There is no denying that a person’s sentiment shift and their opinion changes time over time due to the varied experience that they encounter. An employee’s perspective changes and chances are, you wouldn’t know about it unless you conduct a survey to understand where the issues lie. What should you do? How do you ask questions that address employees’ issues that change week-over-week? Thankfully, an employee pulse survey is a strategy that addresses these issues.
What is the ‘Staff Pulse Survey?’
A staff pulse survey or employee pulse survey is a strategy that is adopted in many industries, small and big, to measure employee engagement. It is a relatively new practice that has attracted the interest of a wide range of industries. The reason behind its wide acceptance is how effective it is in improving the course of the organization and benefit both the employees and the company.
The staff pulse survey is not a one-size-fits-all solution. It is a customized approach that is based on the needs as well as the capabilities of the company. It is a short and quick survey that usually consists of five to fifteen questions and is sent out to employees regularly. Feedback is tracked, and the trend on how it changes over time is identified. The pulse survey offers quick insights into the health of the company. The pulse survey questions enable the researchers to understand and identify gaps and address issues that otherwise would be left as is.
Why are Staff Pulse Surveys important?
The staff pulse survey is a fast and recurrent survey system that is calculatedly designed to be done frequently, such as once a week, bi-weekly, or once a month. The practice of employee pulse survey is relatively new, which has been around for about five to eight years now, while the employee survey has been around for a century.
The first of the employee surveys were called ’employee attitude surveys’ and was conducted in the 1920s by successful industrial companies. It was a measurement tool to understand employee attitude, employee self-esteem, and used to measure and replicate a high-morale environment. When employees know that a survey is being taken and how the survey could impact them, they were more inclined to provide feedback. It was found that communication is the key to understanding how a company could benefit from offering a morale-boosting environment to its employees.
Every employee in your company is nothing different than the plants in your garden. You provide them with everything they need to grow, and they do. But did you know that insects can ruin your garden? Just like insects and worms that infest your garden can ruin everything, your employees can be infested with troubles and regrets that you may fail to identify. Service providers such as talenx.io suggest that you constantly conduct surveys to understand and combat the issues that the employees face.
Pulse survey’s best practices are adopted by many companies to address the issues faced by the employees effectively. Sufficient time is provided between each survey to ensure that there is enough time to take action on the results of the previous survey and maintain the flow of feedback in the workplace.
Benefits of using employee pulse surveys
Check surveys are a vital part of any business, big or small as it offers insights on the gaps that need to be filled to ensure the smooth-running operations. An employee pulse survey has limited questions that change from time to time and are targeted towards the employees frequently. Though the questions are limited, it offers several benefits that include the following.
– It offers real-time measurement of employee satisfaction as well as employee engagement.
– It improves employee engagement which in turn offers the following benefits
- Increases employee productivity
- Results in happier customers
- Leads to innovation in the workplace
- Decreases risks of employee turnover
- Offers higher profitability rates
- Reduces employee time off
– It results in positive company culture as the employees are more engaged and happier in their jobs.
– It encourages employees to focus on effective methods to form positive habits
– Pulse survey questions offer a deeper understanding of what motivates the employees.
– It allows for analysis of improvement over time, or how the survey response has impacted.
– The employee pulse survey is a constant reminder that the higher management values its employees and their feedback.
– Check surveys are a powerful employee relations tool, especially when the employees feel that their voice is heard and their concerns are addressed.
– They are frequent and fast, and in turn, reduce the cost of addressing employee concerns
– The time and money spent on surveying the staff are reduced with a pulse survey.
– Pulse survey best practices offer higher response rates than the traditional annual employee response survey
– It offers and encourages open communication between the management and employees, which lets the employees share suggestions and recommendations.
– The comprehensive feedback received through these surveys helps to measure employee engagement and to direct future employee engagement activities.
– An employee pulse survey is a mechanism for employees to have their say which encourages their morale.
– In addition, it is linked with increased happiness and productivity, staff pulse survey improves employee health as happiness is directly linked to good health.
– The survey provides the management with detailed and accurate information about the employees and comprehensive insight into employee attitude, which will enable you to access the strengths and weaknesses of the company.
Conducting employee pulse surveys are beneficial to your organization. When they are conducted promptly, the benefits offered by it simply surpasses the claims. To reap the benefits of pulse survey, contact experts such as talenx.io can offer insights on creating a pulse survey that can benefit your employees, as well as positively impact the growth of the company.
Steps to a Successful Staff Pulse Survey
Getting valuable feedback from employees is valuable in a lot more ways. A random pulse survey may not hold as much value as the one that is ideally planned and implemented. It is considered a practical choice if the employee pulse survey is targeted towards any of the following.
– To communicate the purpose of the survey and how it can benefit the employees
– To understand employee engagement, employee experience, and how to improve them.
– To maintain a flow of feedback that is targeted towards improving the workplace
– To address employees concerns and resolves critical issues before it is too late
– To be able to give valuable feedback to the management
To be able to target your pulse survey towards the betterment of the employees and the company, the pulse survey questions must be created ideally. Creating a survey pulse includes the following steps.
Step 1: Define the purpose of the survey
What is it that you are focusing? What is the goal of the efforts taken to get feedback from your employees? Define what you would want to understand, what you want to uncover by conducting the survey; whether the employees are content with the new regulation, whether the new hires have experienced an ideal onboarding, whether the work environment feels safe and secure; define the purpose!
Step 2: Define who is your target
By defining the purpose of conducting the survey, you also define who your target audience is. You can create a survey that targets all the employees, or only a particular department, or just the junior level of the employees. It is vital to define who you are targeting to ideally frame the questions based on their level of interest and concerns.
Step 3: Create pulse survey questions
You can easily look for questionnaires with clearly defined questions online, but would these questions serve the purpose? It is always better to craft the questions thoughtfully, to keep them in the track of the purpose and the target that you have defined.
Step 4: Determine the length of the survey
The length of your survey will depend on the purpose and the objective of the survey and your desired outcome.
Step 5: What is the appropriate survey cadence?
For this purpose, you must take into consideration the change in the components of your measurements, for instance, ‘satisfaction’ which fluctuates more often depending on the engagement; and whether the data received is analyzed and acted upon. If the issues raised are not addressed, the satisfaction level is bound to change.
Step 6: Apply people analytics to the data
Once the survey is conducted, you must be able to analyze it and uncover trends or reveal its impact on employee experience. You can take help from third-party to analyze trends and implement the necessary actions as required, to ensure that the employee concerns are addressed.
Employee Pulse Survey Questions
Many organizations that are new to pulse survey wonder what questions can be asked to the employees that would result in the desired outcome. Here are some pulse survey questions for your reference.
- Are there things that you don’t know about the company that you feel you should know?
- Were you able to achieve your goals this week?
- Are you facing any challenges that are holding you back from performing your responsibilities?
- Have you been provided with the resources needed to perform your duties and achieve your goals?
- Do you feel that corporate culture exists in your team?
- On a scale of 1 to 10 with ten being extremely happy, how happy are you at work?
- Is your role in the company aligned with your career goals?
- What was the best and the worst part of the week?
- What would you suggest to improve the company culture?
- How excited are you about your current project on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being extremely excited?
- What can help you be more productive?
- What is the one perk that you wish you had in the company?
It is vital to remember that employee pulse survey is not meant to replace the annual survey. The pulse survey seeks answers to be able to tackle small and immediate issues and concerns. They are conducted to collect a quick and actionable response to address specific needs.
Advantages of using Pulse Survey Questions
Pulse survey has certain benefits it offers to the company, so do the questions. The advantages of well-defined pulse survey questions include the following.
– Shows whether the employees are satisfied with their job
– Offers feedback on what the organization lacks and how it can improve
– It focuses on listening to the employee grievances and thereby boost employee morale
– Gives meaningful insights on what motivates the employees
– Employees have an opportunity to give their honest input on time
– The response rates on these surveys are higher compared to traditional surveys
– It promotes open communication that encourages employees to raise issues
Employee pulse survey seeks answers to address employee concerns and the questions that target these concerns are readily answered by employees.
Conclusion
Several companies have adopted pulse survey best practices in an attempt to understand what they lack and how they can improve. With the help of a pulse survey, companies have successfully offered job satisfaction, and in turn, a balanced work-life. The benefits offered by the employee pulse survey is immense and can help your company to offer the best work environment that your employees deserve. Creating a survey pulse is easy, but if you want an expert to help you have a positive impact on the lives of your employees, contact talenx.io. They will not only help you understand how you can create pulse survey questions but also aid you in addressing the issues raised by your employees.
