How to use Pulse Surveys to understand how your team is feeling

The modern workplace is changing and changing fast. Managers have realized that traditional annual employee surveys are outdated. They don't accurately reflect the mindset behind building engaged work teams. So what can you do to understand the ever-growing workplace dynamics? One quick answer: Pulse Surveys.

Pulse surveys have emerged as a great method of assessing employee engagement. It can give you important insights about the overall team mood and productivity. It differs from traditional annual performance surveys because it reflects a more day-to-day approach to employee engagement. They are also much easier to answer and much less time-consuming.

According to Gallup, only 27% of workers think the feedback they normally get helps them in their work. Just 17% think there is open communication throughout the organization. We can conclude that there is definitely a need for continuous communication and feedback.

You can schedule Pulse Surveys to have a more steady and reliable feedback source. Continuous feedback is becoming ever more important to management decisions. Managers need to implement methods like pulse surveys to have those insights. By doing that, they can build stronger and more engaged teams.

As its own name says, it reflects the pulse of the company. As a pulse, it changes over time. You need to be aware of the ups and downs in order to adapt to your workforce's needs. With a survey, you will be able to focus on what you want to know about them, from their basic thoughts to their critics about their workplace.

What can pulse surveys do for you?

As a quick guide on how to use pulse surveys, we provide 8 guidelines to help you best utilize this method:

1 - It's all about collecting real-time insights

You can now gather real-time feedback you can act upon in order to improve the workplace environment. This is a major upgrade from annual performance surveys. A continuous source of information about your employees helps you stay aware of mood changes and work-related problems. You need to schedule pulse surveys in order to plan in accordance with your workflow priorities.

2 - Check how your team is feeling

Mood changes happen all the time and that can be a problem for workplace morale. For a leader, it's crucial to know what's affecting that morale. Is working becoming more repetitive and stale? Pulse surveys are a good method to understand those work dynamics and to know when to mix things up. Tap My Back's mood feature may be helpful to you. It is presented as a pulse survey, and you can activate it anytime and check your peer's current mood.

3 - Complementary tool for management

Most of the times, team leaders struggle to manage their teams because they fail to understand how their employees really feel. All the feedback you can gather from pulse surveys can assist you in making managing decisions. Understand your employees as people and then you will make them strive as workers.

4 - They can be a great idea source

A pulse survey is basically a recollection of insights. You will value some over others, but all are valuable to an extent. Sometimes, the best insights can be the start of a great idea. Value that feedback as a way to make your employees feel important in the workplace dynamic.

5 - Address all workflow problems

There are always some issues that don't quite get the awareness they need. A pulse survey provides you with a 360 approach to the workplace environment. You can use that level of understanding to address all problems you find and make adjustments.

6 - Watch out for survey fatigue

It's good to check on your employees from time to time but be aware of question repetitions. As you plan your surveys in advance you need to define why they are important.  Make sure that what you ask is relevant and interesting to your employees.  That way, they feel much more motivated to give their own opinion.

7 - Establish a communication channel

As we mentioned before, this type of surveys serves as a way for team managers to establish another communication source with their employees. You identify problems through important insights and you adjust to solve them. That is why good communication channels are crucial to your workplace. Pulse Surveys can serve as a more in-depth solution than just normal conversations.

8 - It can help improve overall company performance

Overall employee performance depends on a series of engagement metrics like motivation or well-being. Those metrics should be addressed by pulse surveys in order to show your team members you value those issues. You can evaluate the impact of your team on the company's overall performance and then make adjustments to improve that same performance.

Start using pulse surveys, give it a try!

Keep these tips in mind and explore the benefits of implementing pulse surveys in your work teams. Tap My Back has a variety of Pulse Survey templates that are available to you. You can edit and create new templates that can best reflect what you need for your team. It can help you be a more dynamic presence as a leader. We hope you found this helpful. Any questions or comments you may have sent us to [email protected]