Three Reasons Pulse Surveys Don’t Work
More and more organizations are considering pulse surveys to improve employee experience, engagement, company culture, and organizational performance. Pulse surveys are brief surveys that are sent to employees on a frequent basis, ranging from every day to every few weeks, asking for their feedback and attitudes at work. Many hold that these surveys allow organizations to have a constant understanding of the “health” of the organization in contrast to more traditional surveys which are deployed on an annual or semi-annual basis. However, from my experience I doubt that pulse surveys are the answer for most organizations. Here’s why.
Pulse surveys can put the focus on the survey itself and leave little time for planning and action.
It’s not about the survey, it’s about taking action. Although surveys are an important step in improving employee and organizational outcomes, they should be a relatively small step in that process. Instead, managers should be spending the vast majority of their time taking action on the results. Pulse surveys can put the focus on the survey itself and leave little time for planning and action.
Most managers don’t have time to interpret survey data on a frequent basis. Managers are typically very busy people. They must lead their team members to perform well and work toward the team vision, all while ensuring they remain engaged and want to stay with the company. Many managers likely do not have time to interpret incoming survey results on a frequent basis, decide what to do, and then act. Instead, what I believe most managers need are insights from surveys that are deployed on a much less frequent basis and that result in concrete action plans. At C1C, we believe it is essential to ask action-oriented survey items that are easy to interpret and immediately give managers an idea of what they should do next.
They might not be measuring what you think they’re measuring. Depending on the survey items themselves and the frequency they are deployed, pulse surveys may not actually be measuring what you intend for them to. Over time, employees habituate or go on autopilot when answering survey items, resulting in less truthful feedback. Instead, their responses may better reflect their current mood (which is volatile and influenced by everything, both internal and external to work) instead of their actual attitudes about their workplace.
Despite these reasons, I believe there are a few circumstances where pulse surveys may be more beneficial, specifically…
When managers are given help with survey interpretation and action planning, and are then held accountable to those action plans.
When gathering specific feedback on the implementation of projects and programs.
What do you think? Do you agree or disagree? I’d love to hear what you think! Feel free to reach out!