How to Effectively Utilize a Pulse Survey in 2020

Pulse surveys are an effective way to collect lightweight employee feedback in real-time. Learn how you can use pulse surveys differently in 2020.

Knowing the pulse of your organization is critical to keeping your employees engaged. Including pulse surveys in your engagement strategy will give managers a better understanding of the organization and its people, while supplying them with the data and analytics to take action. Pulse surveys allow you to gather real-time, continuous feedback to get the most up-to-date understanding of the organization and its people.

A quick and easy way to collect lightweight employee opinions—pulse surveys offer a way to follow up on larger engagement initiatives or receive quick feedback from your everyday initiatives. More informal in nature, these surveys offer a deep dive into employee opinions and motivations, and can be administered anytime, anywhere.

Here are 3 creative ways you can use pulse surveys to bolster your engagement strategy in the new decade:

1. Dive into D&I from your engagement survey data.

As the workplace changes, its people do too. Creating a workplace culture that is not only diverse, but inclusive, is a topic that spans the decade and is sure to make waves in the years to come. But did you know you’ve already got a lot of great data at your fingertips to ride the current?

Your comprehensive, annual employee engagement survey delivers large chunks of information about your entire organization in a big-picture view. Adding brief but specific pulse surveys ensure that any areas of opportunity discovered in the census are monitored and acted on. But by using pulse surveys, you can dive into more specific diversity and inclusion efforts.

By gathering opinions in real-time, your queries can range from employees’ opinions about inclusiveness to addressing concerns on new policies and procedures. Filtering by demographic will help you look at and act on diversity issues within department, gender, age, and role. Pulse surveys also help break down walls that prevent necessary and invaluable communication. Once employees know managers encourage dialogue, they’ll be more likely to share their thoughts, creating a stronger and more inclusive workplace.

2. Reinforce accountability for follow-up and be proactive about change

Using pulse surveys to gather opinions after a shift in leadership or before a new policy is enforced, provides powerful insight into how different changes impact employee motivation and morale. Evaluate your responses to major or minor internal events and during times of change to stay ahead of the inevitable unrest among employees.

But it shouldn’t stop there. Your engagement data is simply a jumping off point for your larger strategic engagement efforts. Pulse surveys are the perfect way to guide your initiatives overtime by gathering feedback from specific departments or groups of people and generating actionable next steps for managers and leaders.

This insightful data will help you create targeted strategies tailored specifically to their team.

• Leadership needs to be held accountable for organizational strategies. An evaluative pulse survey keeps leaders honest about day-to-day actions, such as post-meeting follow-ups.
• Managers need to be informed about the questions or concerns circulating their department. A specific pulse survey helps managers understand at the team-level how they can be coaching and motivating their team better.
• Employees need to feel heard. More importantly, feeling valued at work is a driver of engagement. Measuring this type of employee data is key to improving your engagement efforts.

3. Treat your employees like humans.

A heard employee is an engaged employee, and everyone wants to know their opinions are valued. Wondering if your survey follow-up is making an impact on your employees? A quick pulse will help you find out. Pulse surveys help show employees that their opinions matter and their managers respect them.

Additionally, the data will reaffirm that your initiatives are working to improve the employee experience or, if needed, allow you to make quick pivots in strategy. Pulse surveys keep your organization active, agile, and authentic. The workplace is often a difficult place to really connect in a human way, and it can be hard for busy managers to keep pace with their teams’ changing motivations and engagement drivers. Pulse surveys create simple, open lines of communication between team leaders and employees—and an easy way for managers to stay in tune with their teams.

Every year, the latest trends in HR evolve our perspective on employee engagement and the way in which we measure and understand our people. But one factor has stayed the same. Employees want to know that their voices are heard. Learn how Quantum Workplace is standing the test of time with modern tools that put individuals in the driver’s seat of their employee experience.