagree
- disagree
- strongly disagree
Having benefits that help me care for elderly family members is important to me.
- strongly agree
- agree
- neither agree nor disagree
- disagree
- strongly disagree
Food and snack benefits survey questions
I am satisfied with the food and snacks my employer provides me
- strongly agree
- agree
- neither agree nor disagree
- disagree
- strongly disagree
My company's food and snack benefits are important to me.
- strongly agree
- agree
- neither agree nor disagree
- disagree
- strongly disagree
Having company-provided food and snacks is important to me
- strongly agree
- agree
- neither agree nor disagree
- disagree
- strongly disagree
What's Next?
As you can see from all of the options we covered above, there are a great many ways to set up your employee benefits survey. While most benefits surveys will be shaped by what you currently offer, the best employee benefits surveys invite your employees to give their honest suggestions and recommendations on how you can serve their diverse needs in their current situation. After all, your employees know better than anyone else what they need from you to be successful in their job - it's your job to ask them in the right way!
- If your survey reveals employees are overwhelmingly satisfied with their current benefits, celebrate!
- If your results suggest employees need more education and support to use their benefits, host a series of virtual benefit fairs and make sure everyone knows where to go with their questions.
- If your survey uncovers great suggestions for additional benefits or perks, get to work expanding your offerings to meet your employees where they are.
No matter what your results are, communicate with your employees throughout the process. Thank them for their feedback. Consider sharing the survey results, especially if they will lead directly to new benefits and perks (i.e. “67% of employees said they want more L&D benefits, so we’re increasing the reimbursement cap to XYZ.”). And, above all, commit to checking in with employees about their benefits again in the future, so they know you are keeping their needs top of mind year after year.
Compt is the #1 employee stipends platform that gives your people the freedom to choose the lifestyle perks that are best for them and their always evolving needs, even when remote.
Interested in learning how Compt might benefit your company? Consult with our team or request a demo.