Why Doesn't Gen Z Respond to Surveys? 7 Ways to Engage Young Employees

Gen Z does respond to surveys; it just does not respond to the way surveys are presented to it. Many organizations see the lowest participation in their employee survey coming from young employees early in their careers and read it as disinterest. Yet the same employees rate apps, answer short social media polls and give product feedback every day. The problem is not the idea of a survey; it is surveys that are long, designed for a desktop, written in corporate language and whose results are never seen again.

This post explains why Gen Z employees keep their distance from employee surveys and seven ways to raise both their participation and the quality of their answers. Most of the recommendations make the survey better not only for young employees but for everyone.

Who is Gen Z?

Gen Z is usually defined as people born between 1997 and 2012. Gen Z employees in the workforce today are mostly in the first decade of their careers: interns, new graduates, junior specialists, young teams in the field and in stores. It is the first generation to grow up with smartphones and is used to fast access to information, short and direct communication and seeing the result of the feedback it gives.

We covered the skills and expectations Gen Z brings to work in our post on skills of the future. This post looks at the topic from the employee survey side.

Why does Gen Z keep its distance from surveys?

Young employees' low participation usually has these causes behind it:

• The survey is hard to complete on a phone. Long matrix questions, small buttons and scrolling tables designed for a desktop screen are tiring on a phone. Most young employees open the survey on their phone and abandon it as soon as it gets difficult.
• The survey is too long. A survey of 60–80 questions taking 20–25 minutes is off-putting from the start for an employee used to short, fast interactions.
• They never see the results. An employee who answered the last survey and then heard nothing questions why they should spend time on the next one. Young employees are less patient about this.
• They do not trust anonymity. In a team with few young employees, selecting an age group, unit and tenure can reveal who someone is. A young employee who notices this either skips the survey or marks everything positive.
• The questions are not on their agenda. A survey focused on company strategy, benefits and long-term career paths may not feel relevant to a young employee who cares about development, feedback, flexibility and wellbeing.
• The language is corporate and distant. Statements such as "I believe I have internalized the organization's mission and vision" make it harder to understand what is being asked and make the survey look like a formality.

None of these causes are unique to Gen Z, but young employees react to them fastest and most clearly. That makes young employees' participation a good indicator of your survey's overall health. For a general list of what drives participation down, see how to increase employee survey response rate.

7 ways to engage young employees

1. Design the survey to be finished on a phone in 5–10 minutes

Test the survey on a phone first. Every question should fit on the screen, answer options should be easy to tap and a progress bar should show how much is left. Designs that show one statement per screen are much easier to complete on a phone than long matrix tables.

Length matters too. For an annual engagement survey, 10–15 minutes is a reasonable upper limit; for a pulse survey, 2–5 minutes. State the estimated time honestly at the start; a survey that takes longer than promised damages trust for the next one. We explained how to set the number of questions in how many questions in an employee survey.

2. Say up front why you are asking and what you will do

"Your opinions matter to us" does not convince young employees. Be concrete instead: why is this survey being run, when will results be shared and what changed after the last survey? Adding a single concrete example to the announcement, such as "Last year flexible working got the most feedback; this year we made Fridays flexible", works better than a long motivational text.

3. Share results quickly and visibly

The strongest motivation for young employees is seeing that their answers changed something. Staying silent for months after the survey closes reinforces the perception that surveys are run and forgotten. Share the first overall results within a few weeks of the survey closing, then announce the priority areas and the steps to be taken.

Tie the actions back to the survey: "You told us in the survey, and we did this." Without that link, even real improvements are not seen by employees as a result of the survey. For ways to share results, see sharing employee survey results with employees.

4. Genuinely protect anonymity and explain it clearly

Young employees are usually few in number and concentrated in certain units. An age group such as "under 25", combined with unit and tenure, can point to a single person. To prevent this:

• Apply the minimum reporting group size rule to age groups as well.
• Combine young age groups where needed, or do not report age group together with unit breakdowns.
• Do not make demographic questions mandatory, and explain why they are asked.
• At the start of the survey, explain in plain language who will see which reports.

For the technical and communication sides of anonymity, see anonymity in employee surveys.

5. Ask about what is on their agenda

Young employees answer more willingly when questions cover topics that concern them. For employees early in their careers, the topics that stand out are usually learning and development, regular feedback from their manager, flexibility, wellbeing and the meaning of their work. Make sure your survey has statements measuring these topics. For example:

• In the last three months I learned something new or developed a new skill.
• My manager gives me regular feedback on my work.
• I know how I can progress in my career at this organization.
• My working arrangement allows me to keep a healthy balance between work and personal life.
• I can see how my work contributes to the organization's goals.
• I can comfortably voice a different opinion in my team.

These statements are meaningful for everyone, not just young employees. So rather than turning the survey into a separate form for young employees, adding them to the shared survey is enough.

6. Use plain, human language

Write statements as an employee would say them. "I know where the organization wants to go" instead of "I believe I have internalized the organization's mission and vision" is both easier to understand and draws more honest answers. Avoid abbreviations, internal jargon and statements that ask two things at once. For the rules of writing statements, see common survey question mistakes.

The same rule applies to open-ended questions. A concrete question such as "What is the one thing you would most like to see change in the next three months?" gets far more, and far more useful, answers from young employees than "Is there anything else you would like to add?" For example questions, see open-ended employee survey questions.

7. Choose the right channel and the right time

Assume that many young employees do not read corporate email regularly. Send invitations through the channels teams actually use (Teams, Slack, SMS, an internal mobile app) and offer easy access such as QR codes for employees in the field or in stores.

Give time during working hours to complete the survey and tell managers so. A young employee whose manager says "take 10 minutes for the survey" sees that it is genuinely valued. Adding short pulse surveys between annual surveys, rather than running one long form a year, also suits young employees' habit of giving shorter, more frequent feedback. For details, see what is a pulse survey.

What not to do

There are a few common traps when trying to engage young employees:

• Gamifying the survey or tying it to gifts: Prize draws and rewards can raise participation in the short term but do not improve answer quality. Giving a reward requires knowing who took part, which can weaken trust in anonymity.
• Running a separate survey for Gen Z: A separate survey makes comparison with other employees harder and puts anonymity at risk in small groups.
• Forcing a younger tone: Emojis, slang and "trendy" phrases can come across as forced rather than friendly. Plain, respectful language works for employees of every age.
• Reading low participation as disinterest: Young employees' low participation is often a sign of distrust. Ignoring that signal can mean missing the early signs of quiet quitting.

Reading the results with care

Young employees' results usually differ from other groups'. But part of that difference comes not from generation but from age and tenure. Any employee early in their career, whatever their generation, may be more critical about development, pay and promotion. So:

• Read young employees' results by tenure, not just by age group.
• Track the same group's results over the years; do not conclude "this is what Gen Z is like" from a single measurement.
• Report participation as a result too. If young employees' participation is clearly lower than other groups', question how well respondents represent the group.

For the principles of reading results by group, see segmentation in employee surveys.

In short, engaging Gen Z does not require a survey made just for them. A survey that is easy to complete on a phone, short, written in plain language, genuinely protects anonymity and makes its results visible quickly raises young employees' participation and is a better survey for everyone.

Frequently asked questions