Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Why conduct an employee engagement survey?
Employee engagement surveys can reveal a great deal of information about employee perceptions, sentiments, and attitudes about their personal work, management, and the overall organization. It’s often noted that organizational responsiveness to employee feedback leads to higher retention rates, lower absenteeism, improved productivity, better customer service, and overall higher employee morale.
Q: What does employee engagement mean?
Employee engagement generally refers to the level of an employee’s commitment and connection to an organization. However, there are many different elements of an employee’s commitment and connection. They include an employee’s sense of purpose in the organization, their connection to colleagues and management, and their commitment and enthusiasm towards the organization’s mission.
Q: What is my time commitment for this survey? What is expected of me?
Your time commitment is relatively minimal but can vary depending on how you choose to deploy the survey (see below) and your own investment in encouraging employee participation in the survey.
We’ll do most of the work! All we’ll need from you is some contact information and survey deployment details. Then, we’ll work with you on some minor logistics items and you’re all set!
Q: Is there a cost/fee associated with my company’s participation in the survey?
Participation in the Employee Engagement Survey is complimentary as an exclusive benefit of your HEC membership. Participating companies will incur a fee if they request survey question customization or request additional survey results (see below).
Additionally, and new for 2025, we’ll host an online complimentary session following the survey to debrief participating companies on the overall findings, offering strategies to address some key findings. This year’s session will transition to a virtual format to provide more flexibility and accessibility.
Also new this year, for an additional fee, members can request a private survey debrief session (virtually or in-person) with Tracie Foglia, HEC’s Talent Solutions Manager, to receive customized insights and solutions specific to the member.
Q: Who should participate?
All members are encouraged to participate as surveying your workforce anonymously is a great way to get a pulse of your employees and their sentiments and identify issues that might not necessarily be disclosed to the leadership team.
Q: How does the survey get deployed to my company’s employees?
We provide the following options for survey deployment. More than one deployment option may be selected:
- General Link to Survey
The general link provides one link for the company, requiring a designated company representative to distribute the link to employees and provide access to a device with online access. This is a suitable option when employees do not have an individual work email. - Unique Link to Survey
The unique link is the most personalized option. Employers provide an employee email list, and each employee will receive an individual link to complete the survey. This allows the employee the ability to complete the survey in more than one sitting without losing progress. This makes the unique link the most accurate option as employees are not permitted to take the survey multiple times. The link will be sent via our third-party partner.
Q: When will the survey open? And how long will it be available?
The online survey for your employees will begin on July 14 and ends on July 30.
Q: What types of questions will be asked?
The questions are focused on the employee experience, views toward senior management and supervisors, job responsibilities, team dynamics, career development, communication in the workplace and include open-ended questions to capture deeper insights into employee sentiment that may not be revealed in the responses to the standard questions. Most of the responses to the questions will be answered via a Likert scale. A Likert scale (a sliding scale of responses) is commonly used to measure attitudes, knowledge, perceptions, and behavioral changes.
Q: How long will it take employees to complete the survey?
Past respondents have indicated that the average time to complete the survey was roughly 10-15 minutes. The survey consists of a total of 55 questions.
Q: Is the survey confidential?
Yes. Personal identifier information is not used in the survey results nor is it provided to HEC or participating organizations. Furthermore, our third-party partner will administer the survey. HEC will not have access to the individual responses. Employees can rest assured that their responses are totally anonymous and confidential. To ensure confidentiality, the minimum threshold for reporting is five responses.
Q: What will HEC do with the data collected from the survey?
Aggregate survey data from all participating organizations will be compiled and presented in an all-companies report (as part of the standard offering). HEC may use the aggregate data to inform future projects as well as programming that may be of interest to member companies.
Q: Will the results be shared/made available to participating members?
Yes. Participating member companies will receive the Hawaii Overall report and their respective Department/Workgroup surveys as part of the standard offering. Demographic reports can be ordered for $220. Companies may request other data cuts for an additional fee of $220 per report.
Registration opens April 29, 2025 for HEC member companies. Simply fill out the registration form here:
Registration Deadline: June 13, 2025.
For more information, visit our Employee Engagement Survey page.
If you have any questions, please contact Tracie Foglia at (808) 440-8850.