About Surveys

Learn about the surveys we administer and the purpose of each.

Retain sends out three types of surveys: new-hire surveys, engagement surveys, and exit surveys. Those sections go through each type and its purpose, as well as answers to some commonly asked questions.

FAQ: How much time does it take to complete a survey?

All Retain surveys are designed to be short but targeted. Employees usually spend between three to five minutes taking a survey, but some may take ten minutes, depending on time spent adding comments.

We recommend employers provide employees with a dedicated 15-minute block of time during regular working hours to take the survey. The engagement survey is open for the entire month, so employees can take the survey outside of work hours if needed.

FAQ: How many minutes will employees have to complete the survey once they open the survey link?

While surveys don’t have a time limit overall, they can be timed out due to a lack of activity.

The amount of inactive time needed for a survey to time out varies and can be influenced by the following:

• Browser and other settings on the respondent’s device.
• Caching, firewall, and VPN rules for devices connected to a corporate network.

An error message isn’t displayed when the survey times out. The employee can still take the survey by refreshing the page or using the link they were sent. Restarting the survey causes you to lose any unsubmitted responses but won’t interfere with the ability of the survey to be filled out and submitted.

FAQ: Can employees submit incomplete surveys?

Certain questions require answers before the survey can be submitted. We’ve made these required questions quick and easy to answer by formatting them on a scale such as: strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree. Any additional comments are optional.

FAQ: Do you need a code to take a survey on Retain?

Instead of requiring access codes, surveys are available only through unique links, obtained in one of the following ways:

• Email or text sent by Retain.
• QR code or direct link to the respondent profile provided by employer.

When employees enter their profiles, they are prompted to take or delay any open surveys. If they delay participation, the survey remains on their profile until they take it or it expires.

Survey invitations sent via email or text to specific employees will include unique URL access. Note: Occasionally, a link may span two text lines in an email, causing part of the URL to be mistaken for a code. Instruct employees to copy/paste the full link into a browser to avoid any formatting issues.

FAQ: If an employee deletes their invitation, will a new one be sent? What if their contact info changes?

Regardless of whether or not an employee deletes their survey invitation, reminders are sent on a regular schedule. These reminders will include a link to the survey. The exception is if an employee marks previous Retain invitations as spam or junk.

If employees change their contact preferences on their profiles or if it’s updated in the HRIS system, the next survey invite or reminder will be sent to their new contact information. Open surveys can also be found on respondent profiles, which can be accessed via access cards or links.

FAQ: Can you extend the deadline for an employee to complete their survey?

While we’re unable to extend individual employee survey deadlines, we can, under special circumstances, extend company-wide employee engagement surveys.

FAQ: What do the emails and texts from Retain look like? Is it clear that they’ve been sent by Retain?

Rest assured, it’s clear they’ve been sent by Retain. Messages sent by Retain to employees will include your company name. This helps reassure employees that the message is secure and not spam.

“PQI” appears in the URL, the Pinnacle Quality Insight logo is at the bottom of emails, and the survey is designated as a Retain survey once the employee opens the link.

NOTE: Some organizations prefer for the location or facility to be the source of the survey invitation, rather than from the larger company. Your Retain account manager can this set up.