Running your survey
This page will help you level up your workplace surveying skills. We'll walk you through your comms strategy, give you a survey template to use within your preferred survey platform, and guide you through coding your responses for uploading into the Prior Work data analysis tool.
A note on survey items
Most established psychosocial instruments carry restrictive commercial licences - per-user fees, tight non-modification clauses, or gated access through accredited providers. To keep Prior Work genuinely free and open, we use the two instruments that are unambiguously free to use and modify - the HSE Management Standards Indicator Tool (UK Crown copyright; Open Government Licence v3.0) and the Kessler K10 (public domain) - and for the remaining constructs, we have developed our own items anchored to published construct definitions in the peer-reviewed literature. Bespoke items are released under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Because the item bank is new, it will improve through a continuous refinement process - pilot data, user feedback, and subsequent factor analyses drive updates. Version and changelog are published alongside the survey template and in the construct catalogue.
Before you launch
How you introduce the survey shapes whether people respond honestly, whether leadership acts on results, and whether change follows. A few things to get right before the link goes out.
Under WHS legislation, workers have a right to be consulted on matters affecting their health and safety. Involve Health and Safety Representatives (HSRs) where elected - their visible support is the single biggest lever on participation.
Not a performance review, not about individual wellbeing. It measures the conditions of work - how work is designed and managed. Middle managers often experience psychosocial hazards as acutely as frontline workers and should not be excluded.
Results are aggregate only. Name who processes data and how (e.g. "responses go to [platform], accessible only by [name/role]"). Prior Work collects only the demographics needed for action planning, reducing re-identification risk. Worth mentioning explicitly.
Managers hearing about a survey from their own team first feels awkward and signals they're not part of the process. Cover three things: what to say if workers ask, what they will and won't see, and their role. Elevated results reflect system conditions, not individual management failure.
Pre-survey: announce the date. Post-survey: the next step (e.g. focus groups in [month]). Post-focus-group: "We're working through everything and will bring recommendations back." Workers who know what's next stay engaged.
A short message from senior leadership: we want to know what's happening, we'll act on what we find, and no one will be disadvantaged for responding honestly. HR-only comms signal a compliance exercise - leadership voice changes the dynamic.
Suggested timing & channels (click to expand)
| When | Channel | Message |
|---|---|---|
| 2 weeks before | Team briefing / all-staff email | Why we're doing this, what's confidential. Watch for the survey link on [date]. |
| 1 week before | Manager briefing (separate) | Full briefing - what they'll see, what they won't, and their role. |
| Launch day | Email + intranet + stand-up | Survey is live. Link, closes [date], ~10 minutes. Results feed into focus groups in [month]. |
| Midpoint | Reminder from senior leader | Response rate nudge. Reiterate confidentiality. Closes [date]. |
| After close | Email to participants | Thank you. Reviewing results. Watch for focus group invitations in [timeframe]. |
| After focus groups | Briefing + written summary | Thanks. Working through everything and will bring recommendations back. Updates in [month]. |
Templates for the key comms. Edit to suit.
Which survey should I use?
The standard instrument - 20 constructs, 86 items, 5-point Likert, pre-coded so no reverse-keying is required at coding time. Loads directly into Workspace.
Recommended if you don't already have a validated instrument, or if you want results comparable to Prior Work's general-workforce model.
Already running a survey? Upload data from any instrument - no need to match Prior Work's items. Code to L / M / H, export CSV, and map each column to a node at upload.
See the coding guide and upload steps below.Jump to guide ↓
Survey instrument
What the survey measures - 20 constructs, 88 items
Survey instrument - ready to download
HSE MS items (Cousins et al. 2004; Open Government Licence v3.0), Kessler K10 items (public domain), and bespoke items (© 2026 Prior Work, CC BY-SA 4.0). Full construct definitions, references, and item-level provenance are in the construct catalogue.
88 items · 20 constructs · 5-point Likert (K10 uses its own none-to-all-of-the-time anchors) · pre-coded scores
Choosing a platform
Any platform supporting Likert items works. Integration requirement: CSV export, one row per respondent.
Free with M365. Export to Excel then CSV. Familiar to most workers.
Common in larger organisations. Paid plans needed for full export.
Enterprise standard. Full export flexibility; good for complex distributions.
Coding surveys following completion
Prior Work expects responses coded L / M / Hper construct. Steps below show how to convert raw Likert responses in Excel for a 5-point scale. If you used a different scale on a BYO instrument, the same logic applies - adjust the cutoffs for equal thirds of your scale range.
Step 1 - Calculate the construct mean
For each respondent and construct, average the item scores. Require at least 75% of items answered; subscales with more than 25% missing should be treated as missing. For 4 items in columns B–E:
=AVERAGE(B2:E2)Step 2 - Apply the coding formula (5-point scale, 1–5)
With the construct mean in column A. Cutoffs divide the scale into equal thirds.
=IF(A2<=2.33,"L",IF(A2<=3.67,"M","H"))Step 3 - Reverse-keyed items
Two subscales contain reverse-keyed items: Role Ambiguity (HSE items are phrased positively) and Workplace Relationships (HSE items are phrased as negative behaviours). In the Prior Work template, the numeric scores are pre-reversed, so you can apply the Step 2 formula uniformly across all subscales without recoding. If you are coding a BYO survey, reverse-key the raw response (6 − raw) before averaging.
Step 4 - K10 is scored separately
K10 items are summed (range 10–50), not averaged. ABS cutpoints: 10–15 low, 16–21 moderate, 22–29 high, 30–50 very high. Prior Work collapses these to L (10–19), M (20–29), H (30–50) for network coding.
Bring your own survey
Option B - use your existing instrument
Already running a psychosocial or wellbeing survey? Bring that data in directly - no need to switch instruments or match Prior Work's items. Any combination of constructs works. Only requirement: code responses to L / M / H before uploading.
Code responses to L / M / H
Use the coding guide above. Formulas generalise to any Likert scale - adjust cutoffs to equal thirds of your scale range. Reverse-key items where required before averaging.
Export as CSV - one row per respondent
One row per respondent, one column per construct. Column names can be anything - you map each to a node at upload. Missing constructs are inferred from the network, not dropped.
Upload and nominate target nodes
Load your CSV in Workspace. The upload flow maps columns to nodes. Prior Work fits the network and produces a report for the constructs you measured.
Survey FAQ - response rates, demographics, translation, L/M/H coding, and more.
See FAQ →