DEX / Analysis

Wordcloud

Visualize recurring themes in open-ended answers, spot what employees talk about most after engagement surveys and exit interviews.

Real-world scenario

Priya Mehta · People Ops Lead at Bluewave Labs

Q2 engagement wordcloud shows "on-call" dominating Engineering open text. Priya clicks the term, reads twelve sample responses, and schedules a follow-up with the infra lead, backed by data, not one Slack complaint.

Before you begin

  • Survey with open-text questions
  • Enough responses for term frequency (20+ recommended)

Overview

Wordclouds turn open-text volume into a picture. Priya uses them after quarterly engagement and exit interview cycles to answer "what are people actually saying?", then validates with sample responses before executive readouts.

Engineering Q2 wordcloud (top terms)

on-call (34 mentions) · mentorship (21) · CI/CD (18) · documentation (15) · comp (12)
Click on-call → sample: "Pager load unsustainable for senior ICs" / "Need rotation fairness"

Using wordcloud

  1. 1

    Open DEX → Analysis → Wordcloud

    Start from the same survey list as Sentiment, you can switch between views.

  2. 2

    Choose survey and deployment

    Filter to Q2 All Employees or Engineering-only for a sharper cloud.

  3. 3

    Review weighted terms

    Larger words appeared more often in open-text answers. Small words may still matter, click to verify.

  4. 4

    Click a term for sample responses

    See real sentences containing that keyword before you put "on-call" on a slide.

  5. 5

    Cross-check with sentiment

    Prioritize large terms that skew negative in Sentiment, those are your action items.

Compare deployments

Run the same survey's Q1 and Q2 wordclouds side by side. New large terms ("reorg", "office") often explain NPS shifts faster than averages alone.

Combine with sentiment

A big word isn't always bad, "mentorship" might be positive thanks. Workflow:

  1. Wordcloud for frequency. what's loud?
  2. Sentiment on the same filter. what's negative?
  3. Sample responses. what's actionable?

For exit interviews, recurring terms like "growth", "comp", and "manager" across quarters belong in Priya's retention deck, see Offboarding for the capture flow.

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