no employee satisfaction survey conducted, what do I answer to that question

No measurement is a valid answer, provided you formulate it as such

No does not automatically mean an empty cell here. The VSME basic module does not ask whether the survey has been conducted as a hard requirement, but whether the company has insight into employee satisfaction — and "not measured" is a factual state of affairs that you enter as such, not something to obscure with an estimated figure. Above all, avoid the temptation to present an informal impression ("the atmosphere is good") as an answer: that is not a satisfaction measurement and the file has no source for it.

What you can enter instead: that no formal survey has been conducted, and — if that is the case — whether there are other signals you identify separately, such as absence figures or staff turnover. These should then be entered as separate facts in the file, not mixed with the answer to the satisfaction question itself. If this question appears in a list together with questions about health and safety at work policythen it is common for the client to read the two side by side — an empty satisfaction survey alongside an elaborate security policy stands out, and that is not a problem, but something to consciously leave as is rather than artificially level out.

Where this is grounded in the VSME basic module

The VSME basic module of EFRAG, the voluntary standard for non-listed SMEs, treats employment conditions and personnel policy as separate factual data points — present or absent, measured or not measured — and does not require anywhere that a company must have conducted a satisfaction survey in order to complete the module. Directive (EU) 2022/2464, the CSRD, anchors this reporting logic at EU level but likewise does not prescribe a satisfaction measurement as such. If you also complete questions about training hours per employeein the same round, you will see the same pattern: where no measurement exists, "not measured" is the factually correct answer, not a guess that looks better.