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Pulse Survey

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Consumer Opinion Services
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Table of Contents

People’s opinion changes with a change in their feeling. As a part of the business world, if you don’t listen to their change in feeling then you are bound to lose them. But how to listen to the audience if they frequently change their opinions. Pulse Survey involves frequent check-ins with the same audience base. It is short with a minimum of 6 questions, so without any complex questions, it is used to ask exactly what you want to know. Pulse surveys are more effective and efficient, especially used to check in with employees to understand how they are feeling. Because of its short and simple questions, it does not take too much time to complete the survey. However, it helps in collecting real-time data from your audience on any topic.

01

How do Pulse Surveys differ from Employee Engagement Surveys?

Pulse Survey Pulse Survey

Pulse survey has an 85% of average response rate. On the other hand, employee engagement surveys get up to 30 to 40% of the average response rate. 

  • The basic difference between pulse surveys and employee engagement surveys is in the frequency of conducting the surveys. Pulse surveys can be deployed on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis. However, employee engagement surveys are conducted once a year. 
  • Pulse surveys can be standalone surveys. It can focus on a specific subject or is tied to a related topic. Employee engagement surveys cover a wider set of topics. 
  • Pulse surveys are shorter, including 5 to 15 questions. The idea behind the pulse survey is to keep them short to make it more frequent. Employee engagement surveys are longer because of the wide range of topics and the time in-between surveys. 
  • Pulse survey has a higher completion rate because it is not prone to survey fatigue. They are short and allow employees to get back to work fast. On the contrary, employee engagement surveys are longer and thus suffer from survey fatigue. 
  • Pulse surveys are useful to gather employee feedback on recent changes implemented in the organization. It is a fast way to evaluate the effect of changes. 

02

Benefits of Pulse Survey

  • Real-time results:

A pulse survey helps you collect data about your audience’s feelings in a timely manner. It enables you to gather feedback in real-time about the events happening now rather than those that happened 6 months ago.

It helps you keep up with regular feedback. Instead of waiting for normal surveys, you can gather their opinion on topics that matter now. Capturing their opinion, you can solve the issues before they become something serious.

  • Identify Information that needs immediate attention:

 Pulse surveys because of real-time quality helps identify issues that your audience is facing now. You can follow up on the issue the moment you notice them. Now with the real-time data, you can investigate and take immediate, necessary actions.

  • Improve engagement:

By conducting pulse surveys frequently you remind your audiences that you care about them. This also helps you improve communication with your audience.

You collect data to understand their current situation and take action on the feedback. You show them that you value them which encourages engagement between you and your audience.

  • Smart decision:

 Instead of assuming how your audiences are feeling, a pulse survey can help you gather informative knowledge about their opinions and sentiments.

You can use the knowledge to come up with action plans that can help you in solving the issues smartly and effectively. Pulse survey results can help you shape, structure, and improve your action plans and strategies.

  • Is Concise: 

Pulse surveys are shorter in length. Since these surveys are conducted during working hours, a short survey is a better choice. It does not distract or take away time from the employee. The employee can focus on the survey and provide valuable insight without having to put their work on hold for too long. 

In the case of a longer survey, employees may just want to finish it off quickly and this may lead to superficial answers. It may also harm their productivity. 

  • Is an Alarm: 

Pulse surveys because of their frequency can act as a warning sign for potential issues. It can help you gather insights into any changes or trends at their early stage. The surveys help to identify any situation that can become a potentially big use. 

When you fail to identify what is causing employees to disengage, it can lead to an increase in turnover and a decrease in productivity. Pulse surveys can help organizations become aware of such a situation before it becomes worse and the company’s bottom line suffers. 

For example, Pulse surveys can help identify issues that may cause a major employee turnover. This gives you the opportunity to address and resolve the issue before they cause any problem. 

  • Is easier to administer: 

Pulse surveys are short and can be sent to all the employees over the internet. Using digital technology, it is also easy to administer how many employees have received the surveys, and how many have completed them. It can also keep track of the data generated from the survey. 

  • Produces better response rate: 

Most annual surveys are completed by the employees because they are compulsory or the managers ask the employee to take the survey. These surveys get in the way of work and employees often don’t provide insightful data. 

Pulse surveys are quick to conduct. It does not hamper productivity. It takes a few minutes to complete a pulse survey and employees can do their job without distraction. They are also quick to complete. 

  • At moment insight: 

Since pulse surveys are conducted frequently it helps you to gather real-time insight from employees on employee satisfaction and engagement. If you implement any change, a pulse survey can generate data on whether or not the employees are happy about the change. 

You don’t have to wait for months to gather employee feedback.

Pulse Survey1

03

Topics to evaluate using Pulse Surveys

Pulse Survey Pulse Survey

Pulse surveys are best used when you need to gauge the weaknesses and strengths of your organization. Here are some areas you can evaluate using a pulse survey to understand the alignment between your employees and the organization. 

Employee-Manager relationship: 

Managers need to ensure that the employees understand the values and goals of the company. They need to motivate the employees and ensure that the employees feel included. For this, there should be harmony in the relationship between employees and managers. 

Pulse surveys can help you to understand how successful the managers are in making the employees feel comfortable, from the employee’s point of view. 

Questions: 

#1. My manager does not discriminate among the team members. 

#2. My manager respects and welcomes the difference in opinion. 

Remote work: 

It may seem that remote work gives employees some time to relax and feel happy. However, it is quite the opposite because in remote working conditions the work and personal life are all blurred. Moreover, employees may also have a hard time accessing resources or getting the required help to get the work done. 

Pulse survey to check-up on employee’s remote work conditions can help you recognize the gap in the working experience. The data can help you make a decision that is mindful of work-life balance, and also help employees access the resources they need. 

Questions:

#1. I feel we have enough interaction over virtual rooms for a smoother workflow. 

#2. I can easily “unplug” from work at the end of the day. 

Office environment: 

Working in the office your employees may be facing small and big issues which they may think are not worth complaining about. It could be related to their comfort or availability of resources or utilities. While these issues may not seem important at the moment, if left unresolved, they may cause dissatisfaction among employees. 

Using a pulse survey can help you recognize these issues which otherwise you may not have noticed. Since you can conduct pulse surveys frequently, you can survey again after implementing changes to understand how the employees feel after the change. 

Questions:

#1. I feel safe in my workplace.

#2. We have all the required resources and utilities to make work easier. 

Job satisfaction: 

The employees must feel a sense of autonomy for the company they work in. They must be satisfied and happy doing their job. Job satisfaction is directly linked to productivity and the success of the company. 

You can use a pulse survey every quarter to gather insight on how satisfied the employees are with their job. It will help you understand what makes your employees motivated for their job. You can leverage a pulse survey to decide how you can boost job satisfaction and employee happiness. 

Questions: 

#1. I would recommend my company, to my friends and families, as a great place to work.

#2. I look forward to working with my company for a long time.

Onboarding experience: 

A new job can be overwhelming. A new employee may find it confusing and have a hard time settling down in the new environment. They may compare the new job with their old job and even go back. 

It is better to sort out a new employee’s onboarding experience before they decide to quit. Use a pulse survey to understand how the new employee is feeling. This will help you realize how you can ensure that they feel welcomed and encourage them to continue working with you. 

Questions: 

#1. I feel welcomed by my new team and team manager. 

#2. My coworkers helped me every time I needed help. 

04

How to Develop your Pulse Survey?

Purpose

For any survey, a purpose or goal is important. It gives you a clear image of how your survey should look to reach the goal smoothly. A goal can help you define the topics you want to address, questions to ask, and the audience.

To define the purpose of your Pulse Survey, figure out what information you are looking for and if it is possible to collect the information via pulse survey. This can help you design your survey to get the results you intend to achieve.

Audience

With a defined purpose now you need to select who you want to survey. Whether you want to survey based on demography or location, you need to base it on the kind of topic or information you are looking for.

In case you want to survey your company, for quick feedback you may want to survey a small group of employees. If you want feedback on relevant topics, surveying the entire company will be more beneficial.

You can use a pulse survey to understand different perspectives by selecting an audience based on demographic factors. Pulse surveys can help you understand the varied opinion of different age groups, locations, or gender.

Frequency

Pulse surveys are meant to be conducted frequently, as often as possible. It is simple to create, and easier to launch. However, don’t conduct a pulse survey right after a major survey. You may face trouble in collecting and taking action upon the feedback from the pulse survey while the company is already busy working on actions taken against the major survey.

Conduct a Pulse survey when there are big changes happening across the organization. You may want to collect real-time feedback after a new sales or marketing strategy (customer) or new benefit plans (employee). Pulse surveys can help you understand how these changes impact your audience right when it is happening.

Follow-up on Survey

It is important that you follow up and take action over the feedback collected at the end of the survey. Discuss with superiors to develop a plan for communicating with your team about the purpose of the survey.

Act on the feedback after sorting through them. Communicate with your audience and share with them the steps you will take. Discuss with all teams involved to come up with strategies to implement changes. Divide the tasks and check if the changes are effective.

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05

Step-by-Step guide to conduct Pulse Survey

Pulse Survey Pulse Survey

1. Define the survey purpose

Having a clear purpose for a survey makes the entire process smooth. If you fail to properly define the purpose you will have a hard time designing the questionnaire.

Figure out what you want to achieve through the pulse survey. It could be a standalone topic or a follow-up on a survey. Whatever subject you want to focus on it is important that you make it clear for the rest of the team. 

2. Design the Pulse Survey

Asking the right questions that clearly translate the purpose of the survey to the respondents is equally important. Make sure that your questions are on track with what you are trying to measure. The questions should help you achieve your purpose not confuse the respondents. 

It is also important to determine the length of your pulse survey. The length depends on the purpose and frequency of the survey.

Make sure the survey is mobile-friendly. Allow respondents to take the survey on their preferred device. 

3. Run the Survey

Now it’s time to deploy the survey. Make sure to announce to all the participants about the survey. Send an email or inform everyone at a meeting about when the survey will be deployed. 

Send the survey via email and administer it. You can also add incentives to encourage higher participation and response rate. 

4. Analyze the result

Use survey software to analyze the data gathered from the survey. Look for trends, identify weaknesses and strengths. Organize the data to spot opportunities for improvement. 

5. Take action 

Leverage the data you have obtained from the pulse survey to see the area of improvement. Share the result among the management and brainstorm ways to construct strategies that increase employee satisfaction, motivation, and engagement. 

06

Tips for Pulse Survey Questions

  • Use questions that apply to all of your audience. Don’t ask questions that are only relevant to a certain type of audience. The respondents will feel confused and skip the questions. You will not gain any reliable information to compare or analyze.
  • Keep the focus on one or two topics. Pulse Surveys are meant to be short with a maximum of 15 questions in them. So make sure you don’t address too many topics. This will exhaust the respondent and won’t serve the purpose of the Pulse Survey. The less effort a respondent has to put in completing a survey the more chances of increasing completion rate.
  • Avoid technical jargon or complex words. Use words that are easier to understand and do not confuse the respondent. Also, avoid using negative words in your questions. Try to use a positive tone in the questions.
  • Use questions that can provide you quantifiable results easily and quickly. This way you can analyze the results and use them to make smart decisions for the business.
  • Read through your survey and send it to a few people to test the pulse survey questions. You can identify any errors in the grammar or spelling that you may have missed. Also, having someone fill the survey can help you understand the difficulty level of the survey. You can make changes before sending out the final draft of the pulse survey.
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07

When to use Pulse Survey?

Employee Engagement and Experience

Employee Pulse Surveys are the most common way pulse surveys are used. Pulse surveys help you keep track of small things that impact greatly on employee experience. If ignored, such things can eventually cause troubles like employee turnover. Recovering from such trouble can cost the company heavily. Hence, Pulse Survey can help you identify any small issue that an employee may be feeling.

Pulse survey can provide you how employees feel after a new company policy or after working on a project. You can analyze the result and understand how such events affect employee morale.

    • We successfully managed the new initiative in our company.
    • I trust our managers and leaders to lead the company towards success.
    • I can depend on my team members and my manager.
    • I understand what my job responsibilities are in the company.
    • My job helps me grow and develop my professional career.
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08

Significance of Pulse Survey in Organization

Pulse Survey Pulse Survey

Measure and Improve employee engagement:

Using a pulse survey to measure employee engagement helps to motivate employees and encourage engagement. The more they share their feedback, the more a company becomes aware of the levels of engagement among the employees. The insights help companies to take strategic action to encourage engagement. 

Engaged employees tend to be more passionate and happy about their job. This leads to more productivity and often to innovation. More engaged employees also improve customer experience. 

Communication also builds positive work culture:

Asking for employee feedback helps to create an atmosphere of open communication in the company. The more you solicit feedback from employees the more they feel motivated to share their opinion and make suggestions. 

Open communication helps to share knowledge, innovative ideas and clear out any miscommunication. Thus, it helps an organization to build a positive work culture. 

Generates motivational insights:

Pulse surveys can be used to obtain valuable data on a specific topic. Thus, helping an organization to generate deeper insight and gain a deeper understanding. Be it employee engagement, satisfaction, or motivation, a pulse survey can help you conduct an in-depth analysis of the topic. 

The organization can leverage the information to develop and implement action plans that can help direct employee activities.

Improve employee happiness:

By studying your employees frequently you will gain a better understanding of employee attitude and engagement. Conducting surveys and giving employees an outlet to share their thoughts and opinions encourages them to become more engaged. Engaged employees are happier with their job and are more productive. 

Reminds employee that company values them: 

Soliciting feedback from employees to gain better understanding of their engagement and motivation reminds employees that the organization values their feedback. It tells them that you respect their opinion and consider their feedback before making a decision. This encourages them to share their thoughts with the company and also builds harmony between employee and company. 

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09

FAQs

Employee pulse surveys can be conducted on a weekly or monthly basis. The pulse survey should consist of no more than 15 questions. Keep it short so it does not take longer than a few minutes to complete the survey.

Pulse surveys are meant to be short in order to only take a few minutes to complete them. While you can include up to 15 questions, you can also keep it under 10 to increase the response rate. Fewer questions prevent survey fatigue and increase completion and response rates.

Pulse survey is meant to be conducted on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis. However, it also depends on the subject of the pulse survey. 

Sometimes, a weekly survey may seem too frequent for a pulse survey. In which case, it is better to conduct them monthly.

Pulse survey is conducted frequently to gauge the effect of the changes implemented in the work environment or gather real-time employee feedback on any important issue. It is short in length.

Annual employee engagement survey is conducted once a year. It covers a wide range of topics and is usually used to gather general insight from employees.

A pulse survey is generally short in length with 5 to 15 questions per survey. 

  • Weekly/ Bi-weekly: 5 questions
  • Monthly: 10 questions
  • Quarterly: 15 questions
  • Bi-annual: 20 to 30 questions

A pulse survey has a higher response rate due to the minimum number of questions. The short survey does not keep employees away from their work.

For a pulse survey, you should aim for a 75 to 85% response rate.

A pulse survey is conducted to track the engagement level of the employees. It also helps determine the drivers of engagement. You can use a survey to understand if the actions taken are working in favor of the employees in order to make quick changes.

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