Employee Wellness Survey

Want to know the secret to gauging your employees’ health and well-being?

Ask them! With the proliferation of employee wellness program ideas in the market today, identifying wellness priorities that will most benefit your employees’ specific needs can be quite challenging.

Conducting an employee wellness survey is a critical first step in launching any successful corporate wellness program. Many companies make the mistake of creating wellness plan templates in a vacuum with only the input of a few individuals such as a chief of staff or CEO.

Rather than a small group of leaders making assumptions about your employee wellbeing, a workplace wellness survey goes straight to the source and asks your employees directly about their well-being and wellness priorities.

According to LinkedIn’s 2022 Global Talent Trends report, 42% of respondents identified mental health and wellness as the top area for companies to invest in to improve company culture. The report continues,

Of those who wanted to see higher investments levels towards mental health and wellness, 66% were Generation Z and 51% were Millennials. Stats like these highlight the fact that if employee wellness is not a top priority at your company, it should be.

As mentioned earlier, before you begin crafting a robust employee wellness plan to improve your company culture, you should first conduct a staff wellness survey to identify your baseline and wellness priorities. But what exactly is an employee wellness survey, how do you launch one, and what are some examples of wellness survey questions?

Read on to discover the answers to these questions and more!

What is an employee wellness survey?

An employee wellness survey is a group of questions sent to employees to assess various aspects of their well-being in the workplace such as happiness levels, workload, work-life balance, and interests. It’s similar to an employee engagement survey, but differs in that wellness surveys are geared to gauging wellbeing specifically, which has a direct effect on employee engagement.

The survey results are then typically used to inform the company’s employee wellness program and help define what the program’s priorities & core focuses should be. It’s important to note that workplace wellness surveys should be anonymous to encourage full transparency and honesty in your employees’ responses.

The benefits of sending an employee wellness survey include:

Sending employee wellness surveys not only provides insight into how to improve employee morale but is a morale booster in itself resulting in happier employees.

Corporate wellness surveys encourage employee engagement by inviting employees to take an active part in strengthening workplace wellness and culture.

Survey results help gauge stress levels and pinpoint workplace stressors. Making efforts to lower stress levels and decrease those stressors can help increase employee retention.

Staff wellness surveys help identify where to invest your company’s time and budget as it relates to wellness initiatives and improvements.

Wellness survey results provide the building blocks to create a robust and tailored workplace wellness program that meets your workforce’s specific needs.

The benefits of effective employee wellness programs include increased levels of happiness and productivity.

Employee Wellness Survey Tools

There’s no shortage of HR tools and corporate wellness companies in today’s market, which is awesome! However, it can also be a bit overwhelming to find the best corporate wellness software that works for you and your business needs. Here are a few of our favorite employee wellness survey tools!

1) monday.com

monday.com has an easy-to-use employee wellbeing survey template that will help you launch your survey in no time! The template is customizable and the results are clear, concise, and actionable. monday.com’s template is a simple yet effective way to create a survey, gather employee feedback, and gain valuable insights.

2) Kazoo

Kazoo’s WorkTango platform can be used for many types of employee surveys including engagement, onboarding, offboarding, culture, and of course, wellness. Their surveys serve as fantastic anonymous employee feedback tools which facilitate honest & direct feedback from your employees. Kazoo’s data dashboards are easy to digest and provide data nuggets that inspire meaningful action and conversations.

3) Bonusly

Bonusly Signals is a great tool for wellness check-ins and identifying what benefits matter most to your employees. You can either start from scratch and build your wellness survey, or you can start with an existing wellness survey template and customize it to meet your needs. Bonusly Signals also features auto-recognition to incentivize responses through Bonusly’s rewards system. You can also view and filter survey results by specific parameters to dig deeper and discover trends.

How to Send an Effective Employee Wellness Survey

Whether utilizing one of the tools mentioned above or launching a survey on your own, there are critical steps to take to send an effective employee wellness survey. Make sure you provide ample time to complete each of these steps thoughtfully and strategically so your employee wellness survey is well-received and will provide the insights you need.

Step 1   Pre-Survey Brainstorm

Before you even begin creating the survey itself, think about what prompted the survey. Has there been a shift in employee morale or recent organizational challenges? What specific wellness topics do you want to ask questions about? What exactly do you want to measure? What are the goals of this survey?

• Answering these questions will help lay the groundwork for crafting strategic wellness survey questions.

Step 2   Create Your Survey Questions

Now that you’ve established the context for your survey, it’s time to create the actual survey questions. When creating your questions, reference the answers from Step 1 and craft your questions around those responses. Once you have a working draft of the employee wellness survey, share it with key internal stakeholders for review and fine-tuning before landing on the final version.

• Be sure to include both needs & interests questions and an open-ended question or 2 at the end of the survey for additional feedback.

Step 3   Incentivize Your Employees to Respond

Employee wellness surveys aren’t much good without employee participation. How do you motivate employees to complete the survey and increase participation levels? An easy way to incentivize participation is to tie in with an existing employee reward platform if you have one.

• If you don’t have a formal employee rewards platform, you can raffle off employee wellness gifts or offer digital gift cards as incentives.

Step 4    Build a Communications Plan

Now that you have your list of questions, you’re ready to rock & roll, right? Wrong. Sending out your employee wellness survey without context or a heads-up isn’t the best idea. Instead, build out a communications plan for pre-survey launch, during launch, and post-launch. Leading up to the survey launch, you want to get your employees excited about it! For example, during your weekly team meeting, you can kick it off by sharing wellness tips for the workplace and mentioning the upcoming wellness survey.

• You could also highlight the survey launch in your company-wide newsletter or email update. While the survey is live, send a reminder ping at the mid-way point to increase employee participation.

Step 5   Launch Survey

With your questions and communications rollout plan in place, you’re finally ready to release your survey into the wild! Be sure to proofread all questions and email copy before clicking the ‘Send’ button.

• Don’t forget to mention your participation incentives as well so that your employees are motivated to complete the wellness survey by the deadline provided.

Step 6   Review Survey Results & Build an Implementation Action Plan

You did it! Participation was through the roof and you have a ton of awesome survey feedback. Now it’s time to review the survey data to see if any trends have emerged and identify what the core focuses for your wellness program or initiatives should be. Once identified, the action planning begins! Without an action plan, employee surveys are pretty useless.

• Draft a roadmap outlining how to turn data into action.

Employee Wellness Survey Questions

Employee Wellness Questions: Needs

• On a scale of 1-10 (1 being not stressed at all, 10 being constantly stressed out), rate your stress level on a typical day.
• On average, how many hours per day do you sit at your desk?
  • • 0-2
    • 2-4
    • 4-6
    • 6-8
    • 8+
• On average, how many hours per day are you staring at a screen? (Computer, phone, or television.)
  • • 0-2
    • 2-4
    • 4-6
    • 6-8
    • 8+
• How often are you able to get up and stretch or walk during a typical day?
  • • Never
    • Once or twice
    • Frequently
• How many breaks do you take on a typical day?
  • • 0
    • 1-2
    • 3 or more
• On a typical day, how many servings of fruits and vegetables do you eat?
  • • 0
    • 1-2
    • 3-4
    • 5-6
• On a typical day, how many glasses of water do you drink?
  • • 0-2
    • 3-5
    • 6-8
• Do you practice mindfulness? (I.e., yoga or meditation)
  • • No
    • Yes (often)
    • Yes (rarely)
• Have you tried to make a major lifestyle change in the past? (Select Yes or No)
  • • If yes, were you successful? (Y/N)
    • If not, what was the biggest challenge?
      • Lack of time
      • Finding an activity I liked
      • Temptation to cheat
      • Lack of accountability partners
• The amount of work I’m expected to complete in any given week feels manageable and reasonable.
  • • Yes
    • No
    • Sometimes
• The work culture and work environment at this company support a healthy balance between my work and personal life.
  • • Strongly Agree
    • Agree
    • Disagree
    • Strongly Disagree
• On average, how many hours of sleep do you get per night?
  • • 3-4 hours
    • 5-7 hours
    • 8+ hours

Employee Wellness Questions: Interests

• If our company provided free healthy snacks, would you eat them? (Select Yes or No)
• Would you be interested in a company-provided wearable fitness tracker, such as a Fitbit or Jawbone? (Select Yes or No)
• Would you be interested in onsite group fitness activities, such as boot camp? (Select Yes or No)
• What specific fitness activities interest you? Check all that apply
• Group running
  • • Hiking
    • Cycling
    • Walking
    • Stretching
    • Nutrition / cooking classes
    • Basketball
    • Rock climbing
    • Swimming
    • Weight/resistance training
    • Yoga
    • Meditation
    • Stretching
• Would you participate in a company-wide fitness or wellness challenge? (Select Yes or No)
• When do you prefer to exercise?
  • • In the morning before work
    • In the evening after work
    • During work hours (i.e., just before your lunch break)
• Would you be interested in a standing desk? (Select Yes or No)
• Would you be interested in replacing your desk chair with an exercise ball? (Select Yes or No)
• Are you interested in mental health services, like stress and anxiety management classes? (Select Yes or No)
• Would you be interested in joining a book club centered around wellness and personal & professional development? (Select Yes or No)
• If we brought in wellness subject experts (nutrition, sleep, stress management, etc.), would you attend hosted learning sessions? (Select Yes or No)

Employee Wellness Questions: Open-Ended Questions

• What other wellness initiatives or activities might interest you?
• Have any additional suggestions, comments, or questions? Let us know in the space provided.
• In general, how do you feel about your overall health and wellness?
• Do you feel that our company culture positively contributes to your health and wellness? If not, how can we improve?
• Does our current employee healthcare plan and benefits meet your health and wellness needs? If not, what’s missing?

Employee Wellness Survey Email Sample

Here’s a base email template that you can use as a starting point when crafting your survey launch email. Be sure to tweak the copy to match your company voice and survey details.

Remember: Keep it concise and to the point, but make sure to effectively highlight the why inspiring the survey.

SUBJECT: We Need Your Valuable Input! 2022 Q4 Employee Wellness Survey

BODY: 

We’re in the process of crafting some brand new wellness initiatives aimed to make [insert Company Name] a place that supports your overall health and well-being! We want you to THRIVE.

To maximize the benefits to each and everyone one of our employees, we need your feedback!

Below is a link to a brief survey that will help us create a wellness program that fits our staff’s unique needs. It will only take a few minutes to complete, and when you do, you’ll be automatically entered to win a free box of healthy snacks!

The survey is 100% anonymous, but if there is a question you don’t feel like answering, feel free to skip it.

Thanks in advance for your participation!

Next Steps After Your Employee Wellness Survey

After completing your employee wellness survey, don’t just sit on this valuable data! You didn’t go through all this effort to launch the perfect wellness survey to not utilize the results. Below are a few next steps you should take after a successful survey deployment-

• Baby Steps: Baby steps are actions you can take immediately. For example, send a brief Thank You email message to the survey participants and make sure they received the survey incentive(s) promised.
• Medium Steps: Medium steps are items you can prepare for implementation. For example, build out a rough project plan outlining how to bring to life some of the core wellness initiatives that garnered the most interest in your survey results.
• Large Steps: Large steps are longer-term goals you want to achieve through your revamped wellness program. For example, launching a company-wide wellness challenge or offering wellness office hours with subject matter experts.