Purpose of the Survey
The Manager Experience Survey is designed to shed light on the day-to-day realities of those in leadership roles within your organization. Managers often stand at the heart of transformation—serving as cultural stewards and key conduits for decision-making—yet their own experiences frequently go unexamined. This survey offers them a voice and plays a vital role in creating a more supportive and effective environment for them to thrive.
Why Survey Managers Specifically?
Managers play a unique role, balancing organizational expectations and team responsibilities. They face distinct challenges: administrative burden, change management, team supervision, alignment with upper management, and more. By surveying managers directly, you:
Acknowledge their essential role, which is in itself a motivating gesture.
Capture a unique perspective—one that is distinct from that of employees.
Identify concrete levers for action to improve and ease their daily management experience.
This isn’t a duplicate of your employee engagement survey—it’s a complementary and essential perspective.
Organizational Benefits
Better Support for Managers
The survey results uncover both strengths and areas of friction within the management role—whether related to tools, recognition, autonomy, or clarity of expectations. With these insights, you’ll be better equipped to support, empower, and develop your managers effectively.
Stronger Organizational Culture
When managers are well-supported, they’re better positioned to embody and reinforce your organization’s culture. Measuring their experience becomes a powerful lever for driving cultural alignment and ensuring consistency across teams.
Lower Turnover and Increased Engagement
A positive managerial experience creates a ripple effect. By understanding the challenges managers face, you can address early signs of burnout, reduce turnover, and foster higher engagement throughout the organization.
Strategic Insights for Senior Leadership
Access to comparable data across managerial levels offers valuable strategic indicators. These insights help evolve internal practices and provide a strong foundation for initiatives discussed at the leadership table.
Did You Know?
Organizations that conduct manager-specific surveys—and share the results directly with their managers—often experience higher participation rates in company-wide employee engagement surveys. By prioritizing the manager experience, you demonstrate the tangible value of feedback and its power to drive meaningful change, particularly in addressing the most urgent challenges managers face.
Setup: How to Target the Right Audience
Properly selecting your audience is key to the success of this survey. Here’s how to launch it using the Amélio platform:
Go to the “Surveys” tab, then to the “Engagement Surveys” section, and click Create Survey.
Choose the Manager Experience Survey template and adjust the questions as needed.
In the Audience section, make sure to select your manager groups.
Finalize other settings based on your preferences and launch the survey.
Best Practices
Frequency: It is recommended to survey managers once a year, ideally, to track and understand their evolving experience.
Comprehensive and Diagnostic: The survey is designed as a full diagnostic of the manager experience. It covers all key engagement drivers with perspectives tailored to leadership realities.
Modular Approach: The survey is designed to be flexible and can be deployed in multiple waves throughout the year. You have the option to deactivate certain questions in the initial round and revisit them at a later stage.
→ Example: Following the launch of a new strategic plan, you might begin with questions centered on vision, priorities, and communication. Later in the year, when refreshing leadership development programs, you could activate questions related to skill-building and manager support.