Employee engagement is at the top of the list of priorities for HR teams in all types of organizations worldwide. According to research, engaged employees result in increased productivity, lower staff turnover, and a more powerful employer brand.
But how frequently should you assess employee engagement? Annual employee surveys were once common, but they are increasingly being overtaken by regular pulse surveys.
Employee pulse surveys are quite a modern method for assessing the pulse of your organization and gaining access to live data about employee engagement and experience. Regular staff pulse surveys are a quick and efficient way to learn how your staff members are feeling and how they perceive various aspects of their work environment and tasks.
What Exactly Are Employee Pulse Surveys?
Pulse surveys are a quick and easy way to collect frequent feedback from your staff. In contrast to the conventional annual employee survey, which is often lengthy and covers a broad range of topics, a pulse survey is brief and typically focuses on a single issue or question.
With the help of platforms like TINYpulse, you can easily send out pulse surveys on a regular basis throughout the year with minimal effort; this allows you to receive frequent feedback on very specific topics and is frequently compared to performing a quick and simple health checkup on your organization – thus the name ‘pulse.’
There are numerous advantages and reasons to use employee surveys. Here are some of our personal favorites.
Boost participation
Staff pulse surveys can assist you in driving greater participation because the number of questions is limited, and employees must devote less time to complete them.
Receiving feedback so frequently and quickly means that you’re getting an immediate insight into employee satisfaction and morale rather than reviewing a survey that has been collecting data for weeks or months after the polls closed.
Response Rates Are Higher
Many organizations that use pulse surveys report a high response rate from their employees; this is most likely due to how easily and quickly they can respond to what is frequently a single question. When gathering feedback, as with all things data-driven, you want to have the highest response rate feasible.
Each cycle, between 80% and 100% of employees should be able to complete the survey.
While perfect would be ideal, research response rates cannot get any better than this.
More Precise
When you have a busy schedule and a boss who constantly pushes you to fill out a survey, you’re less likely to put genuine thought and effort into your responses.
Straightlining or satisficing is one way for employees to get a 25-minute survey quickly out of the way.
- Satisficing occurs when employees answer survey questions with little effort. They only provide “satisfactory” responses in order to complete the survey.
- Straightlining happens when respondents answer all of their questions in a similar way, like selecting “Strongly Agree” for all of them.
Because they won’t have to exert mental effort for far too long with a short survey, your subjects are more likely to provide honest answers.
Increased Engagement
Employees can easily lose touch with their employer, which often results in the development of organizational silos. While a pulse survey will not prevent this all on its own, it is a move towards more regular employee engagement. By asking your staff members frequent questions about issues they are concerned about and how they feel about their jobs, you can maintain a steady flow of communication; this can help to increase engagement.
Conclusion
We are currently in the midst of a paradigm shift in which much more modern tools are now replacing traditional annual surveys. Instead of lengthy yearly surveys, many companies opt for agile and astute pulse surveys that assess employee engagement in real time, which is all the more reason to implement them in your organization.
