What are pulse surveys?
A pulse survey is more regular way to gather your employees’ thoughts. While annual surveys have been a staple for HR and people teams for several years, pulse surveys are often shorter, faster surveys sent out on a monthly or quarterly basis.
They help give you a continuous snapshot of your workforce’s opinions and satisfaction levels. Employee pulse surveys can be used to support general employee engagement, the development of company values and culture, or to support organisational change programmes.
Why do organisations use pulse surveys?
Pulse surveys are a great way for organisations to check in with their employees on a variety of topics, and are typically aligned to the overall strategic direction of the business. They usually form part of a wider employee engagement strategy and can help HR teams track progress on their initiatives and culture over time.
They can highlight potential areas for improvement within the business, preventing employee dissatisfaction and helping leaders to proactively manage staff retention. Similarly, they can highlight the areas that are doing well and help to create consistent approaches across the business.
What makes a good pulse survey?
A good pulse survey should:
1. Have a clear purpose which is communicated to all staff, aligned with specific organisational objectives or people challenges.
2. Run at regular, predictable intervals with enough time between to action any outputs – we recommend at least every three months to ensure consistent response levels.
3. Take under five minutes to complete, containing between 10 and 15 questions.
4. Be easily accessible and user-friendly for all relevant employees, regardless of their location or access to technology.
5. Be a springboard for action. Employee belief can be quickly lost if the insights aren’t acted upon – and within good time.
What are the benefits of pulse surveys?
What tools should you use for pulse surveys?
We recommend using a single platform for all your employee feedback – from onboarding through to engagement and exit surveys – to simplify reporting and allow you to easily analyse the data, spot trends and flag areas of concern.
The WorkBuzz platform offers easy-to-use, intuitive dashboards that are designed for busy managers, not data scientists. Pulse surveys are standard across all our plans and can even be accessed by offline employees via our ‘kiosk’ mode.
You can choose from a template of questions to get you started, or – if you need additional support – our People Science team can help you design a question set that truly aligns with your wider strategy.
