15 Remote work survey questions to ask in your next WFH survey

1. How do you feel about working remotely?

If you’re holding regular one on one meetings with your teams, how they feel should be obvious. However, if it isn’t, this survey question prompts them to open up and share their experiences. For example, are they noticing positive changes in their mental health because they get to spend more time at home? Or, alternatively, are they struggling because they’ve lost touch with other team members?

Why should I ask this question?

Collecting this employee feedback is important as these insights — both the good and bad, will help shape your remote culture strategy.

2. Do you prefer remote working to being in the office?

Generally, most people prefer working remotely in some capacity. So on the whole, responses tend to relate to the type of work a person does in each location.  When a task requires deep work with minimal distractions, employees typically prefer staying at home. On the other hand, administrative work or meeting days lend themselves to an in-office environment. Nevertheless, everyone is different. Some people prefer virtual meetings as they find them less stressful, so be aware of this when collecting responses.

Why should I ask this question?

If any issues are raised, this gives you a valuable opportunity to fix them and better meet your remote teams’ needs.

3. Are our work-from-home policies clear?

A strong remote working policy has clear principles and rules, which set expectations for both remote employees and the organisation — typical examples include expected hours of availability and reimbursement on office equipment. If you’re managing an international team there are additional steps as each country has different laws on overtime, expenses, and the right to disconnect. Don’t forget, it’s never too late to give employees a brief overview of key policy points in one-to-ones. Especially, if they’re entitled to claim back on office expenses and haven't been doing so.

Why should I ask this question?

Being transparent and honest about your remote working policies demonstrates you’re open to change and value employee feedback.

4. Are your benefits and perks still meaningful?

If you’ve recently hired more remote or hybrid employees, now is a good time to review your current perks and benefits packages. Unfortunately, if your package was designed for an in-office team you may notice a lot of perks are no longer relevant to remote workers. Consequently, this not only has the potential to harm your ROI, but is also detrimental to employee experience.

These days, most companies choose discount solutions that work with global brands and then add specific in-office benefits as extras. When you choose Perkbox, you can add your own custom company benefits while also offering everyone over 9,000 global discounts and deals. What’s more, with an allowance of points each month, remote teams can enjoy free hot drinks and snacks at popular highstreet bakeries and coffee houses.

Why should I ask this question?

Employee benefits and perks are huge engagement drivers. So understanding what your employees value helps you make a better investment in their experiences.

5. Can you work effectively with your current work setup?

Some remote team members may benefit more from being at home than others, particularly if they have a separate and suitable space for their work. If your current survey data suggests your remote employees don’t have all the equipment they need, you need to follow up with more long-form survey questions that collect qualitative data.

Maybe they would benefit from a desk instead of working at the dining room table, or perhaps an additional monitor would help them focus more. Making their remote work environment as functional as possible, eases the transition from working in an office to home.

Why should I ask this question?

Enhancing the remote environment boosts productivity and shows you care about the day-to-day experiences of your employees.

6. How can leadership support you when working remotely?

Unfortunately, when results from remote working survey questions reveal a lack of support from leadership, issues often lie within a flawed culture and comms strategy. When managing remote employees, successful leaders prioritise results over hours worked, encourage teamwork, and show appreciation. In fact, it’s these core values that prevent toxic working behaviours, such as micromanagement from occurring.

Why should I ask this question?

Questions like this demonstrate active listening. Here, you are willing to accept praise and criticism from your remote teams. But, you need to act on their responses if you want to encourage a culture of open and honest communication.

7. Are you more productive at home or in the office?

Now, this question shouldn’t be used as a way to determine if your employees are sticking to their work schedule. Instead, you should use it as an opener to determine where your employees work their best.

After all, some tasks are naturally better suited to an in-office environment than others. But this doesn't mean you need a permanent office location. You could hire a coworking space for office get-togethers and town hall meetings.

Why should I ask this question?

To learn more about what makes your remote workers productive. Working at home may not always be suitable for some people.  Keep in mind they don’t need to be in a permanent office location. Suggesting alternative environments, such as going to a coworking facility a few times a month may be beneficial for them.

8. Would you prefer more or fewer virtual team meetings?

A growing number of remote employees have reported a trend of virtual meetings swallowing up their time. For this reason, it’s important you encourage them to set boundaries so they don’t get swamped, or worse still, burnt out.

That said, virtual team meetings aren’t always about work. They include social catch-ups, which are crucial for keeping your culture alive and maintaining employee engagement. So when you ask this question, you should make this distinction.

Why should I ask this question?

To gain an insight into your remote teams' workload and to determine how their time is being spent. Some employees may prefer more meetings to touch base with other remote team members. Whereas others may feel they are too intrusive.

9. Is it easy to reach your remote team members?

Being part of a distributed workforce is both rewarding and challenging for remote employees. A big pro is that they get exposed to a global talent pool and learn from people they otherwise wouldn’t have encountered. But, if some colleagues or team leaders are in different time zones they may face some communication challenges.

Why should I ask this question?

It doesn't matter if you have a hybrid workforce — or work with fully remote employees, keeping everyone on the same page is key if you want a harmonious and high-performing team.

10. Have you been able to set up a good routine?

If some employees feel they don’t have a good remote working routine, they’ll need support. This may look like scheduling more one-to-ones or paying close attention to their workload. Making notes on how successful employees manage their routines could also give you ideas on how you can further support others.

Why should I ask this question?

Please bear in mind that remote work surveys only go so far in revealing what employees are thinking and feeling — nevertheless, they are still a good baseline. Any topics related to wellbeing and employee health tend to require a greater depth of exploration and should be followed up with a conversation.

11. Do you have a healthy work-life balance?

When employees work remotely, some have a tendency to work overtime without telling you. If you suspect your employees are putting in more hours than they should, you need to ask them why they feel the need to work late. Especially if their mental and physical wellbeing is at risk.

A proactive way of taking care of remote employee health is with a wellbeing platform. Digital health solutions that employees can access whenever and wherever they want prompts them to take care of their wellbeing.

With Perkbox your teams get access to an ever-expanding library of on-demand workouts, guided meditations, health webinars, and much more. Plus, because we work with wellbeing experts, our health content has been developed by some of the best in their field.

Why should I ask this question?

It's easy for managers to fall into an out of sight out of mind approach when working with remote teams. But keeping tabs on your teams’ work-life balance is the most effective way of preventing disengagement, burnout, and stress.

12. Do you feel more valued when working from home?

When an employee feels appreciated, they’re more likely to aim higher and go the extra mile. If you have a good remote reward and recognition strategy, your survey results should demonstrate your employees feel seen and valued, no matter where they are working.

A digital reward and recognition platform, such as Perkbox includes functionality that facilitates peer-to-peer recognition and reward. From the app, employees can send personalised messages of recognition and tag them to company values — keeping your remote culture alive and healthy.

13. Are you kept in the loop with company news?

When you ask remote employees how often they hear about company news and updates they should feel connected and respond well. Being the last to know is never an enjoyable experience, so when a dip in communications has occurred — even unintentionally, you must remedy it quickly before teams start feeling siloed and isolated.

With our culture platform, you can share updates, documentation, photos, videos, and more with engaging visual cards using our web or mobile app. We include plenty of templates if you need to get updates out quickly. But for something more permanent, such as onboarding and training material, there is the opportunity to create your own card from scratch.

Why should I ask this question?

Employees who feel connected to your business are often highly engaged and happy, even when they work remotely. So it’s important you monitor how well employees are kept updated.

14. Are virtual one-to-ones effective?

Getting to the bottom of any issues with one-to-ones is really important as these problems in communication may seep into other areas of your business. Take virtual interview questions for example, if a question is worded badly, how can a candidate give the best answer? One-to-ones can fall foul of similar issues because if a manager isn’t asking the best questions or setting the right tone, they won't get constructive responses.

Why should I ask this question?

One-to-ones are your employees’ main source of communication with your organisation, from development to wellbeing they touch upon many experiences.

15. Are our processes efficient and clear?

Clunky software and convoluted reports aren’t ideal employee experiences for those using them on a daily basis. When managing remote teams it’s important you can virtually on and offboard them with ease. Moreover, if you’ve made investments in perks and benefits it's important to track how they’re being used. When use Perkbox you get access to enhanced admin features, so you can easily see who uses what and when. Plus, adding new joiners or removing leavers is simple as our software integrates with leading HRIS platforms.

Why should I ask this question?

If your teams find your processes difficult, this not only slows them down but results in frustration and a negative employee experience. Consequently, actively working on process improvement through feedback is a great way to prevent them from breaking.

Choose Perkbox to improve your remote survey scores

Perkbox is a comprehensive engagement solution, which includes over 9,000 global discounts and deals, a reward and recognition program, wellbeing resources, and a centralised communications platform.