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The one-off employee survey is well established. Most companies in Germany and Europe run one at least every four years, and a third of them run one annually. But in a world that turns ever faster, and in which data reaches us ever more quickly, many companies are taking the step to quarterly, monthly or even weekly pulse surveys. The advantages are clear:
  • The effect of external developments, such as market shifts or crises, shows up in the mood barometer immediately
  • The influence of internal developments, such as a change of management or a merger, can be measured directly
  • Questions can be aimed at the projects and plans that are actually running right now, which makes them more relevant to employees
  • A shorter project cycle keeps insight and action close together
  • Once measures have been agreed, their effect shows up in the very next survey cycle
HR teams are often convinced already. Internally, though, they meet the same resistance as anyone trying to change something. This article is meant to help you make the case in your own company.

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”It is too much work”

The argument: Look at the effort one survey a year already takes. If we do this every month we will do nothing but run surveys. The answer: A survey project normally covers preparation, running and evaluation. Because pulse surveys turn this from a project into a process, the effort actually goes down. The lengthy business of getting to grips with the subject matter, the preparatory communication and the evaluation of a complex questionnaire fall away entirely. Running lightweight pulse surveys — fewer questions, more frequent cycles — mirrors the lean approach that management already recognises from production and other processes.

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”Employees will be overloaded with rating things”

The argument: If people are asked for feedback constantly, they will spend all their time rating and quickly lose interest. The answer: If each person invests 5–10 minutes per cycle to give a better picture of where we stand and what we have achieved since the last survey, that is time well spent. In practice people would rather give five minutes every few weeks than 45 minutes once a year. What matters is that people know management sees the results and takes them seriously — and that is true of an annual survey just as much as a pulse survey.

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”It is not comprehensive enough”

The argument: You cannot find out everything that matters in 12 questions. The answer: Employee surveys with 60–100 questions were designed by researchers. The nuances that separate the questions often exist purely as a control mechanism, and they only work if every person thinks and answers conscientiously. In reality people tend to rate the topic in general rather than respond to every nuance, so the control questions miss their effect. The essential points an employee survey has to cover can be reduced to a few important and current ones.

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”We have always run the same survey and we have all the data”

The argument: We have done it this way for ten years. We have all the historical data and we will lose the trends if we switch. The answer: The world has changed completely. Both we as a company and our employees think and act differently. The questions we asked ourselves ten years ago may not be the right ones today. Trends are also always a matter of how current the data is and how many data points there are. Pulse surveys gather those data points considerably faster, so trends become visible sooner and you can react to them sooner. If you come across arguments in your company that are not listed here, get in touch — we are glad to help.