# Workload Survey Questions: A Template for Practical Follow-Up

Workload survey questions with a worked example: explore tasks, interruptions, and trade-offs, then plan a practical follow-up without a risk score.

- Canonical URL: https://www.harmate.com/en/blog/workload-survey-questions-template
- Author: Harmate Team
- Published: 2026-10-25
- Updated: 2026-10-25T22:46:34.402606+00:00
- Language: en

## Content

# Workload Survey Questions: A Template for Practical Follow-Up

A workload survey is useful when it helps a team understand what was requested, what actually happened, and which trade-offs need a decision. Asking only “Do you have too much work?” captures an assessment but does not tell you which task to postpone, which resource is missing, or which priority rule is unclear.

The questions below prepare a discussion about how work is organized. They combine short accounts of real situations with a few comparable indicators, then lead to an explicit adjustment. This is not a validated occupational-health questionnaire, a test of individual resilience, or a risk score.

## Look at three dimensions of workload

The French workplace agency Anact distinguishes **prescribed workload**, the work requested and resources provided; **actual workload**, what people do, including interruptions and adjustments; and **experienced workload**, how people perceive their workload and the meaning of their work. Its [guidance on workload](https://www.anact.fr/4-choses-savoir-sur-la-charge-de-travail) explains that activity indicators cannot capture every dimension. They need to inform conversations that help teams monitor, adjust, and plan work.

Two employees may handle similar numbers of cases but face different conditions: incomplete information, urgent requests, support given to colleagues, or unavailable tools. Volume alone does not explain those differences. An account of a difficult situation also does not establish that everyone in the team had the same experience.

Keep the survey tied to an identifiable period and set of activities. It may reveal too many competing demands, too little useful work, or unclear allocation. Those responses should not become labels attached to individuals.

## Start with a decision the team can make

Before sending questions, define the work issue. “What made it difficult to deliver this week’s agreed priorities?” gives a clearer scope than “How can we improve wellbeing?” Specify who is involved, the period being reviewed, and the decisions that could follow. A team may be able to change an escalation rule or an approval step; it may not be able to change a customer commitment on its own.

Explain who can read responses, how findings will be shared, and when people will hear what happens next. Do not promise anonymity when permissions, team size, or the content of a story could identify someone. The guide to [anonymous, identified, and pseudonymized surveys](/en/blog/anonymity-when-it-helps-when-it-hurts-response-quality) explains those differences.

Ask about work situations rather than health information or private circumstances. An urgent concern should not wait for the next survey summary. Point people to the organization’s existing contacts and reporting routes, without presenting this form as an emergency or incident-reporting system.

## Nine questions to select and adapt

Use this as a question bank, not a requirement to ask everything. Replace “this week” with the relevant period and check the wording with someone who did not write the survey.

| What you need to understand | Suggested question | How it informs the discussion |
|---|---|---|
| Actual work | Describe a recent situation in which the work you needed to do differed from what was planned. | Surface an unexpected event before imposing categories. |
| Expectations | Which priorities were agreed for this week? Which still needed clarification? | Compare explicit expectations rather than an assumed shared objective. |
| Trade-offs | When two requests competed, how did you decide which to handle first? | Identify the rule used and who could make the decision. |
| Less visible work | What necessary activity took time without appearing in the plan? | Make coordination, finding information, or reworking a case visible. |
| Resources | What helped you carry out the planned work? What was missing in the situation you described? | Separate a useful resource from one that needs checking. |
| Expected quality | For which task was the expected level of quality or completeness unclear? | Examine the expectation rather than judge the employee. |
| Comparable indicator | This week, were you able to get a response when you asked for help prioritizing competing requests? Always / sometimes / never / no such request / not sure. | Describe a specific experience with a not-applicable option. |
| Personal assessment | How would you describe the balance between demands and available resources during this period? What explains your answer? | Preserve the employee’s perspective without automatically assigning a cause. |
| Useful next step | What limited change would help in a similar situation? What should stay as it is? | Prepare a proposal without treating it as an agreed decision. |

Open questions preserve people’s wording, exceptions, and adjustments that preset categories may miss. The closed question supports a limited comparison when wording, period, and conditions are comparable. Neither format guarantees representative or unbiased responses.

## Worked example: urgent requests displaced planned work

**Entirely fictional situation.** A support team planned to finish documentation. Several responses describe requests that arrived during the week. The survey does not yet establish that every request was urgent or who should have handled it.

| Element | Fictional evidence | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Stated expectation | The documentation was due for review on Friday. | Did everyone know the deadline and expected level of completeness? |
| Activity reported | “On Tuesday, I picked up two cases that lacked the information needed to answer the customer.” | Which information was missing, and what handoff process was intended? |
| Prioritization reported | “I asked which task to move, but had no answer before the end of the day.” | Who received the request, and who could decide? |
| Different experience | “For my case, the short morning check-in helped us choose the priority.” | Under which conditions was that check-in useful? |
| Proposal for discussion | Name a contact who can resolve competing requests. | Does that person have the authority and time needed? |

The summary should not become “the team manages its priorities badly.” It can say: “The responses reviewed describe competing requests and different ways of resolving them. We will check the escalation route and test an explicit decision point.” To compare manager and employee accounts of the same situation, see the guide to [manager expectations and employee experience](/en/blog/the-hidden-cost-of-misaligned-teams-and-how-semantic-audit-reveals-it).

## Review the accounts, choose an adjustment, and revisit it

Keep the question, period, useful context, and source excerpt behind each finding. Count people invited, people responding, and people mentioning an issue separately. No response does not mean no difficulty. Several passages from one person do not represent several affected employees. Keep examples that qualify the main interpretation.

A decision record can be short: **situation to address; adjustment chosen; owner; resources needed; review point; expected observation**. In the example, the team might test a prioritization route and ask whether competing requests actually received a usable decision. It should also check changes in volume and context: an improvement after the trial does not, by itself, prove that the trial caused it.

If you have many written comments, [Harmate Open Questions](/en/product/open-questions) helps you review themes alongside their source excerpts. It does not determine acceptable workload or choose priorities. For a wider collective readout, the [workplace wellbeing survey guide](/en/blog/qwl-barometer-why-your-indicators-are-green-while-morale-is-dropping) complements this workload-specific template.

The useful result is an explicit decision about work and a response to the people who contributed: what will change, what will stay the same, why, and what still needs checking.