The hybrid work engagement survey: employee listening for remote, hybrid, and return-to-work success

Jul 14, 2022

Returning to the office once felt like an inevitable endpoint, the capstone that would mark the end of the Covid-19 pandemic. But as remote and hybrid work have become more popular with employees, and (in tandem) the idea of return to anything resembling "normal" has begun to seem, well, a bit quaint, the resumption of office routines has become a will-they-won’t-they for the ages.

The result? Return-to-office plans have become less of a foregone conclusion and more of an ongoing question.

The right answer to that question will, of course, depend on the specifics of your organization. And a well-placed team survey can help the process of deciding upon, communicating, and executing your final plan.

Whether you're ultimately planning a return to the office, a retreat from the office, or a hybrid solution that bridges the gap, a survey can help to ensure that you have a good grasp on your employees' needs and sentiments, how well they understand the current plan, and how it all fits in to the rhythms of their day-to-day work. It can also inform management best practices for remote and hybrid work, should your organization ultimately choose that route. (For more on that topic, you can also read how one Nomad navigated becoming a manager of a remote team!)

This post provides a sample survey that can help managers gather data on their current working arrangements and plan for next steps. It's presented as part of Nomadic’s partnership with Charter, and the survey was written by Jenny Anderson and Erin Grau. For a deeper dive into hybrid work, check out the Program we created in partnership with Charter, Hybrid Working.

Surveying your hybrid work, remote work, or return-to-office plan

Whether you're gauging the success of your remote or hybrid working approach or planning a return to the office, it helps to get a read on employee sentiment first. Sending out a survey supports employee engagement by giving everyone a place to express their views and helps managers tune in more effectively to the overall mood of the team or organization. While no plan will please everyone, a well-designed survey can help you meet the needs of the greatest number of employees. Our hybrid work engagement survey provides one place to start. (Check out the PDF version here to see all the questions at one glance.)

The hybrid work engagement survey

We call this the hybrid work engagement survey, but really, it can apply to remote and in-person work, too—it's all about understanding what your employees are thinking and feeling so you can make (and communicate) your decisions in a way that will bolster this engagement and make them feel heard.

This engagement survey helps you understand how to strengthen communication and support your team members' productivity, happiness, and retention in the context of a hybrid work arrangement.

The survey is organized into four pillars:

1. Clarity. By making the implicit explicit and helping people know what’s expected of them, work works better for everyone.

2. Autonomy. The best work provides a sense of autonomy and ownership over work, time, and schedule.

3. Purpose. Work is a fundamental human need, and despite all that’s changed over the past 18 months, the desire for meaningful work that creates value and has purpose remains.

4. Connection. High-performing teams have high-quality connections, and those connections help knowledge and information flow within an organization.

How to use the hybrid work engagement survey

The survey links to a Google survey that provides one example of how to execute this survey. You can also take a look at the PDF version of the same survey here. We recommend that the survey collects names and email addresses to serve as an effective tool to start a dialogue and help you support every employee, each of whom have their own preferences and unique needs.

More tips on hybrid and remote work

At Nomadic, we've been thinking a lot about hybrid and remote work in the past year as we help our clients and learners navigate major transformations in how and where they work. Here are a few more resources we recommend for companies looking to tackle remote, hybrid, and return-to-work decisions in a way that's best for them and their employees.

• A recent McKinsey report on how to make hybrid work fit with your diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy
• Our post on addressing bias in remote and hybrid work
• The recording of an event we held with author Lynda Gratton, Ashok Krish of Tata Consultancy Services, and Kevin Delaney of Charter on how to establish rituals and norms in hybrid work
• An interview with our CEO about how learning can help make transformations like the transition to hybrid or remote work more successful

*

For more insights about hybrid work, check out Nomadic’s Hybrid Working Program. This Program explores current best practices for the hybrid office, including creating community on a hybrid team, reimagining how we use time, coaching and retraining staff in a hybrid environment, and more. Sign your whole team or organization up for Nomadic to get them access to Hybrid Working and all our other Programs, Resources, and more.

Interested to discover more about what Nomadic’s cohort-based Academy can do for your organization? Learn about our approach, or get in touch to request a demo.

Sign up to get the latest expert commentary, analysis, and news in learning and leadership delivered straight to your inbox.