Viva Glint survey templates introduction and terminology

Use this page in conjunction with this Microsoft Learn overview of Viva Glint survey templates

The Microsoft Viva Glint People Success database contains survey items - questions and statements - that each measure a distinct employee experience. The database is found in the Question Library on your admin dashboard.

Screenshot of the Question Library on an admin dashboard.

Understand the Viva Glint Question Library

Question Library items are available to help construct powerful and predictive surveys. Viva Glint standardized template surveys (Engagement, Onboarding, Culture, Diversity & Inclusion, etc.) are developed using items that are the best predictors of engagement. The Microsoft Viva People Science Research team tests and validates all survey items. Each item has a unique Item Name and Question ID to distinguish it in the Viva Glint database.

Add a Question Library item to a template

You may choose to use a template "as is." Or you may choose, for example, to delete one item and find another item that better represents the key driver you want data for.

Caution

An item may appear more than once in the Question Library. This scenario occurs because the identically phrased item is used for different templates or templates with different frames of reference and context. Be sure to choose the correct item!

Let's look at an example where you want to replace an existing template item with an item about career goals. You discover two "identical" items exist:

Screenshot of two identically phrased items in the Question Library.

In the search box, key in Career Goals. Many different items come up. Decide which item works for you. Let's choose My career goals can be met at [Company Name].
Notice that two identically phrased statements exist. You need to investigate why the item exists twice. From looking at the column headers, you see that:
- In the Name and ID column, both items are called Career Goals, but they have a different Question ID. The Question ID numbers tell us that these items aren't exactly the same item.
- In the Question column, you see that the text is identical.
- In the Used In column, you see that the items haven't been used in any survey.
- In the Tags column, you see:
  - The item isn't customized, as the status reads Viva Glint and not Custom.
  - Both items are rating questions
  - Both items are both linked to the 2021 Global benchmark.
There must be a difference between the two seemingly identical items. What is it?
Hover over the first entry and select it to open the slider panel.
Hover over the second item and compare these key settings to discover differences:
- Rating Scale
- Program Type
You see that:
- The first item is intended for a survey using a 7-point rating scale.
- The second item is intended for a survey using a 5-point rating scale.
- Both items are intended for Engagement surveys.
Choose the item with the rating scale that matches your survey.

Note

Even adding an unedited standard Viva Glint item to a survey program converts it to Custom status because the item becomes your customer-specific version of the standard item. For this reason, once an item is added to a survey - even unedited - it becomes a new item in your Question Library, differentiated by its Custom status.

Screenshot of two identical items in the Question Library with different statuses.

Survey item terms

Items can be filtered to help you find exactly the item to support your survey driver. These terms are helpful to understand:

Terms	Definition and Need-to-Knows
Referent	The group or population (Manager, Coworkers, Company, etc.) a respondent should think about when rating an item
Program	The Viva Glint survey this item is used in. For example: Engagement, Exit, Onboarding. All items listed by program are loaded into the Viva Glint platform, our survey templates, and the Question Library.
Question Type	Rating items use a 5- or 7-point scale. Open ended items are items that require text responses. Options are items that require a selection of single- or multiple-choice responses.
Action Plan Template	The action plan content aligned to this item. If shown as "default," the item is using the generic template. If empty, this item has no Action Plan content aligned to it.
Option Text	The list of response choices for Options items
Tags	Unique identifiers belonging to a Question Library item

Referent definitions

Referent	Description
Team	These items may read "my team" or "on my team." The items refer to a group of people that the respondent is a member of and who all work either in the same department or for the same manager.
Teams	These items may read "teams" or "work team." The items refer more generally to groups of people across the company, not necessarily the team the respondent is on.
Coworkers	These items may read "Coworkers" or "people" or "employees." The items refer to other people, in general not necessarily on the same team as the respondent.
Manager	These items may read "my manager" or "my Supervisor." The item refers to the person the respondent reports to directly and who most likely has the most influence over the respondent's job and provides the respondent feedback and employment reviews.
Leadership	These items may read "executive team" or "top leaders" or "leadership team." The items generally refer to the executive team - the CEO and their direct reports. "Leaders" or "leadership" can also be a general reference to leaders at various levels in the company. "Leaders in my organization" refers to the management chain above the responder within their larger department or unit.
Company	These items may also be stated as "where I work" or "at this company" or "here." The items refer to an experience of the entire company overall.
Industry specific job referent	Some companies may use specific job titles or common abbreviations. Registered Nurse (RN) is an example.

With all referents, you can customize the item by inserting the actual name of who is to be rated.

For example -

Viva Glint item: "I get the support I need from [leadership and their directs]."
Customized item: "I get the support I need from [Manager Name]"
The item now shows in your Question Library tagged as a Custom item, no longer a Viva Glint item, and the item text reads "I get the support I need from [Manager Name].

More about referents

In the Question Library database, certain items contain a Referent which directs the survey taker to think specifically about who they're rating. About half of the Viva Glint items have referents. If the Referent column status is None, the item describes an experience with no clear referent.

Example with a referent: "I feel cared about as a person on my team."

Example without a referent: "At work, I feel cared about as a person."

Not all survey items have referents

Unless a theme or topic is predominantly experienced through a referent, Viva Glint recommends using items that focus on the experience itself. This practice allows for the fact that many experiences have multiple influences. It's important to include items without referents because:

It gives Viva Glint the ability to compare how the customer scored on the item to our external benchmarks.
It ensures the item is relevant to employees across the customer organization. This relevancy is important when using the comparison scores to the Overall Company. Comparisons to benchmarks or company norms are essential to interpreting results. They're an important indicator in determining whether your scores are strong or need improvement.
Narrative Intelligence (NLP) is built into the platform to pull meaning from comment data. This ability connects the dots between what employees think about broader topics and how they feel about them.