Paper surveys for employers and workplaces

Staff surveys, engagement tracking and workforce census. An online survey reaches the people at desks. Paper reaches the rest of the workforce.

Relevant experience: our work spans more than 50 commercial and corporate organisations since 2007.

Organisation counts include identifiable end organisations where CDS performed the work through a research consultancy or other intermediary.

What employers need from a paper-mode partner

Consistent materials across sites. We combine professional graphic design with specialist form layout to present your supplied questions and instructions clearly, using your corporate branding and any print or accessibility requirements. Questionnaires, handouts, covering letters and envelopes can follow the same visual approach across sites. Your agreed question wording and response options remain under your control, including those used for repeated measurement. See form design and supporting artwork.

Reach staff who never see an email. Shift workers, drivers, depot and warehouse staff, branch and field teams, and people who share a terminal or have none. A form handed out at the site, or mailed home, reaches the part of the workforce an online survey leaves out. A QR code, a short link or a personal login on the same form lets desk-based staff answer online instead.

The option of returns that bypass the manager. Where staff should return responses without a manager handling them, completed forms can come directly to CDS by Reply Paid. This can be arranged whether forms were mailed home or supplied in bulk to the workplace. Team, site or region codes can be pre-printed on the form, so results can be cut by area without asking anyone to write down where they work.

The same measure, round after round. Tracking only works if the instrument, the codes and the file layout stay fixed between rounds, so that movement in the results is real change rather than a change in processing. Column names and values are agreed with you once and held for every round.

How the loop applies

Send us the questions, written content and any brand, print or accessibility requirements. We develop the graphic design and specialist layout, set the form to Scantron specifications and provide a proof for your approval before Australian printing with team or site codes pre-filled.

Forms can be mailed to staff individually or delivered in agreed quantities to your organisation and sites through Australia Post or other couriers. Returns can come directly to CDS or be sent to us in bulk under arrangements appropriate to the project's confidentiality requirements. The outward and return methods are agreed separately, with the return instructions making the chosen process clear. See distribution and returns.

Returns are logged when received by CDS and reported as counts during fieldwork on the agreed basis, including any return updates you supply. Data is delivered as Excel or CSV, one row per form, with the agreed column names, open-ended comments keyed alongside the ratings, and each returned form supplied as an individual PDF linked from its data row.

Typical staff and workforce projects

• Staff engagement surveys, run once or tracked round by round
• Whole-of-workforce and public sector employee surveys
• Staff and stakeholder surveys