Is your finger on the pulse?

How do your employees feel? Has this changed recently? What does it all mean?

Workforce engagement is a critical issue for every organisation. 

It’s no secret that the most motivated and committed employees significantly outperform their peers. Likewise, it’s well known that demotivated, disinterested colleague cast a shadow far beyond their own lacklustre performance.

So how should organisations keep tabs on workforce engagement?

One of our favourite tools is the pulse survey, a short activity conducted on a regular basis to give a quick insight into the health of a company, employee morale and motivation. Pulse surveys typically take less than 90 seconds to complete so response rates are high and responses genuine.

Organisations that ask for feedback from their employees are able to demonstrate improvements in employee engagement and positivity of their workplace culture. This feeds through into better results and lower staff turnover.

The regularity of pulse surveys makes them habit-forming for companies and their employees, with both parties changing the way they act between surveys to influence the responses in future rounds.

The rhythm of regular surveys helps promote an open communication culture and direct action to rectify areas for improvement identified from survey results.

If you’re still not sure why this is worth the effort, it’s estimated that UK industry loses over £23bn each year due to underperformance from disengaged employees, staff turnover and workplace absence. Unless you’re confident that every member of your team is achieving their full potential, it’s likely that some share of this figure rests in your business.

Successful implementation depends on asking the right questions, making it easy to complete, ensuring teams are aware of the initiative and results, and acting on feedback received.

For support in making employee pulse surveys part of your organisation’s toolkit, talk to Vanessa Lynch at Melius for a free informal conversation about improving employee engagement in your business.