Employee satisfaction survey template (free, ready to run)

Annual engagement surveys die in inboxes. A short, focused pulse — fourteen 1–5 ratings plus two open questions — gives HR and managers a honest read without eating a lunch break. This article walks through the employee satisfaction template we ship on PollsLive and how to run it well.

What's in the template

• Part 1 — My work & environment: role clarity, engagement, autonomy, workload, resources, culture, teamwork.
• Part 2 — Leadership & growth: feedback, respect, transparency, trust, advancement, recognition, advocacy (eNPS-style).
• Part 3 — Open feedback: one *keep* and one *change* question.
• Optional comment on every question so a "3" on workload can include context.

Why one page, not thirty emails

The template uses PollsLive's Survey question type: every item appears on a single scrollable page, submitted once. Respondents see progress, answer in flow, and you're done in a few minutes. That's the same pattern as our how to create a survey guide — short beats exhaustive.

Per-question comments

A lone number rarely tells you enough. When comment boxes are enabled, each rating can carry a sentence of context — "3 on resources because design licenses expired" beats guessing in a leadership meeting. Comments are optional so completion stays high.

Save your own version

Tweak wording for your company, add a department field, or strip questions you don't need — then Save as template in Studio. Your workspace templates show up on /templates next to the built-ins, so quarterly pulses reuse the same deck.

Reading the results

• Compare Part 1 vs Part 2 averages — execution pain often sits in Part 1, trust pain in Part 2.
• Watch advocacy (would you recommend us?) as a simple engagement thermometer.
• Mine Keep / Change answers for quotes you can act on this quarter.
• Segment by team only if you have enough responses; small-n teams stay anonymous.