How to Create Your Own Pulse Survey
What is a Pulse survey?
After the majority of the U.S. workforce transitioned to working 100% remotely, it became immediately important for us to know not just whether our employees had the tools required to perform their jobs remotely but how they were feeling in general. To gather this feedback from our employees, we created a pulse survey. A pulse survey is essentially a survey that an organization sends to its employees to learn about employee sentiment quickly and easily.
What are the benefits of a Pulse survey?
1. Real-time feedback
Because pulse surveys are typically short, organizations can achieve higher participation rates. This gives you the ability to get immediate feedback on changes that are occurring as opposed to an annual survey.
2. Make smarter decisions
Pulse surveys can help decision-makers identify the areas that need attention. Instead of learning about issues months down the road, your survey respondents will make you aware immediately of the issues they are having. This will enable an organization to make more-informed decisions and react with urgency.
3. Keep your employees engaged
Surveying your employees communicates to them that they matter and that you care about them. In most cases, frontline employees are unable to have their voice heard beyond their immediate manager. Regular dialogue can help keep your employees engaged, motivated, and feeling appreciated.
Steps to creating your own Pulse survey
1. Create your themes
Before crafting your survey, think about the themes you want to cover. For example, we recently gave employees the opportunity to have their voice heard on a series of themes, including Leadership Response & Communication, Learning & Development, Inclusion & Wellbeing, and Technology. Decide which themes matter most to your organization at the present time and make each theme its own survey.
2. Develop your questions
After you’ve narrowed down your themes, begin brainstorming the questions whose answers will be most valuable or insightful. You also need to consider the type of survey questions as there are a number of options. Do you want to ask open-ended questions? Ranking questions? It ultimately depends on what your survey goals are and the information you’d like to gather from your employees.
The most common question type is the single-answer multiple choice question, which we used throughout our surveys. For example, in our survey about technology, we asked a question similar to the following:
3. Decide the tools to deliver your survey
There is an overwhelming number of survey tools available. The good news is that many of them are free, so you can test which one best suits your needs. There are also many low-cost options for companies interested in additional features such as robust analytics and reporting. Here is a list of some of the most popular survey tools:
Summary
A pulse survey effectively gives you the ability to have your finger on the pulse of employee engagement and sentiment. There are many benefits to pulse surveys, including learning about the challenges your employees are facing and then having the opportunity to take action quickly to address these issues before they snowball into much larger problems. Pulse surveys can lead to increased employee engagement and retention. During these unprecedented times, it’s especially important to ensure that your employees are well and safe and that they have the tools and the support to continue doing their job, whether on-site or remotely.
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