Pulse Check Benchmark in practice: a tool for improving HR effectiveness

Organization pulse benchmark

An organization pulse benchmark is a powerful tool. Especially now, when we hear from all sides that the labor market is changing rapidly, flexibility is the skill of the future, and Agile methodology is one of the most widely practiced due to its agility. Why not translate this into the surveys we conduct among our employees?

Below, we will discuss why you should conduct a pulse benchmark, what a pulse check is, and how it can help you plan and implement your organization’s HR strategy.

What is a Pulse Check Benchmark?

A Pulse Check Benchmark is a cyclical survey of the “pulse” of an organization, i.e., the mood and engagement of its employees. It differs from traditional annual or quarterly surveys in that it usually focuses on a specific aspect and the survey is quite short. This allows the survey to be conducted at shorter intervals. If necessary, it can even be conducted weekly, monthly, or quarterly.

Why measure employee engagement?

According to Gallup’s 2023 Global Emotions Report, in 2022, 23% of employees worldwide were engaged in their work. What about the remaining 77%? Presenteeism, burnout, and lack of work-life balance take a heavy toll. The State of the Global Workplace report shows that lack of engagement costs $8.8 trillion (8,800,000,000,000!) annually, which is 9% of global GDP. These are huge numbers! While employee engagement alone is not enough for an organization to be successful, its absence can be painful. As you can see from the example above, this also applies financially.

In Poland, the situation is slightly better. According to the Enpulse report, engaged employees accounted for 42% of the labor market in 2022. And the remaining 58%? You have to fight for them. Benchmarking your organization’s pulse will not only allow you to check the current level of engagement in your organization. Conducted regularly, it will provide feedback on the effectiveness of your activities to date and how employees evaluate them. This inconspicuous tool can bring you many benefits.

Advantages of the organization pulse benchmark

Pulse benchmarking is a great tool, as long as we understand how to use it. Its advantages include:

• Quick response to situations requiring action – comparing pulse check results allows you to identify worrying trends that may affect the functioning of your company. This allows you to take corrective action more quickly.
• Reporting and results in one place – thanks to digital solutions provided by HRcode, among others, you can find all the results in one place. You can quickly compare how employees answered a given question a month, two months, or six months ago. This will allow you to identify trends and make it easier to create reports and present data during meetings with management.
• Measuring the effectiveness of actions – if changes have been made based on the annual satisfaction report, there is no need to wait a year for the next survey. Regularly comparing the pulse of the organization will indicate whether the innovations introduced respond to the concerns of employees.
• Better understanding of the relationship between employee feedback and the employee life cycle – an employee’s needs today are not necessarily the same as they will be around the holidays or during vacation. Benchmarking the organization’s pulse will allow you to identify this.
• Savings – by continuously monitoring employee satisfaction and engagement in your company, you will be able to quickly determine which investments are likely to pay off and which are unnecessary. This is an opportunity to save money and invest it in areas that really matter.
• Environmental protection – you no longer need to print surveys. It may seem like a small thing, but caring for the environment is in all of our interests. Digital surveys save a few trees (and some money on paper). Your employees will certainly appreciate it.

How to conduct a pulse survey?

Creating survey questions may seem simple at first glance. However, you need to think carefully about the topic so that the answers actually provide you with data that will form the basis of your future strategy.

To conduct a pulse benchmark, follow these steps:

1. Determine the purpose of the survey. What questions do you want to find answers to? Do you want to examine relationships and contact with supervisors, find out opinions about benefits, or perhaps check whether employees see their future in the organization? All of this is important, so it is worth asking the right questions.
2. Select the research group. It does not have to be the entire organization; it can be individual departments or their representatives.
   Assess your resources. If your company employs people who have the methodological background to properly design and conduct a pulse check survey, that’s great. If not, outsource its preparation.
3. Communicate. Attendance is important for the success of your survey. Talk about the survey from the moment it is prepared, through its implementation, to the results and… corrective measures. You can use the language of benefits to help employees see the value of the survey. If they see that the survey will really change something in their environment, they will feel heard and be more willing to participate.
4. Conduct a survey. It is best to do this using a modern HR platform. This will allow employees to participate at a convenient time and place, and you will be able to easily generate a report, analyze the results, and implement an action plan.

Remember that credibility is very valuable these days. It takes a long time to build, but it can be easily destroyed. If you conduct a satisfaction survey and let the results gather dust in a corner, employees will no longer see the point in participating in the organization’s pulse benchmark. They will treat it as a waste of time.

The organization pulse benchmark is a modern tool for measuring employee morale and engagement within an organization. It is much more effective than traditional annual or quarterly surveys because it allows for regular monitoring and response to changes. Comparing survey results can only help here.

Employee engagement surveys are becoming increasingly important, given the global trend of disengagement from work (known as “quiet quitting”), which generates enormous costs.

The credibility of the survey and an effective response to the results are key to its success. Therefore, it is worth considering implementing this tool to improve the effectiveness and engagement of employees in the organization.

See how the Pulse Check HRcode module works – Schedule a demo!

Bibliography:
https://www.gallup.com/analytics/349280/gallup-global-emotions-report.aspx;
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx;
https://assets-global.website-files.com/62fb7b2dac251825fd07ad4a/64240c43de83377a91f875ef_Enpulse_Zaangazowanie_Raport2022.pdf.