Manav Rachna: How to Run a Simple Employee Survey During a Short HR Internship

Yes, you can run a useful employee survey inside a short HR internship, as long as you keep it small: ten questions, one team or one site, a response window of three to four days, and a summary that reports patterns rather than individuals. A survey that is anonymous, short and clearly explained produces honest answers; a sprawling one produces silence. This guide gives you the ten-question template, the result-summary sheet, sample chart ideas and the anonymity rules to follow.

Why a small employee survey suits a 14-day HR internship

Most interns are asked to “help with employee engagement” without a clear output. A survey is one of the few HR tasks that has a beginning, middle and end inside two weeks: design, approval, circulation, collection, analysis, presentation. It also gives you something concrete for your internship report: a method, a sample size, findings and a recommendation.

The risk is overreach. A twelve-page questionnaire sent to 400 people needs sign-off from several managers, a communication plan and weeks of follow-up. An intern cannot deliver that. A ten-question survey sent to a team of 20 to 60 people, with a supervisor who has agreed to the purpose, is realistic. Think of it as a pulse check, not a census.

Before you build anything, agree three things in writing with your supervisor: the population (which team, shift or site), the purpose (for example, understanding how new joiners feel about onboarding), and the audience for results (who will see the summary). Everything else flows from those three decisions.

Plan the fortnight: a day-by-day schedule for a survey project

Fitting the whole cycle into 14 days means working backwards from the presentation. Here is a schedule you can adapt. It assumes you are also doing other tasks during the day, so each block is light.

If your internship is the free two-week online programme at CareerSwami, the same schedule works with a practice team (a student group, a club or a volunteer cohort) standing in for the employees.

The ten-question employee pulse survey template

The template below mixes rating questions with two open-ended ones. Use a five-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree) for questions 1 to 8. Keep wording neutral and ask about one thing per question. Each question maps to an HR theme so your summary sheet can group the results.

Add at most two optional grouping questions at the very start, such as “How long have you been with the organisation?” using broad bands (under 1 year, 1 to 3 years, over 3 years). Do not ask for age, exact joining date, gender or department if the team is small; these combine into a fingerprint that identifies people.

Wording rules that keep answers usable

• Avoid double-barrelled questions such as “My manager is supportive and approachable”; split them or choose one.
• Avoid leading phrases such as “How satisfied are you with our excellent training?”
• Keep every item under 20 words and in plain English or Hindi, whichever the workforce uses.
• Always allow people to skip a question.
• Do not promise changes in the invitation; promise that results will be shared.

Keeping the survey anonymous and small-scale enough to be trusted

People answer honestly only when they believe nobody can trace the answer back to them. In a team of 25, that belief is fragile, so design for it.

1. Use a form that does not collect names or emails. If you use Google Forms or a similar tool, switch off any setting that records email addresses and avoid requiring sign-in.
2. Set a minimum reporting group. A common rule is that you never report a result for any group with fewer than five respondents. If only three new joiners reply, merge them into a wider band.
3. Handle open-text answers carefully. Read them for names, nicknames and distinctive incidents. Paraphrase or remove identifying detail before they go into the report.
4. Limit access to raw data. Only you and your supervisor should open the response sheet, and it should be deleted or locked once the summary is accepted.
5. State all of this in the invitation. A two-sentence anonymity statement raises response rates more than any reminder.

Sample invitation text (illustrative): “This 5-minute survey is anonymous. We do not collect names or email addresses, and results will be reported only for groups of five or more. Responses close on Friday at 6 pm. A summary of findings will be shared with the team.”

Be honest about limits as well. Anonymity in a small team is never perfect, so do not describe it as absolute. “Anonymous” in your wording should mean “we do not collect identifying information and will not report small groups”.

Result-summary sheet: the spreadsheet layout to build on day 10

Export responses into a spreadsheet and create a second tab for the summary. Keep the raw tab untouched. The summary tab should have the following columns, one row per rating question.

In a spreadsheet, the average is a simple AVERAGE over the question’s column, and percentage agree can be calculated with COUNTIF for values of 4 and above, divided by COUNT. Add a response-rate cell at the top: responses received divided by people invited. Report it prominently; a 40 per cent response rate from 30 people is 12 voices, and your language should reflect that.

For the two open-text questions, build a small theme table: read every comment, assign each one to a theme (for example “tools”, “communication”, “recognition”), and count how many comments fall under each. Quote at most two short, anonymised examples per theme.

Sample charts for the HR survey report (illustrative data)

Three simple charts are enough for a short report. The figures below are invented to show the layout; replace them with your own numbers and never present illustrative values as real findings.

Keep the axes honest: start averages at 1, not at a truncated value that exaggerates gaps, and label every bar with its number. Use one colour for all bars unless a colour carries meaning, such as red for themes below 3.0.

Worked example: reading a pulse survey for a 28-person support team (illustrative)

Imagine an intern runs the template above for a customer-support team of 28 people. Twenty-one respond, a response rate of 75 per cent. The summary sheet shows the following illustrative results.

• Teamwork averages 4.3, with 86 per cent agreeing.
• Role clarity averages 3.9.
• Workload averages 2.6, with 52 per cent disagreeing that it is reasonable.
• Voice and trust averages 3.1, but the stacked bar shows 33 per cent disagree and 48 per cent agree, so opinion is split.

The open-text answers produce one dominant theme: several people mention that weekend rosters are published late. The intern’s report should say, in plain words: “Teamwork is the clear strength. Workload scores lowest, and comments link this to late roster publication. Opinion on raising concerns with managers is divided.” The two recommendations are modest and within HR’s reach: publish rosters by a fixed day each week, and have the supervisor hold a short open discussion about how concerns are raised.

Notice what the example does not do. It does not name anyone, it does not claim that the survey proves the cause of low workload scores, and it does not exceed what 21 responses can support. That restraint is what makes a student report credible.

Turning the survey into internship report material

Your college will usually expect a written report or presentation. The survey gives you ready-made sections: objectives, methodology (population, sample, tool, dates), findings, limitations and recommendations. Under limitations, be candid: single team, short window, self-reported opinions, no baseline for comparison. Under recommendations, offer two or three actions with a suggested owner and a follow-up date, and label them as suggestions for the organisation to consider.

Keep a one-page log of what you did each day. It will help you write the methodology section accurately, and it gives your supervisor something to confirm if the college asks for a certificate or letter.

Manav Rachna students: what the placement pages say about internships and your HR survey project

Manav Rachna International Institute of Research & Studies is a deemed university in Faridabad, Haryana. Its Corporate Resource and Career Development Centre (CRCDC) describes placement support that runs through the year, including recruiter connections and mock interviews, and says students register on Superset (Engineering and MBA) or on the ERP for other programmes. The same page states plainly that placement assistance does not guarantee a job, so treat any internship output, including a survey report, as evidence of skill rather than a promise of an offer.

The management department’s placement guideline page lists general expectations: enrol on Superset if you want assistance, follow the deadlines for campus placement and keep a LinkedIn account. It mentions that the CRCDC helps students find internships, but it does not give a duration, timing or stipend rule, and it does not describe how internship work is assessed. The institute’s Placement Policy and Procedure document (version dated 2020-21, so check for a newer one) lists summer internship among the placement unit’s activities.

One practical point for survey work: terms published for the institute’s own on-campus MR Impact internship programme say work created during an internship belongs to the Manav Rachna group and should not be shared without permission. Those terms cover that programme, not every internship, but they are a reminder to ask any host organisation who owns your survey data and report before you put charts in a portfolio.

Because the published pages do not set out report format, credits or evaluation for an HR internship, confirm the following before you start.

1. Ask your programme coordinator in writing whether your department has a prescribed internship report format and, if so, whether a survey-based project fits it.
2. Ask whether a short or online internship is accepted for your programme’s requirement, and what proof (letter, certificate, log) is needed.
3. Check your Superset or ERP profile for internship forms, deadlines and any host-organisation approval step.
4. Ask the CRCDC whether survey data collected from employees needs any consent or ethics note before it appears in a college submission.
5. Get the host supervisor’s written permission to use anonymised findings and charts in your report and in interviews.

Common HR survey design mistakes and quick fixes

Frequently Asked Questions

How many respondents do I need for an HR internship survey to be meaningful?

There is no magic number. For a team of 20 to 60 people, aim for at least half to reply and state your response rate openly. With fewer than ten responses, report counts rather than percentages and avoid strong conclusions.

Can I run an employee survey if the organisation has no HR department?

Yes, but you need the owner or a senior manager to agree on the purpose and promise that results will not be used against individuals. Without that, staff will be reluctant to answer honestly.

Should the survey use a five-point or seven-point scale?

Five points are easier to read on a phone and easier to explain in a report. Use the same scale for all rating questions so the summary sheet stays consistent.

What do I do if someone writes a serious complaint in an open-text box?

Do not investigate it yourself. Tell your supervisor that a comment raised a serious concern, without guessing who wrote it, and let the organisation decide how to follow up through its normal channels.

Is it acceptable to include survey charts in my college internship report?

Usually yes, if the host organisation agrees and you anonymise the data. Ask for written permission, and check your department’s report format before you finalise.

Can I practise this survey project before I join a company?

You can practise on a small volunteer group, such as a class or club, using the same template and summary sheet. Treat the numbers as practice data and say so in anything you share.

How long should the survey stay open?

Three to four working days with one reminder is enough for a small team. A longer window rarely adds many responses and eats into a 14-day schedule.

What should the final recommendation slide say?

Name the strongest theme, the weakest theme, the evidence in one line each, and two or three actions that the organisation can realistically take. Mark them as suggestions and note the limits of a single small survey.

Related Human Resources guides

• Bhakta Kavi Narsinh Mehta University: Human Resources Internship at a Family-Run Business
• Dakshin Dinajpur University: Doing a Human Resources Internship Mostly on Your Phone
• P.P. Savani University: Daily Log Format for a Human Resources Internship
• All Human Resources internship guides