The Employee Communication Platform

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Updated: 19 September 2022

The last list of employee pulse survey questions you’ll ever need. Learn the number one question you should ask all employees and more.

Want to find out what employees really think about your organization? There’s only one way to find out for sure – ask them in an employee pulse survey.

We know that engaged employees are happy employees. Employee pulse surveys are a great way to gather quick and targeted feedback from employees and see who’s feeling engaged and who’s not.

Perhaps you want to understand how the internal communications plan has impacted remote workers. Or maybe you want feedback on the new employee recognition scheme.

Many companies are also using surveys to supplement annual employee surveys and track progress. Whatever the case may be, employee pulse surveys will get you the answers you need and are great for improving employee communication.

In this post, we share some tips on how to create employee pulse survey questions that will help you understand what is important to your employees.

And to make it even easier for you, we’ve included a full list of over 50 pulse survey questions we’ve used to massively increase employee engagement for our customers.

Best Practice Tips for Writing Survey Questions

Best Practice Tips for Writing Survey Questions

  1. Keep it short.
    By definition, surveys are short and snappy. Try to keep your survey to just three to six pulse survey questions. That way, you’ll avoid survey fatigue and are more likely to get a good response rate. Plus, a short pulse survey makes it easier for you to analyze the results.
  2. Make it relevant.
    Keep the end goal firmly in view and ensure every question is relevant. Don’t be tempted to include those “nice to know” items. Instead, your pulse survey questions should address a specific need within your company culture.
  3. Focus on action.
    Ensure you can act on the survey’s results. Staff will quickly become reluctant to complete pulse surveys if they don’t see positive action in response. Head off frustration and mistrust by visibly acting on the survey results.
  4. Be fast and frequent.Surveys are designed to be conducted quickly and regularly. The aim is to get a snapshot of employees’ views or a quick check-in on progress.

Survey Question Structure

Survey Question Structure

There are three main types of questions to select from as follows:

And when it comes to the right mix of questions, we recommend the 70:20:10 rule:

Employee Pulse Survey Questions Straight from Our Customer Library

Engagement Level

Trust

Organizational and role fit

Ownership / Involvement

Happiness/Satisfaction

Personal Growth

Health & Wellbeing

Leadership

My Job

Communications

Rewards & Recognition

Health & Wellbeing (Remote)

Customer Focus

Resources

Why Use Employee Pulse Surveys

Why Use Employee Pulse Surveys
Now you know how to create employee survey questions to improve employee engagement and add to your company culture.
If you need to demonstrate how they can add value, here are our top reasons to create employee surveys.

Track engagement

Engaged employees are happy to fill out surveys and will usually do so by the deadline you set them. If only 20% of your employees are completing your pulse survey questions, it’s time to ask yourself why this is.
It’s important to incentivize completion to get a full and accurate picture of your company culture.

Gauge general mood

If most of your workforce has completed your pulse survey, you should be able to gauge how your employees are feeling. You may be able to identify themes emerging across the organization.

Make employees feel listened to

Creating a pulse survey gives employees a chance to give their thoughts and opinions. A good employee pulse survey will ask the sorts of questions that help employees feel listened to. Their responses will give you the opportunity to ensure their hard work feels appreciated and allows them to receive meaningful recognition.

Encourage honest feedback

An anonymous pulse survey means that employees don’t feel pressured into giving an answer they think you want to hear. Honest feedback is important because it creates opportunities to improve the employee experience and other business areas.

Discover new ideas

In a large organization, it’s impossible to hear ideas first-hand from every employee. The right pulse survey questions can certainly go a long way to helping you hear opinions and career goals from people you rarely hear from.

How to Respond to the Data

How to Respond to the Data

There is no point in creating pulse survey questions unless you plan on using the responses to improve employee satisfaction. Next, we explore the next steps you should take after your pulse survey is complete.

Thank your employees

This should go without saying but thanking your employees should be the first thing you do after they’ve completed your pulse survey questions. This gratitude might be as simple as sending an email or asking your leadership team to record a video.
For improved completion rates, you might include an incentive for those who complete the pulse survey questions. This might be a voucher, a morning or afternoon added to their annual leave, or providing a few edible treats for the office.

Look out for trends in the data

It’s likely that when you were creating your pulse survey questions, you had a few questions in mind that you hoped to address. Perhaps you’ve noticed a growing trend of burnout and were concerned about work-life balance for your workforce. It might be that staff retention is at an all-time low, and you’d love to understand why.
Group results into the themes you want to address. Let’s imagine you have noticed staff starting to take time off due to burnout. Look for the questions that reveal more about why this is.
If your pulse survey reveals that 75% of staff feel unhappy with their work-life balance, and the majority give a negative response to the statement “What level of flexibility are you given to manage your work-life balance?”, you can surmise that there is a problem with the workload that’s affecting your team’s happiness.
Having an employee engagement platform with an insights dashboard can make spotting trends much easier.

Communicate findings

If you’ve noticed an emerging picture, you should communicate this with the wider team.
It’s important for employee engagement for them to understand that you’ve seen their concerns and that you plan to do something about them.
It doesn’t all need to be bad news. Pulse surveys are great at revealing the things your company is doing well.
Taking our previous example, you might have noticed that employees feel their workload is too much. However, they might resonate with your company values or love working at a place with a fun, inclusive culture.

Create goals

Once you’ve identified running themes and you’ve communicated them with the team, create goals. These should be tangible, actionable responses you can measure using your next pulse survey questions.
For example, if professional development opportunities have been raised as a concern, set a goal to offer additional training to X% of staff.
Create a question in your next survey to ask whether employees have noticed an improvement in development opportunities. You should have set a goal to see an improvement of X%.

Address negative feedback

It’s challenging to please everyone at an organization, but there is some feedback that you shouldn’t ignore, even if it only applies to one or two employees.
For example, if employees feel as though they have experienced discriminatory behavior, it’s essential to dig into this further. You may want to offer employees the opportunity to submit their experiences to your HR professionals. They may wish to do so anonymously to protect their identity.
It’s important to show that you’re taking action against anything that can seriously impact employees’ well-being. Create a plan to address the negative feedback, and make sure that you communicate this with the team in a discreet way that doesn’t put anyone at risk.

Get creativeGet creative

There are always several ways to meet your goals. They don’t always need to be huge structural changes to the organization. Often, a combination of both is ideal.
Create newsletters or podcasts to address some of the concerns raised or plan staff awards or shout-outs to boost morale and recognition. Doing things that are visible and accessible to all staff to participate in makes it clear that you’re addressing some of your findings.

Track and communicate progress

As we’ve previously touched on, clear and consistent internal communications are key!
Update your team with any news on progress at frequent intervals. Invite feedback to see whether you’re heading in the right direction. This can save you a lot of time and energy going forward.

Do another pulse survey

You should create pulse survey questions frequently. Annual surveys are an excellent idea, but it’s great to do more if you think they are needed.
Be aware that if you create too many pulse surveys, employee engagement is likely to suffer. No one wants to feel that answering daily pulse surveys is another regular chore to add to an already long to-do list.
Future pulse surveys should be tweaked and adjusted to address themes and issues you’ve spotted in past pulse surveys. This is a great way to track progress and ensure that employees feel that the surveys are there for a reason and are not just paying lip service.

Love Our Employee Survey Questions? 

We’ve got a PDF containing all of the best survey questions from our library that you can download now to use later. Simply click on the link below.