Pulse surveys let you collect employee feedback on a frequent basis. They are short surveys that measure employee engagement and can focus on specific issues such as diversity and inclusion and work-life balance. They give you a way to genuinely listen to your employees and gain insights into their attitudes, feelings, and frustrations. They can be used stand-alone or in combination with annual or census surveys.
A recent Forbes article concludes that pulse surveys represent employee sentiment and perception more accurately than once-a-year surveys because they lose relevancy over time. But this does not mean pulse surveys are perfect. There is, in fact, an even more accurate and time-effective way for you to get to the heart of your employees’ views, thoughts and perceptions.
Avoid these four Pulse Survey pitfalls:
1. Poorly Worded Questions
Ask the wrong question, and you’ll get an unhelpful answer. This means it’s critical that you keep questions short and relevant. Always remain on topic: a pulse survey on employee health will not reveal your employee’s level of trust in leadership decisions.
2. Anonymity Issues
If your employee thinks you can see their name with their answers, it’s unlikely they will speak openly and honestly. The lack of anonymity makes them feel awkward and hesitant to speak freely about their feelings.
3. Low Employee Participation
Even though pulse surveys are short, there is still a risk of employees becoming survey-weary if you send them too often. Employee participation is crucial because a low response rate will call the accuracy of your results into question. You must aim for 100% employee participation to get the most accurate representation.
4. Biased Employee Responses
Employees are naturally biased. All kinds of factors, ranging from physical needs like hunger or sleepiness to a heavy workload and pay and job satisfaction issues, can impact survey results.
“MAKE BETTER, MORE EFFECTIVE DECISIONS WITH QUALITATIVE INSIGHT.”
How can you overcome these pulse survey pitfalls? By placing a qualitative insights solution on your enterprise collaboration tools such as Microsoft using AI technology. These tools interpret the content of employee communications on a macro scale to reveal trends in sentiment, conversation health, trending topics, and more.
Qualitative insights enable you as a leader to make better, data-backed decisions for your entire workforce. They let you get a clear picture of how employees really feel and give you hard data to back it up. KeenCorp integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Teams to give you real-time insights on your employee engagement and organizational health from your employee’s everyday communication.
