Key takeaways
Pulse survey definition
As the name suggests, a pulse survey is a short questionnaire intended to gauge your employees’ thoughts, opinions, and reactions at critical moments. Pulse surveys supplement annual employee engagement surveys with quicker, more targeted responses on a recurring basis.
The ideal length of a pulse survey is relative to its frequency — the more often it’s distributed, the shorter it should be. Sparkbay, an employee engagement platform, recommends no more than five questions for a bi-weekly survey, 10 for a monthly survey, and 15 for a quarterly one.
Pros
Cons
When should you use a pulse survey?
Pulse survey best practices
What questions should be on a pulse survey?
Before crafting any questions, you must determine what kind of information you’re looking to gather from your pulse survey. What metric are you trying to track? What kind of feedback will be most valuable? Once you’ve identified those goals, you can determine whether the combination of questions will provide the right data.
Most often, questions on a pulse survey ask employees to rate a statement or idea on a Likert scale to represent how much they agree or disagree. As long as the questions are worded appropriately, the responses are objective data points that leave little room for bias — employee responses that lean consistently in one direction are difficult to dismiss as outliers or special cases. However, it is good practice to include at least one open-ended question that asks employees to contextualize their quantified responses with qualitative data.
For recurring pulse surveys, it’s best to keep the questions as consistent as possible from one iteration to the next. Even small changes in wording can affect a person’s perception of what a question is asking, which inevitably affects how they respond. Avoid unnecessary variables by using the same pulse survey template each time.
Sample questions
Further reading: How to Measure Employee Satisfaction
Top pulse survey tools
Crafting questions and manually delivering surveys to employees every other week would take a lot of time and effort. Even basic free tools like Google Forms and Jotform usually become impractical for anything more than the occasional questionnaire. Thankfully, there are plenty of tools that handle the heavy lifting of designing pulse surveys, distributing them across the company, and interpreting employees’ responses.
Officevibe
Officevibe has a friendly, graphical UI that adds playful elements to the pulse survey experience. Its curated, customizable survey questions provide a jumpstart for a range of scenarios, including options for DEIB pulse surveys. Furthermore, Officevibe’s automated data analysis and eNPS tracking lighten the manual effort involved with monitoring and interpreting results.
Xoxoday Empuls
Xoxoday Empuls divides its survey questions into four key areas, making it easier to target specific metrics with strategic questions about employees’ connectedness, safety and wellness, growth opportunities, and professional relationships. Then, when the survey window closes, Xoxoday Empuls has built-in recommendations for actions to take based on the insight you receive.
Qualtrics
Qualtrics supports advanced survey techniques like random or stratified sampling and automated touchpoints, but the guided survey setup process is surprisingly simple and fast. Likewise, the software’s flexible analytics dashboards and reporting tools adapt to provide the most relevant and valuable information for each user.
TINYpulse
TINYpulse’s cloaked messaging feature allows managers of large teams to communicate with employees about their answers without compromising anonymity. It also has built-in peer recognition opportunities and a real-time dashboard that populates once the number of responses reaches a certain threshold.
SurveySparrow
SurveySparrow uses a conversational interface to eliminate friction when developing a pulse survey program. At the outset, you can configure automated distribution schedules and reminder emails to optimize response rates. The best part is that SurveySparrow has a free version that allows for up to 100 responses per month — an excellent option for small businesses that need more functionality than the basic free tools can offer.
To discover other options for deploying employee surveys, check out Jessica Dennis’ expert roundup of the 5 Best Employee Survey Tools.
Where do pulse surveys fit in your company?
Pulse surveys are an incredibly useful tool, but they’re not the bottom line of employee engagement. Use them as a piece of the puzzle, rather than assuming they represent the whole picture.
No matter when, how, or why you administer pulse surveys, the most important thing is what you do with the results. For pulse surveys to actually work, you must take the feedback you receive seriously, create actionable plans with clear goals to implement changes, and clearly communicate what you are doing so your employees know they aren’t wasting their breath.
To learn about other tools you can add to your employee engagement tool belt, check out our shortlist of the Best Employee Engagement Software.