Pulse Surveys

“Hey, Bob, feeling engaged today?”

Awkward. Forced. And this kind of question definitely puts employees in the hot seat. There is really no conversational segue to gauge engagement during a coffee break. So for management to measure engagement in an authentic way throughout the year, there are pulse surveys – short employee engagement surveys that measure the heartbeat of the organization.

Though pulse surveys are not necessarily for every organization, as a company has to have the internal resources and bandwidth to handle more than one survey per year, they offer several advantages. By measuring employee engagement throughout the year and not just once, engagement becomes a company focus. This shift in mindset reminds everybody, from the CEO to new interns, that engagement is a priority and that employee opinions matter. Time and again we see organizations triumph when they make respect and communication priorities.

Pulse surveys are a great way to catch emerging engagement problems so that action to handle the problems can be taken quickly, instead of building up over the course of a year. Finally, employee engagement pulse surveys are effective in determining if efforts to improve engagement, based on earlier surveys and plans of action, are working.

Pulse surveys are generally less expensive than employee engagement surveys, and they have a shorter number of survey items. They can be given to all the employees of the organization, providing all the employees have internet access, and then broken down into specific departments later.

After executing a comprehensive annual survey, a pulse survey is great tool for companies to monitor employee engagement in their companies. And, based on survey results, organizations can dig a little deeper when need be. It’s an effective complement to an organization’s continuing culture of improvement.