Unlike traditional surveys, Pulse Surveys are typically shorter and conducted more frequently, allowing organizations to quickly assess the impact of changes and initiatives. In this guide, we’ll explore what Pulse Surveys are, the various types you can implement, best practices for crafting effective questions, and recommendations on how often to send them out.
What is a Pulse Survey?
The term "Pulse Survey" can mean different things to different people. Here are common interpretations:
Short Surveys: Quick Surveys sent to everyone in the company, typically shorter than annual Surveys.
Regular Surveys: Surveys distributed weekly, monthly, or quarterly to the entire organization.
Sample Surveys: Surveys sent to different samples of employees each time.
Targeted Surveys: Surveys sent to specific groups, such as departments or teams.
Rotating questions: Surveys with one or two changing questions, inviting randomly selected participants each time.
Essentially, Pulse Surveys can vary widely in format and frequency.
Types of Pulse Surveys in Culture Amp
Culture Amp allows you to create various Pulse Surveys easily. You can:
Use templates or previous Surveys to craft your new Survey.
Edit to reduce the number of questions based on insights from earlier Surveys.
Select your target audience from the entire organization or specific demographics.
Import historical data to analyze trends over time.
Types of Pulse Surveys not supported or recommended
Here are the Pulse Surveys we currently don't support and our current thoughts on these.
Randomized question Surveys
While some platforms change questions regularly, this can lead to unreliable data. Key issues include:
Sample data limitations: Not asking everyone the same questions means you can’t gauge accuracy.
Response fatigue: Constantly changing questions can confuse participants and lower response rates.
Lack of follow-up: Frequent Surveys without time to address issues can hinder meaningful action.
Sampling Surveys
It is quite common in customer Surveys to randomly or representatively sample people in Surveys. Sometimes it may also seem appealing to not bother the entire company for every Survey. While Culture Amp allows you to select who you want to receive any given Survey there is no automatic sampling option - you may however randomly or representatively select employees yourself. However, we urge caution in doing this and always ask people to consider the following things we've observed in these sorts of Surveys.
People who don't receive a Survey feel left out (even those who might usually complain about Surveys)
People can entertain ideas that you've specially selected the sample to manipulate the results
Your data is going to be less reliable than if you asked everyone
Although your overall company data can be quite reliable if you invite a reasonable sample, once you get down into team data levels it is often of statistically questionable value
The more you cut the data the worse the reliability is going to become
Often nobody truly appreciates any of the above until the results come in
What questions are best for a Pulse Survey?
First, it is often a good idea to use fewer questions if you are going to be surveying your people more often. This conveys that you've thought carefully about what you are asking each time and you value their time. We often recommend Pulse Surveys should take no longer than 4-5 minutes maximum to complete. That's about 20 questions.
If you are interested in trend tracking it can be useful to use the key outcome index from a previous Survey (an Engagement Index is the most common example of this). This will give you a reliable repeated measure for tracking the overall trend and it will help you see if any of your actions have lifted the score on the outcome. If you are checking in to see whether you've made any progress on some identified driver or impact questions then you should also include those.
Another set of questions you should also consider are those focusing on post survey actions. These are focused on what people have had communicated to them, their involvement in action planning and whether change has been perceived.
How often should Pulse Surveys be sent to employees?
You should only send out Pulse Surveys at about the same rate that you believe meaningful change might occur. There isn't much sense in checking in with people before change occurs or is perceived by employees. This doesn't mean you can't survey different people or on different topics more regularly but you should avoid asking individuals the same things at intervals too small for change to be apparent. It is hard to set a specific interval because it also depends on what you're surveying about. If we're asking about major culture change we might wait at least three months, but if you're asking about a targeted behavioural change initiative (e.g., 'meeting effectiveness') then monthly (or less) may be appropriate.
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