How to get more responses to your employee engagement survey

Employee engagement surveys are one of the best ways to check in with your team and take meaningful action based on what you hear. But when participation is low, the results feel incomplete, and sharing them can feel… well, a little awkward.

If that’s your current challenge, you’re not alone! In fact, we recently went through this exact process ourselves and gathered a ton of real-world insights to help you boost your survey participation and make the entire process more impactful for everyone involved. Let’s start with some of the most common reasons employees don’t respond—and how you can turn things around.

 

---

Why response rates fall short

Here’s what we see most often:

• They’re too long. 
• They’re empty promises. 
• The questions are generic (or worse, don’t even apply to me/my role). 
• The people behind the survey are just checking a box. 
• Your employees have hit survey fatigue.
• Your employees are too disengaged to take the survey. 
• The timing is bad.
  

We’ll dig into each of these to help you boost your response rates! But first, here are some of my best practices when it comes to launching a new or recurring employee engagement survey. 

---

Set the stage with clear communication

Say it with me: transparency! Before sending out a single survey question, let your team know why it matters and how their feedback will shape what happens next. Here’s what to clearly communicate in your survey launch:

• The goal of the survey: What’s the purpose? What do you hope to learn?
• How long it will take: Keep your survey as brief as you can! Streamline questions and avoid those that don’t have a measurable outcome. We typically like these to be no more than 15 minutes long. 
• What happens next: Explain how responses will be used to make improvements and what the follow-up process will look like! Bonus points for using real examples from the past of how this survey has actually driven change. 

When we ran our first engagement survey (for ~70 employees), we introduced it live at all-hands and included a slide breaking down the purpose, timing, and how it differed from our other internal surveys (see below!). 

We ran the survey through mid-December—and learned a BIG lesson. Between holiday vacations and end-of-year busyness, participation dipped. This year, we’re wrapping it by early November instead.

Pro tip: Run engagement surveys twice a year. It gives you fresh benchmarks and reflects the natural evolution of your workplace.

---

Use every channel you have available to you to collect responses

If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a hundred times: you’ll never reach 100% of your employees with just one communications channel (we recommend four!). When launching an employee engagement survey, it’s essential to leverage every channel at your disposal to ensure a near-perfect response rate. Start by casting a wide net, then narrow down based on what’s working.

This strategy aligns with the tools that will shape your internal communications in 2025. Multi-channel communication tools are no longer just a nice-to-have—they’re a necessity for maximizing employee engagement.

Tools like workplace messaging platforms (Slack or Teams), intranet solutions, email platforms, and employee communication apps make it easier to drive action and gather feedback from every corner of your workforce. They streamline reminders, reduce manual follow-up, and help you reach employees where they’re already communicating—whether that’s on their phones, in their inbox, or during a quick Slack scroll between meetings.

A few examples of what has worked for us (and might work for you):

• Send an all-company email and follow up with those who didn’t open it—this is super easy to do with a tool like Workshop!
• Create a QR code for the survey and place it on digital or printed signage in high-traffic areas like break rooms or hallways.
• Schedule weekly reminders in Slack or Teams—and make it fun! Include GIFs or casual reminders to make the process less formal and more approachable. This helps keep the survey top of mind.
• Send a text to your frontline or deskless employees. Thanks to mobile-enabled communications tools, like Workshop, reaching your deskless workers is now easier than ever.
• Post an announcement on your intranet and include a “completion rate” or thermometer tracker to show progress. Not only does this build accountability, but it also gives employees a visual cue that encourages everyone to contribute.
• Incorporate survey reminders into department meetings—especially if your survey is collecting data for specific teams. Reach out to department heads to ask them to share reminders and updates with their teams.
• Pop reminders into all-hands meetings. At the very end of the meeting, offer a clear action item by displaying the survey link or QR code on the presentation slide. Employees can immediately engage as they leave, ensuring no one forgets.

These strategies, combined with the right tools for 2025, will give you the best chance at hitting your target response rate.

---

Build trust with anonymity (and clarity)

One of the biggest barriers to honest responses? Fear of being identified. Let your employees know the survey is a safe space for feedback. Consider language like:

“This survey is a safe place to share feedback. While some questions may ask for department-level info, those are optional and never used to identify individual responses.”

If you have smaller teams, be mindful not to ask for so much demographic info that anonymity is compromised. For example, skip questions like:

• What’s your title?
• Who is your manager?

Unless, you know, they’re truly necessary.

---

Make submitting the survey easy and accessible

The easier to participate in your employee engagement survey, the better! Embrace a less-is-more mindset, in addition to: 

• Giving a reasonable window (and sending reminders!).
• Using simple language. Avoid corporate speak and overly technical phrasing.
• Starting easy. Open with quick-hit questions to build momentum.
• Cutting the clutter. Every question should have a clear purpose and a clear path to action.

And finally: make it feel like you. At Workshop, we tie our surveys to our company values and leadership priorities so they feel like a true reflection of who we are—not a generic template. That authenticity matters and makes a big difference!

---

Leadership sets the tone

When leadership participates, employees pay attention. So, yes, our CEO participates in surveys too!

It’s way easier to gain employee buy-in when there’s engagement (and excitement, let’s be honest) from even the most senior members of your organization. When leadership supports the survey and participates themselves, it sends a clear message that feedback is valued at every level of the organization.

One of our most effective moves? Including a note from our weekly CEO emails encouraging everyone to take the survey. It’s a powerful signal that feedback is taken seriously at every level.

If your CEO’s short on time, consider ghostwriting the message. (Workshop makes this really easy.) A well-timed message from the top can drive a major spike in responses.

---

Say thank you (& take action!)

Nothing dwindles down your participation over time than surveys that disappear into the abyss after being sent out. Once your employee engagement survey closes: 

• Thank participants: A heartfelt thank you can go a long, long way! 
• Share high-level results: It may take some time to go through all of the responses but aim to quickly capture high-level insights and share them with the company within a few weeks after the survey closes. 
• Take action: Communicate how you’ll address what you learned and what department or team owns what, and follow through on your promises!

As an example, we ran our first employee engagement survey in December 2024 and used it as a baseline for future surveys. Our eNPS came in at 74—a number we’re incredibly proud of and excited to maintain as we grow.

• Response rate: 20 employees didn’t complete the survey. Most of those were out-of-office or on leave, and a few leaders chose not to participate due to their proximity to the process—an important reminder to plan around availability and perceptions.
• Highlights: Feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Employees feel deeply connected to our mission and trust the leadership team’s communication (something we continually strive to improve!). 
• Opportunities: As an early-stage startup, employees are eager for more clarity around growth paths, stronger recognition, and consistent learning and development. Not a big shocker there!

These insights helped shape our 2025 roadmap, with initiatives like a peer-to-peer recognition program and manager training. We’ve continued to share updates at all-hands and retreats to show how employee feedback drives real action.

---

Troubleshooting your employee engagement survey responses

No matter how thoughtful your rollout, 100% participation is rare. Our first survey saw a 70% response rate—lower than expected, but we chalked it up to the holiday timing. Here are a few common participation blockers (and how to solve them):

• They’re too long. Remove unnecessary questions and aim for a 15-20 minute completion time! 
• They’re empty promises. Make sure to follow our best practices for communicating about engagement surveys, and be SURE that the leadership team and department heads are fully bought in on the concept. If they are not, you may need to present directly to them in advance and get them on the same page! 
• The questions are generic (or worse, don’t even apply to me/my role). Make sure you’re tailoring questions when/if it makes sense. You may need to create a couple of versions of your survey (like one for part-time and full-time employees, or one for front-of-house or back-of-house, etc.)
• The people behind the survey are just checking a box. Employees can always tell and they just…don’t want to do it. 
• Your employees have hit survey fatigue. A great cadence for “larger” surveys (with little pulse surveys sprinkled in here and there) is a surefire way to make sure employees don’t get overwhelmed with surveys from every department. (Plus, internal comms is a great strategic resource for ANY department that is hoping to run a survey of any kind, so encourage those teams to come to you first for proper strategy & scheduling!)
• Your employees are too disengaged to take the survey. Probably the worst-case scenario, but if they aren’t very into the company, your response rate and engagement rate on most things (not just this survey) is going to look very poor. 
• The timing is just bad. We learned this one! Try to avoid holidays or seasonal times where the company is super busy. Similarly, don’t run an engagement survey after, say, an all-company traveling retreat (when the vibes are super duper high) or if the company is coming off the back of serious change management (like a merger & acquisition or a huge layoff). 

Boosting survey participation isn’t just about getting more data. It’s about building a culture where people feel heard—and see the results of their feedback in action. With clear communication, trust, and action, your next employee engagement survey can become a real driver of change in your organization! 

---

Related resources

• Workshop’s employee engagement survey template: This is the exact survey we sent out to our employees last December!
• An employee engagement action plan template: After you get your results back, use this template to organize and identify two or three areas to concentrate your focus for the next 3-6 months!
• An employee engagement survey email template: One of Workshop’s many pre-built internal communication email templates! You can get this one (and 30+ more) when you sign up for a free trial of our comms platform. (Plus, you’ll get all the data you need to easily send follow-up emails to those who didn’t open it the first time!)
• How Workshop helps HR teams: Workshop helps you simplify internal communication so you can focus on what really matters: making your workplace better and your employees more engaged! From the little things (like policy updates) to the big things (like building connections and trust), we’ve got you covered.