How work feels
Workplace stress survey
This survey is about the work. It doesn't assess anyone's health, and if someone is struggling, the right response is real support, whatever the results say.
Opens this survey in Gists as a draft you can edit. Sign in with Slack, Google or your work email. 30 days free. No card needed.
Six questions
How manageable has your workload felt over the past month?
1 = not at all manageable, 5 = completely manageable
How much say do you have in how your work gets done?
1 = very little, 5 = a great deal
Which of these add the most pressure to your work right now?
Pick any, optional
- Tight deadlines
- Shifting priorities
- Volume of work
- Unclear expectations
- Waiting on others
- Customer or stakeholder demands
- Context switching
- None of these
Do you feel comfortable telling your manager when your workload is too much?
Yes or no
When pressure builds, how well does your team adjust (for example, reprioritizing or sharing work)?
1 = not at all, 5 = very well
What would make your work feel more manageable?
Written answer, optional
We wrote these questions for this survey and they are not a validated scale. You can edit them once the survey opens in Gists. If you copy them into another tool, check what it records about who answered.
Who sees it
Results show only when 5 or more people answer. A team below 5 rolls up into the team above it. A group is also held back when comparing it with another group could reveal a small team. HR and named leaders see every team with 5 or more answers. Each manager sees only their own team. Employees see no team scores. Themes only by default. Word-for-word answers are a company setting, off unless turned on, and employees see a notice before they write.
Before you run this
This survey doesn't ask about anyone's health, and it isn't a screening tool. Someone may still write that they are in distress or at risk. Decide before you send it who reads written answers, and agree what happens if someone raises a risk of self-harm or a safety concern: a duty to act may override what people expected about confidentiality, so follow your policy and ask your legal adviser. Set your support route in Reporting and support (Surveys › Planning): it shows with every survey. In Gists, written answers appear as themes by default, so a single answer may not reach you.
The decision it helps with
What is the main source of pressure on this team, and can you change it?
Running it
Quarterly or when a team has been under sustained pressure, and only if someone can change workloads or deadlines. It's about the work and isn't a health assessment. Point anyone struggling toward real support.
What the results might look like
These are made-up examples to show the patterns, not real data.
Shifting priorities lead
60% pick “Shifting priorities”, 45% “Unclear expectations”.
- What it means
- The pressure comes from how work is directed.
- What it doesn't mean
- It doesn't mean people are working too few hours or too many.
- What to do
- Pick one thing that will stop changing for a month, and say so.
Little say in how work gets done
2.3 on question 2 and a heavy load.
- What it means
- This is the pairing Karasek linked to strain.
- What it doesn't mean
- It doesn't show people are unwell.
- What to do
- Give the team a say over how the work is done, even where the amount can't change.
People can't say the load is too much
“No” on question 4 from over half the team.
- What it means
- Your other answers may understate things.
- What it doesn't mean
- It doesn't mean managers refuse to listen.
- What to do
- Work on this first, and have managers ask directly.
What to tell people afterwards
Tell the team the most common pressure and what's stopping because of it.
What to measure next, and when
Check manageability again in a quarter.
Where the demand-control idea comes from
Karasek's 1979 paper, using national survey data from Sweden and the US, tied mental strain to the combination of heavy demands and low decision latitude (Karasek, 1979). Karasek argued strain could be reduced by giving people more say over how work gets done, leaving the amount of work where it is; his data couldn't test that. Question 2 asks about control directly.
The Job Demands-Resources model builds on this kind of thinking and is designed to be used as a practical tool for finding strengths and weaknesses across teams and departments (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007).
Where to look first
If “Shifting priorities” or “Unclear expectations” lead question 3, you can do something about them without hiring anyone. In a meta-analysis of 169 samples and 35,265 employees, role ambiguity and situational constraints had the strongest negative relationships with performance of the seven stressors studied (Gilboa et al., 2008). “Waiting on others” is the everyday form of a situational constraint.
Before any of that, look at question 4. If people aren't comfortable telling a manager the load is too much, your other answers will understate things.
Compared with the workload survey
The workload survey is four questions on capacity, built to run monthly. Use this one when pressure has lasted long enough that you want to know where it comes from.
Related
Sources
- Karasek, R. A. (1979). Job Demands, Job Decision Latitude, and Mental Strain: Implications for Job Redesign. Administrative Science Quarterly, 24, 285-308. doi:10.2307/2392498
- Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E. (2007). The Job Demands‐Resources model: state of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22, 309-328. doi:10.1108/02683940710733115
- Gilboa, S., Shirom, A., Fried, Y., Cooper, C. (2008). A meta-analysis of work demand stressors and job performance: Examining main and moderating effects. Personnel Psychology, 61, 227-271. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6570.2008.00113.x