How to create an offsite feedback survey

Planning

Oct 2

Written By Shannon Koga

Planning

How to create an offsite feedback survey

BoomPop Team · 10/2/2022

A feedback survey is an effective tool for gathering sincere, relevant tips on how to improve your next company retreat. Here’s how to craft one.

Why you should create a post-offsite employee survey

After a company offsite, it’s beneficial to look back at the experience and evaluate what was successful and what may have missed the mark. Measuring the effectiveness of an event can be difficult for organizers, especially if they aren’t on-site for the event. This is why companies use post-retreat feedback surveys to gather insight into the successes and misfires of a team offsite.

How to craft your post-offsite employee survey

It’s a general best practice to begin your feedback survey with a goal in mind. If you’re looking for ideas on how to boost attendance, shape your questions around the highlights of the retreat, and what your team really connected with. If the goal of your offsite was to provide more opportunities for networking, clarify whether or not the activities and team building experiences provided were effective at creating new relationships. These factors will be your most effective tool to understand whether you achieved your goals.

Your teams are busy, and you are too! Prepare questions that will provide comprehensive data while also being concise. This can be done by utilizing popular research strategies such as scaled questions from 1 to 10. A numbering system allows the reader to quickly gauge engagement or satisfaction. When examining feedback, consider a score of 1-6 as negative, 7-8 as satisfactory, and 9-10 as extremely satisfied.

The Likert Scale is another well-known questionnaire tool: for example, a Likert Scale question may have answers such as: “strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, and strongly agree.” The Likert Scale can be modified in terms of the question, as well, providing answers that range from “very good” to “very poor” or “highly satisfied” to “unsatisfied.” Choose the verbiage that best suits your questions and your feedback template will come together easily.

Always provide a few open-ended questions to give your team the opportunity to offer up unique, valuable insights.

Here’s a few ideas for questions to add to your feedback survey template. Pop these right into a Google Form or other survey tool, do some customizing to fit the specifics of your event, and you’re good to go!

Sample questions for a retreat feedback survey

Accommodations

On a scale of 1-10, how satisfied were you with the hotel cleanliness, friendliness of staff, and ease of check in/check out?

On a scale of 1-10, how satisfied were you with the location of the hotel?

On a scale of 1-10, how satisfied were you with the amenities and features of the hotel?

Travel

How would you rate the destination city selected for this offsite?

How would you rate the process for booking and/or reimbursing your travel expenses?

How satisfied were you with local travel to and from activity sites, restaurants, and within the city?

How satisfied were you with overall communication regarding travel needs?

Activities

How satisfied were you with the available activities?

On a scale of 1-10, how engaged were you with the activities offered?

On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate the overall experiences of the activities?

How satisfied were you with the amount of activities/workshops provided?

How satisfied were you with the duration of the activities/workshops?

How satisfied were you with the trainers/speakers in terms of their industry knowledge or usefulness?

Dining

How satisfied were you with the dining options?

How satisfied were you with the dining options in regard to dietary restrictions/needs?

On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate the overall atmosphere of the dining locations/restaurant?

Co-working and team building

On a scale of 1-10, how effective was this offsite in bringing you closer together with your team?

How satisfied were you with the amount of time spent team building?

How satisfied were you with the co-working accommodations?

How satisfied were you with the opportunities for collaboration and co-working?

General/other (open-ended questions)

What was your overall impression of the offsite?

What was the most memorable experience from the offsite?

How useful was the information shared/taught at this event?

How can we improve our next offsite?

What topics would you like to see at our next event?

How likely are you to participate in future offsites?

How to interpret and implement feedback

Your team is taking the time to provide feedback, so it’s important to take it seriously. Both positive and negative feedback are essential in gathering ideas on how to improve attendee experiences in the future.

For open-ended questions, identify the main takeaway from the feedback. For instance, if you ask your team, “what was the most impactful part of our team offsite?” and your team member responds: “Being able to spend more time with my team outside of the office and learn more about each other,” then the key point being made is that there needs to be more opportunities for team building and bonding both in-office and at offsites.

The feedback survey provides crucial information, so use it to your advantage to improve your next company offsite.

Stay in the know

Company offsites are pivotal for bringing teams together. An employee feedback survey is just one way to ensure your offsites are making an impact on your team, every time. If you’re planning a retreat and need ideas, read more about how to choose the best company offsite for your team.

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