How to Create a Professional Development Survey

Creating an effective professional development survey is essential to understanding your employees' growth needs and aspirations. Professional development surveys provide insights into tailoring training, boosting employee satisfaction, and reducing employee churn.

Below, you'll learn how to create a professional development survey. Dive in to understand the different types of professional development surveys, steps for making one, and questions that’ll reveal what your employees really want.

Professional development survey definition

A professional development survey is a way for companies to find out what training their employees need or what skills they want to develop. The survey can also capture feedback on training, preferred learning methods, and areas of improvement. The insights gleaned can guide HR and management in crafting better development programs.

This ensures employees remain engaged and equipped to meet evolving industry demands. In a way, a professional development survey can be considered a bridge between employee aspirations and organizational growth.

Types of professional development surveys

Professional development surveys can be categorized based on their primary focus or purpose. Here are some common types:

• Skills assessment surveys: These aim to find out an individual's current skill set and identify any areas for improvement.
• Career aspiration surveys: These help understand employees' career goals and the kind of training they want to achieve them.
• Professional development feedback surveys: Post-training questionnaires assess the efficacy and relevance of training sessions or programs.
• Learning style surveys: Aimed at determining how individuals best absorb and retain information, be it through visual aids, hands-on experience, lectures, etc.
• Barriers to learning surveys: These uncover what is hindering an individual's ability or motivation to learn and develop professionally.

How to create professional development surveys

Step 1: Understand your goals

Before creating a survey, ask yourself, "What do I want to achieve with this survey?" Your goal could be understanding employees' training needs, getting feedback on current programs, or mapping out future training initiatives.

Having clear objectives ensures that your survey is targeted. Remember, a well-defined goal is the foundation of a successful survey, as it guides every question you select. Choose what type of survey you want and let it lead the rest.

Step 2: Figure out your questions

Carefully selecting the most appropriate questions will give you a better chance in gaining insights from your survey. Begin by listing topics related to your goals, then formulate clear, concise questions around them.

Here are a few tips to help you formulate your questions:

• Avoid leading or ambiguous questions
• Opt for a mix of open-ended and close-ended questions
• Consider different question formats like multiple-choice, linear scale, etc.

We’ll cover some effective questions you can include in your professional development survey later in this post.

Step 3: Pick your survey platform

Choosing the right survey platform is crucial for ensuring ease of administering the survey and proper response analysis. Factor in user-friendliness, customization options, and integration capabilities.

While many platforms are available, Google Forms stands out for simplicity and integration with other helpful add-ons. For example, if you're using Google Forms, you can easily pair it with Form Publisher.

With Form Publisher, you can streamline your survey process by creating automated workflows for your team. It also facilitates seamless document creation for easy response storage and retrieval for analysis later.

5 professional development survey questions to get you started

The quality of questions you have will dictate the quality of responses you receive. Here are a few questions to include to get the most out of your professional development survey:

Question 1: What skills are essential for your current role?

Skills assessment questions are important for creating effective training programs. Other ways of phrasing such questions could be:

• What are essential skills for your role that you'd like to improve?
• Are there any new skills or technologies you'd like to learn?
• How confident are you in your current skill set?

Question 2: Where do you see yourself in the next 3 years within the organization?

This question is widely used to uncover your employee’s career aspirations. Other similar questions are:

• What kind of training or courses would support your ideal career?
• Are there specific roles you're interested in exploring further?
• What are your long-term career goals, and how can the organization support you in achieving them?

Question 3: On a scale of 1-10, how relevant was the recent training to your role?

Training feedback questions are best asked right after the training sessions to get fresh and accurate responses. Other effective questions to ask post-training are:

• Were the training objectives clearly stated and met?
• Was the trainer able to address all your queries effectively?
• What was the most valuable takeaway or skill you gained from this training?
• Were there any topics you felt were missing or not adequately covered?

Question 4: Do you prefer experiential or passive learning?

Employees have different learning styles. You must find out the most appropriate training method for better results. It’s also a great idea to include some questions that uncover any barriers to learning so that you and the attendees are aware of them.

Some common questions for this category could include:

• Out of the options, how do you best retain new information: visual aids, written materials, or discussions?
• Would you be interested in group learning sessions?
• What obstacles prevent you from participating in professional development?
• Do you feel you have enough time for training during work hours?

Question 5: Which leadership qualities do you excel in, and which need further refinement?

Including a few leadership development questions can help you identify strengths and areas for growth in your team. These can be considered when it is time for an employee to advance in the company. Here are a few more variants of this category:

• What specific leadership challenges have you faced, and how did you address them?
• What kind of leadership training or workshops do you believe would benefit you the most?
• How do you currently motivate and inspire your team or colleagues?

Create a professional development workflow with Form Publisher

Now that you know how to create a professional development survey, how about something that will streamline your training process? With Form Publisher, you can set up an approval-based workflow tailored to your organization's needs.

Imagine this. As employees complete your professional development survey, those conducting professional development automatically receive a notification and a document of responses. This could inform them what training programs would be best for the respondent.

No more manual sorting or scheduling. Sounds good, right? Jumpstart your efficient training workflow with Form Publisher now!