Secret Santa Questionnaire: 30 Questions to Send Before the Draw Free survey template
Sociometric survey template. See who your team turns to.
Eight questions where each employee picks colleagues: whom they would promote, invite to a birthday party, keep on the team and ask for help, and whom they would not. Put your team’s names in the options and the answers map the ties inside the group.
Free plan: 100 responses a month and up to 50 surveys, no credit card.
The template’s real survey on a phone.
- 8 ready questionsAbout 2 min on a phone.
- Yours to changeQuestions, answers and logic.
- A ready reportA chart for every closed question.
- Export on every planCSV, Excel and SPSS.
An org chart shows who reports to whom. A sociometric survey shows whom people choose when they have the choice.
The 8 sociometric survey questions in this template.
Four criteria, each asked as a choice and as a rejection. Replace Employee 1 to Employee 4 with the names of everyone in the group.
Leadership
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Which colleagues would you recommend for promotion to head of the department?
Why ask it. A formal criterion. The colleagues chosen most often are the group’s own candidates for leadership, whatever their title.
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Which colleagues would you NOT recommend for promotion to head of the department?
Why ask it. Rejections count as much as choices. A colleague many people would not promote needs a closer look before any promotion.
Informal relations
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Which colleagues would you invite to your birthday party?
Why ask it. An informal criterion. It shows friendships and who sits at the center of the group’s social life.
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Which colleagues would you NOT invite to your birthday party?
Why ask it. Read it with question three. A colleague nobody picks in either question may be isolated from the group.
Value to the team
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Which colleagues would you fire if you had the chance?
Why ask it. The sharpest rejection in the set. Keep these results confidential and look for patterns, never at single answers.
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Which of your colleagues would you definitely NOT fire if you had the chance?
Why ask it. Who the group sees as essential. Compare it with question five to see whom opinions split over.
Help at work
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Which colleagues would you ask for help with your work if you couldn’t do it yourself?
Why ask it. Shows the informal experts. The people asked for help most often hold knowledge the team depends on.
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Which colleagues would you NOT ask for help with your work if you couldn’t do it yourself?
Why ask it. Shows whom colleagues avoid at work. Several rejections for one person point to a conflict or a skills gap worth a conversation.
How to create a sociometric survey from this template.
- 1
Copy the template
Log in, or sign up free, after you click “Use this template”. A copy of the eight questions lands in your account, with placeholders where the names go. You’ll find the copy in your survey list, saved as a draft.
- 2
Put in your team
Replace the employee placeholders with the names of everyone in the group, in all eight questions. For anonymous answers, turn on anonymous mode in the survey settings.
- 3
Send it to the whole group
Share the link in the team chat. When everyone answers, every name has the same chance to be chosen.
- 4
Count the choices
Each question’s chart shows how many times every colleague was picked. Export the answers to Excel for your own calculations.
How to read sociometric survey results.
Each colleague’s status
Count how often each person is chosen in the four positive questions and how often in the four negative ones. Many choices mark an informal leader; many rejections mark someone the group pushes away.
Formal and informal leaders
Compare the promotion choices with the birthday invitations. When the colleague people would promote differs from the one they spend time with, the team has two centers.
Mutual choices
Pairs who choose each other show the group’s stable ties. To see them, add a question where each respondent selects their own name, then export the answers to Excel or CSV and draw the sociogram.
How to run a sociometric survey with care.
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Use it in small groups
Sociometry works where everyone knows everyone, such as a department or a project team. Run one survey per group.
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Decide on names first
Anonymous answers give each colleague’s status. Named answers add mutual choices. Choose one and say so in the invitation.
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Keep the negative questions private
Who would be fired or left out is for HR and the manager only. Share group patterns with the team, never individual counts.
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Ask people to skip their own name
Say it in the welcome text, so nobody picks themselves.
More sociometric questions you can add.
Not in the template. Add any of them in the builder in a few clicks.
Work criteria
- Which colleague would you choose to work with on a new project?
- Whose opinion do you ask before an important decision?
- Who would you like to share a shift or an office with?
Informal relations
- Which colleagues would you go to lunch with?
- Who would you talk to about a problem outside work?
- Who in the team makes work more enjoyable?
About the respondent
- Select your own name from the list
- Which team or department are you in?
- How long have you worked with this group?
Free tools for your results
- Response rate calculatorSociometry needs nearly the whole group. Check what share answered.
- Weighted score calculatorCombine choices and rejections into one status score per colleague.
- Median and percentile calculatorWhere each colleague’s number of choices sits within the group.
More templates
Questions about this template
What questions should a sociometric survey ask?
Pairs of choice and rejection questions on a few criteria, with the names of everyone in the group as options. This template uses four criteria: promotion, a birthday party, firing and help with work. Formal criteria show working ties; informal ones show friendships.
What does a sociometric questionnaire measure?
Sociometry is a method from social psychology that measures relationships inside a group. Members say whom they would choose or reject for a task or an occasion, and the answers show who leads informally, who is popular, who is isolated and which subgroups exist.
Should a sociometric survey be anonymous?
It depends on what you need. Anonymous answers show how often each colleague is chosen. Mutual choices and a sociogram need named answers. If you don’t ask for names, turn on anonymous mode in the survey settings; it hides IP address, country, browser and device.
How many people can take part?
Every member of one group, as long as all of them are in the options. For a larger company, run a separate survey for each department or team.
How do I draw a sociogram?
Export the answers to Excel or CSV on any plan and count the choices for each colleague. With a question where respondents select their own name, you can also draw arrows between people who chose each other.
Map the ties inside your team.
Put in your team’s names and send the link to the whole group.