Are You Pulsing Yet?
It has been a real privilege to be part of helping to establish employee pulse surveys as a key element of a company’s approach to listening to their employees and gathering opinions. The topics can range from a company’s culture to the company’s results.
Simplicity is key! That’s why I get a little warm glow every time a prospective or existing client comments on the simplicity of Inpulse. We want to make it easy and pain-free to set up and run pulse surveys. We limit the questions to 12 (before you think that is too few, you should know clients rarely use all 12) to make the survey targeted, quick and provide usable data that people do something with, rather than the usual data overload. Below I’ve captured some of the main benefits of a pulse survey – if you’re not using them yet then it’s time to get in the game!
By targeting the survey and having focused questions, participants can fill out the survey in less than 2mins. The responses provide a fantastic snapshot into how people are feeling, why and other insights based on the context of the survey e.g. values, employee experience etc. For some of our clients who have lots of people on the ‘shop floor’ or in factories or out on building sites we know time is money, so by saving time we help save money which is good for business performance!
It also means that the information they are collecting is timely to the topic(s) being covered in the questions. Rather than collecting an oceans worth of data that people then drown in trying to understand, our approach is more like having a test tube of data that can be analysed and actioned very quickly! It also means more effective targeting of what needs to be done as the survey is not river of endless results but a few key answers to one or two focused topics.
As Inpulse results are transparent, it can help develop a culture of trust and openness as teams communicate and discuss openly and freely the results in real-time, rather than the usual ‘my manager has the results and has seen them before me’ approach. This is very important as actionable results mean teams can get down to focusing on the conversation that the survey is highlighting.
All this means that our pulse surveys have an average response rate of 70%, which is pretty high and shows a good level of buy-in and makes them statistically very valid.
A healthy company culture is something that we all want, one where there is transparency, trust, openness, conversations and co-operation. Inpulse surveys, with their transparent nature, real-time approach and focus on a few key questions, help build this exact kind of culture.