What is the Gallup Q12?

Gallup groups the items into four levels of needs, each building on the one before:

• Basic needs: knowing what's expected of you, and having what you need to do the work.
• Individual contribution: using your strengths, recognition, a manager who cares, and someone encouraging your development.
• Teamwork: your opinions counting, a sense of purpose, colleagues committed to quality, and close friendships at work.
• Growth: talking about your progress, and chances to learn.

Gallup's own page lists the items and how it scores them.

Each statement is rated from 5 (strongly agree) to 1 (strongly disagree), with a sixth "don't know or does not apply" answer that isn't scored. Gallup often reports the share of people who strongly agree, and uses its own formula to classify employees as engaged, not engaged or actively disengaged.

Not the real thing. Gallup states that the Q12 items are proprietary, and that you may not run a survey with them or reproduce them without Gallup's written consent. If your company licenses the Q12, run it through Gallup.

What you can do is write your own engagement questions on the same themes and run them in Slack. Don't call it the Q12, and don't compare your numbers with Gallup's benchmarks: different wording gives different answers.

In Simple Poll, use an anonymous survey (Premium) with scale questions. A scale question rates 1 to 5, and you can give it exactly five labels, so agreement labels map onto it directly. The results view shows the average and median. Keep it short: a survey can hold up to 20 questions, but four or five themes per round get better answers than all twelve at once. To repeat it monthly or quarterly, set the poll up as recurring from the Simple Poll modal (Premium).