We are currently seeing more employees working from home than ever before. As companies scramble to put procedures in place that will allow more employees to telecommute, the ability to measure morale and job satisfaction becomes a priority. When you aren’t seeing your team on a daily basis in the office, it’s more difficult to assess the morale of your staff. Because morale is essential for overall employee engagement and ultimately company productivity, it is more important than ever to use timely and psychometrically sound tools to determine both the morale and engagement of your staff. Annual surveys–while important–are evolving into a continuous dialogue with employees. During these uncertain times, these tools are more important than ever because they become a way to capture the employee voice and let employees know management wants to hear them. Specifically, these pulse surveys are key to keeping a handle on the temperament of your workforce.
What are Pulse Surveys
According to the HR Dictionary Blog, a pulse survey is a broad offering that generally allows a company to see the climate of its operation as a measurement of the performance of the organization. These surveys are a great way to quickly and easily determine how your employees are feeling at any given time. They are usually designed to be issued more frequently as a way of monitoring the “pulse” of the staff. These surveys are easily answered and don’t take much time at all to take. There are different types of pulse surveys including an engagement pulse, general pulse or action pulse. These offerings range from stand-alone offerings that act as quick “checkpoints” for employees to questions used to measure follow up initiatives identified in the annual engagement survey.
The Benefits of Pulse Surveys
The collection of data from pulse surveys should be as real-time as possible. Pulse surveys should be point-in-time so that changes or improvements can happen as needed. When your staff is not with you in the office, it’s more important than ever to measure how they feel about their work. Because management isn’t in the same building, the staff may be hesitant to reach out with concerns as quickly. The pulse survey will eliminate this barrier. Survey questions can easily be adjusted to fit the needs or priorities of a specific week.
Get New Ideas
Pulse surveys can be adapted to fit a variety of needs. If your staff is telecommuting, there are still lots of ways to get new ideas and suggestions. A pulse survey gives you an opportunity to obtain a collection of information at one time. Some feedback will be more helpful than others, but these surveys are designed to give your staff the opportunity to contribute their ideas and feel like valued members of the team, even when they are working in isolation.
Opening a Line of Communication
Sometimes people feel like when they complete a survey, it just goes out into the cloud and nothing ever happens. Using a pulse survey to determine the morale of your staff and to identify problems allows for the start of some great communication. The survey can then act as a catalyst to more meaningful discussion based upon survey responses. The staff will feel validated that their feelings were heard, and the communication will be based upon actual data instead of anecdotal observations.
Vary Your Questioning
Because pulse surveys will be used relatively often, it’s important that the staff aren’t getting worn out with the same questions. If the survey doesn’t change over time, employees will begin to overlook the process entirely or fail to see the value. Planning your survey questions is important, and they should include questions that are important to your staff. Employees will give honest feedback when they are being questioned on things relevant to their daily work.
Organizing Information
Organizing information can be done easily without taking much of your valuable time. HSD offers StayRight, a tool developed over 29 years that can be deployed at weekly, monthly or quarterly, or as needed intervals. Depending on need, we can often have clients up and running in less than a week. If you are interested in learning more about how HSD Metrics can assist you with pulse surveys to track employee morale, staff engagement and more during this telecommuting period, schedule a live demo with us today.