Since happy employees foster more happy employees, ask yourself: What makes my employees happy? One of the best ways to find out is to ask them! I know, Duh! Am I right?

Surveys help you measure job satisfaction and the result is a good first impression for fresh faces. When you need actionable insights, however, how do you go about it? This relatively simple process helps in not just attracting new hires, it helps in keeping the staff you’ve already trained. So just how do you go about the process of showing your peeps you care?

Begin by looking at the range of workers who work with you. Address questions embracing diversity. Look at age, ethnicity, educational levels…really look and at and think about your employees to come up with the very best questions.

Pare it down. Pulse surveys measure how healthy your company is, and they are brief, quick Q & A’s, as opposed to a tedious page of question after question. This is the hard part. Limit yourself to just five questions.

Benchmark your ideas. Look at companies you admire and see what they ask their employees. If you feel hesitant to do that, look for readymade surveys. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel with so many companies offering their services. A good service will meet these standards:

1.      Easy to use.

2.      Easy to customize.

3.      Use many types of questions.

4.      Allow you to both use templates and save your ideas.

5.      Offer real-time results.

6.      Provide analytics.

Are you strapped for time or feeling just a wee bit low in creativity this week? Some of the top tools include 15Five, Officevibe and Culture Amp. Sometimes just visiting their sites stimulates ideas you’d like to put into play.

Keep a list of options and add to it often. Here are some ideas to get you started:

1.      Do you like celebrating your birthday? This offers clues to how your people think and allows you to honor them in ways they prefer.

2.      Name three favorite foods. Since food is a powerful way to enhance connections and build a healthy work environment, make sure you’re serving foods they like.

3.      Do you prefer a window, middle or aisle seat on a plane? Are your employees currently working in the best place possible within your company?

4.      How do you learn best? Knowing which are visual, which are auditory and which are kinesthetic learners makes a difference in presenting material.

5.      What’s your commute like? Snarled traffic carries over into the workday, and long commutes make a difference in how employees feel when they arrive.

See where this is going? When you can identify the trends affecting your employees, you can make life better (employee retention) and create a positive branding experience (attracting new hires). Once you get into the habit of offering regular five-question surveys, you might include seasonal questions, questions about employee benefits, company resources, etc. The idea is simple, isn’t it? Putting it to work for you takes some thought. But let me close with asking you just one question: If you could hire a perfect employee without paying for ads, without lengthy interviews and without the angst of choosing which will fit your company…would it be worth asking a few questions. I believe you just answered the question.