What Questions Should Be on a Remote Work Survey?

Measures whether employees have the conditions — tools, setup, and collaboration norms — to work effectively regardless of location. Low scores here are an operational problem (fix the laptop, the VPN, the async norms) before they become a policy debate.

1. 1.

   I am as productive working remotely as I am on-site.

   QSET-018 (compiled best-practice)

   The anchor effectiveness item from QSET-018. A score below 3.5 signals an operational gap (tools, setup, or norms) that a blanket RTO mandate may not fix.

2. 2.

   I have the tools and technology I need to work effectively from anywhere.

   QSET-018 (compiled best-practice)

   Isolates the technology layer from productivity perception. If tools score low but productivity scores high, employees are compensating — a fragile situation.

3. 3.

   I can collaborate effectively with my team regardless of where we're each working.

   QSET-018 (compiled best-practice)

   Tests whether async and hybrid collaboration norms are functioning. A common failure point when teams mix on-site and remote without structured overlap.

4. 4.

   My physical work environment at home (or my remote location) allows me to focus.

   Surfaces a real but often overlooked barrier: even employees with good tech can be underproductive if their home environment is unsuitable. Frames a potential benefit (home-office stipend) against a cost (lost productivity).

5. 5.

   I have reliable internet connectivity for video calls and shared applications.

   A surprisingly common hard blocker for remote workers, especially outside major metro areas. Identifies a specific infrastructure issue HR and IT can address.

6. 6.

   My manager makes it easy for me to stay connected and informed when I'm working remotely.

   Manager behavior is a key moderator of remote effectiveness. Pairs with the policy-change group to show whether the 'remote problem' is a management problem in disguise.

7. 7.

   I feel equally included in team decisions and conversations whether I'm on-site or remote.

   Measures inclusion parity — the most common equity issue in hybrid environments where on-site employees get informal access that remote employees miss.

Measures where employees actually want to work and how many days on-site feel right for their role. This group feeds the preference distribution you'll cross-tab against the RTO sentiment group.

1. 1.

   My preferred work arrangement is: (A) Fully on-site (5 days/week in office), (B) Mostly on-site (3–4 days/week in office), (C) Hybrid (1–2 days/week in office), (D) Fully remote (0 days/week in office).

   QSET-018 (compiled best-practice)

   The primary preference distribution item from QSET-018. Segment by role, tenure, and team — the Gallup benchmark is ~60% hybrid preference, ~one-third fully remote, <10% fully on-site among remote-capable workers.

2. 2.

   How many days per week in the office would be ideal for doing your best work in your current role? (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 days)

   QSET-018 (compiled best-practice)

   Role-normed preference. Asking about 'your role' rather than 'you personally' reduces social-desirability bias and produces more actionable segmentation by job family.

3. 3.

   Which of the following best describes your current arrangement? (A) Fully on-site, (B) Hybrid — my choice how often, (C) Hybrid — required schedule, (D) Fully remote.

   Captures the gap between what employees want (previous item) and what they actually have. The want-vs-have gap predicts dissatisfaction and intent to leave more strongly than either measure alone.

4. 4.

   If your role required you to be on-site full-time starting next month, how feasible would that be for you? (A) Very feasible, (B) Feasible with some adjustments, (C) Difficult — it would create significant personal hardship, (D) Not feasible — I would need to reconsider my employment.

   A practical feasibility screen. Option D responses are the hard floor of your RTO risk calculation: these employees are not negotiating preference — they have a structural constraint.

5. 5.

   What is your primary reason for your preferred work arrangement? (A) Commute time/cost, (B) Focus and productivity, (C) Caregiving responsibilities, (D) Team collaboration, (E) Work-life balance, (F) Other.

   Identifies the driver behind the preference, not just the preference itself. Commute and caregiving are harder to solve with policy than productivity or collaboration, which respond to norms and tool changes.

Measures how employees feel about your current policy and how a change would land. These items are the inputs to the crosstab that quantifies attrition risk before you announce a mandate.

1. 1.

   Our current office attendance policy is reasonable for my role.

   Baseline policy satisfaction. A low score tells you there's friction even before any announced change. Track over time as policy shifts.

2. 2.

   Leadership has communicated a clear and fair rationale for our office attendance requirements.

   Perception of process fairness is as important as the policy itself. Employees who understand the 'why' tolerate policies they personally disagree with more than those given no rationale.

3. 3.

   I would feel comfortable raising concerns about our remote/office policy with my manager.

   Psychological safety in the policy conversation. If this scores low, your survey data is probably undercounting dissatisfaction — employees who can't voice concerns quietly prepare to leave.

4. 4.

   If our company required more in-office days than I currently work on-site, I would seriously consider looking for another job.

   QSET-018 (compiled best-practice)

   The key RTO flight-risk item from QSET-018. Cross-tab responses from this item against preference group (fully remote, hybrid, on-site) to get your organization-specific attrition risk estimate. Gallup's benchmark: ~6 in 10 exclusively-remote employees say they're extremely likely to job-search if remote flexibility is removed.

5. 5.

   I believe a policy that increases required in-office days would negatively affect my team's performance.

   Team-level performance framing removes the personal bias from the attrition item. Employees who flag team performance risk, not just personal preference, are surfacing an operational concern that RTO proponents need to address.

6. 6.

   I trust that leadership will consider employee input before making significant changes to our office attendance policy.

   Trust in the process predicts acceptance of the outcome. Even employees who dislike a final decision are less likely to leave if they believed their voice was heard. Pair with closing-the-loop communications after the survey.

Measures retention likelihood under different policy scenarios. These items generate the crosstab: segment by arrangement preference to see which employee population is most flight-prone under an RTO mandate.

1. 1.

   I expect to still be working here 12 months from now.

   Baseline intent-to-stay. Run this unconditionally first, then compare to the policy-conditional items below. The gap between unconditional and conditional intent quantifies the marginal attrition risk of your policy.

2. 2.

   If our remote/hybrid flexibility remains unchanged, I plan to stay with this organization long-term.

   Policy-conditional stay intent — the 'keep flexibility' scenario. This is one leg of the crosstab. Subtract from the baseline to see how much of your current retention is contingent on the current policy.

3. 3.

   If our company moved to a fully on-site requirement, I would actively begin looking for remote or hybrid positions elsewhere.

   The action-intent version of the flight-risk item. 'Actively looking' is closer to actual turnover than 'might consider leaving.' Meta-analytic correlation between stated turnover intention and actual turnover is 0.38–0.50 (Griffeth, Hom & Gaertner 2000; Steel & Ovalle 1984).

4. 4.

   The flexibility of my current work arrangement is a significant reason I stay at this organization.

   Isolates remote flexibility as a retention driver. High scores here tell you the benefit has material retention value — removing it is not a cost-free policy change.

Measures the specific wellbeing risks of remote and hybrid work: isolation, boundary erosion, and always-on pressure. Low scores flag burnout risk that won't show up in productivity or preference questions.

1. 1.

   I am able to maintain a healthy boundary between work and personal time when working remotely.

   Boundary erosion is one of the most documented risks of remote work. Employees who can't disconnect are accumulating deferred burnout that shows up in engagement and turnover six to twelve months later.

2. 2.

   I feel connected to my colleagues even when we're not in the same physical location.

   Social isolation is the leading wellbeing complaint of fully-remote employees. Low scores here often precede the 'nobody knows what I do' attrition narrative.

3. 3.

   I feel pressure to be visibly available online at all times when I'm working remotely.

   'Always-on' surveillance culture drives more burnout in remote settings than long hours alone. If this scores high, look at manager behavior (item in the Effectiveness group) and meeting culture before changing location policy.

4. 4.

   Working remotely has, on balance, been positive for my overall wellbeing.

   Net wellbeing verdict on remote work. A high score combined with a low boundary score flags employees who value remote work despite struggling with it — an important nuance for wellbeing program design.

Captures the 'why' behind the quantitative scores. Run these last so employees answer the closed items honestly before venting or rationalizing in the open fields.

1. 1.

   What would make remote or hybrid work more effective for you at this organization?

   QSET-018 (compiled best-practice)

   The primary open-end from QSET-018. Produces specific, actionable improvement ideas you can't get from closed scales — better tooling, async norms, meeting-free hours, etc.

2. 2.

   Is there anything about our current office attendance policy that you find difficult or frustrating? If yes, please describe.

   Surfaces edge cases and hardship situations that closed items miss — long commutes, childcare windows, disability accommodations. These responses often explain why aggregate satisfaction scores are lower than expected.

3. 3.

   What is one thing leadership could do to handle any future changes to our office policy in a way that feels fair?

   Process-fairness open-end. Tells you what a fair process looks like to your specific workforce — notice period, input mechanisms, exceptions handling — before you announce any change.