Team pulse surveys are short, easy-to-complete sets of questions sent electronically on a regular basis to do a "pulse check" of employees in areas such as engagement, satisfaction, relationships, and the work environment. They are useful for getting feedback from your team members, monitoring team effectiveness, and identifying opportunities for improvement.
This series of ten job aids explains how to design and administer pulse surveys to support team engagement, positivity, and productivity in the workplace. Each job aid offers background information and covers the key steps in the process of developing team pulse surveys.
Job aid 1: Engaging Your Team
Job aid 1: Engaging Your Team
What does engagement look like and what are its benefits? What does disengagement look like?
This job aid explores the factors that contribute to engagement among the members of a work team. This information can also be useful for drafting pulse survey questions.
Job aid 1: Using Pulse Surveys to Engage Your Team: Engaging Your Team (TRN4-J21)
Job aid 2: About Pulse Surveys
Job aid 2: About Pulse Surveys
What are team pulse surveys? How are they unique and how are they used?
This job aid explains how pulse surveys can be used to build engagement among teams, even if they are working remotely.
Job aid 2: Using Pulse Surveys to Engage Your Team: About Pulse Surveys (TRN4-J22)
Job aid 3: Model for Team Pulse Surveys
Job aid 3: Model for Team Pulse Surveys
What is the best way to develop a team pulse survey? How to begin?
This job aid describes a six-step best practices model for designing and using team pulse surveys in your workplace:
- Establish foundation
- Design and validate
- Inform and launch
- Report on responses
- Discuss results
- Take action
Job aid 3: Using Pulse Surveys to Engage Your Team: Model for Team Pulse Surveys (TRN4-J23)
Job aid 4: Choosing Pulse Survey Software and Services
Job aid 4: Choosing Pulse Survey Software and Services
Will you administer your team pulse survey in house or hire an outside firm? How do you choose a provider? What about the survey software?
This job aid can help with these decisions. It also offers general advice on privacy protections.
Job aid 4: Using Pulse Surveys to Engage Your Team: Choosing Pulse Survey Software and Services (TRN4-J24)
Job aid 5: Developing Pulse Survey Questions
Job aid 5: Developing Pulse Survey Questions
What questions should you ask? How will you formulate your questions so that they are useful and appropriate to your needs?
This job aid offers advice on writing questions, using branching, and more. It also provides examples to get you started.
Job aid 5: Using Pulse Surveys to Engage Your Team: Developing Pulse Survey Questions (TRN4-J25)
Job aid 6: Team Communication
Job aid 6: Team Communication
How do you build momentum for your team pulse survey? What messages work?
This job aid offers advice on promoting your survey, writing effective introductory messaging, reporting, sharing, discussing results, and responding to feedback.
Job aid 6: Using Pulse Surveys to Engage Your Team: Team Communication (TRN4-J26)
Job aid 7: Pulse Survey Results
Job aid 7: Pulse Survey Results
How do you interpret the results you get?
This job aid offers different perspectives for viewing and interpreting your survey results. It also addresses benchmarking results and response rates.
Job aid 7: Using Pulse Surveys to Engage Your Team: Pulse Survey Results (TRN4-J27)
Job aid 8: Team Follow-Up
Job aid 8: Team Follow-Up
When and how should a team follow-up on survey results?
This job aid is useful for developing a plan to take advantage of opportunities for improvement. It offers a planning roadmap, a decision matrix focused on impact and urgency, and advice on setting objectives for your follow-up plan.
Job aid 8: Using Pulse Surveys to Engage Your Team: Team Follow Up (TRN4-J28)
Job aid 9: Case Study of a Team Pulse Survey
Job aid 9: Case Study of a Team Pulse Survey
What can we learn from the experiences of others?
This job aid describes how a group of federal public servants used pulse surveys as a team. It highlights the best practices they followed and details the survey questions, platforms, reporting methods, and messaging applied. It also explores some of the challenges they encountered along the way.
Job aid 9: Using Pulse Surveys to Engage Your Team: Case Study of a Team Pulse Survey (TRN4-J29)
Job aid 10: Worksheet for Creating a Pulse Survey
Job aid 10: Worksheet for Creating a Pulse Survey
Is there a tool we can use to get us started?
This fillable worksheet can help your team to develop its own pulse survey. It follows the best practices model featured in job aid 3. It also provides checklists inspired by the job aids in this series.
Job aid 10: Using Pulse Surveys to Engage Your Team: Worksheet for Creating a Pulse Survey (TRN4-J30)
