You can’t hope to improve the employee experience and employee engagement if you don’t regularly listen to your people. But traditional surveys and focus groups can take a lot of time and energy to do well. In this blog, we’ll talk about how an employee pulse survey can be a faster and even more effective way to collect employee feedback all year long.
So, if you’re eager to strengthen employee engagement and cultivate a workplace where every voice is heard, read on to uncover the secrets to mastering pulse surveys!
The world of employee feedback is changing rapidly. In 2025, more organisations are shifting from annual engagement surveys to frequent, lightweight pulse-check-ins in order to keep pace with evolving workforce sentiment. For example, research shows that 75 % of firms are transitioning to real-time feedback systems by 2025. (SHRM, June 2025)
You’ll also find growing adoption of AI-driven sentiment analysis in pulse survey tools: more than 70 % of companies in a recent 2025 survey report they use AI to analyse open-ended feedback from pulse surveys.
In short: if your pulse survey approach looks like 2015 rather than 2025, you’re likely missing opportunities for insight and action.
An employee pulse survey is a short questionnaire designed to gauge the sentiments, opinions, and feedback of employees on specific topics in real-time. Because they are short (1-5 questions), you can ask your employees to complete them far more frequently than traditional surveys.
A pulse survey typically consists of a few targeted questions that can be quickly answered, making it convenient for employees to participate regularly. These surveys are often administered through digital platforms, such as employee apps, email, and texting, where employees can easily access and respond to the questions at their convenience.
Because a pulse survey tends to be very short, you have to narrow your focus. An example might be to learn more about employee wellbeing at your organization. If you’ve learned that this is an area of opportunity for your business, once you plan your strategy to try to improve wellbeing, you would want to use pulse surveys to learn if you are moving the needle.
This pulse survey might include the following questions:
You would then share this survey at regular intervals (like every month) as you roll out your wellness initiatives to see if you begin to move the needle. And if you aren’t seeing improvements, this helps guide your focus groups and helps you learn why your efforts aren’t making the kind of impact you want.
You might be thinking that pulse surveys are too limited to be worth your time. But there are many reasons why this type of survey might actually be superior to traditional surveys.
Pulse surveys are no longer just short and frequent; they’re now embedded within continuous listening strategies. Organizations are pairing them with passive listening methods—such as system-usage data and internal chat sentiment analysis—to detect mood shifts and intervene earlier.
A Q1 2025 benchmarking study found that companies using quarterly pulse surveys combined with continuous listening dashboards achieved noticeably higher engagement indices than those relying solely on annual surveys.
Another key data point: the global market for pulse survey tools is projected to grow at a CAGR of approximately 6.6% from 2025 to 2035, underscoring the rising strategic investment in this approach.
Although an employee pulse survey has many benefits, there are a few cons to look out for.
Like with any type of survey, survey fatigue can still happen. This is when you repeatedly ask employees to give you feedback and they see no action taken as a result. Because pulse surveys might be sent more often and repeatedly, it can be easy to forget to report on the results and trends and to let employees know how their feedback is being used. When employees feel overwhelmed by the constant influx of surveys without seeing tangible outcomes, they may become less willing to participate.
But pulse surveys are also limited in what they can tell you. The brevity of these surveys might not allow for a deep exploration of complex topics or issues. It will require you to do additional digging to learn more. We recommend a mix of interviews and focus groups to supplement what your pulse surveys tell you.
Finally, because pulse surveys are easy to put together, it can be tempting to send them too frequently or without as much thought and consideration as you would a longer survey. Make sure you carefully audit the questions you include, edit the copy so it’s easy to understand, and carefully consider how often you’re asking employees to provide feedback.
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Pulse surveys can be used for nearly every initiative because you can target them to impacted groups and easily share them. But some of the top uses for an employee pulse survey are:
By leveraging pulse surveys in these various ways, you’ll gain valuable insights into your workforce, foster a culture of continuous improvement, and enhance overall employee satisfaction and engagement.
Let’s now talk about honing your pulse survey skills. These best practices will ensure that you ask actionable surveys and maximize participation.
Leverage New-Era Capabilities – As you design your pulse survey strategy for 2025 and beyond, consider the following emerging practices: implement AI-powered dashboards to surface key themes or sentiment trends, deploy micro-surveys (2–3 questions) triggered by real-time events such as major organizational changes or manager transitions, and establish a rapid “close-the-loop” process where feedback results in visible action within short timeframes. This approach not only enhances trust but also drives participation and relevance.
When it comes to conducting pulse surveys and ensuring maximum participation, theEMPLOYEEapp offers a comprehensive set of communication tools designed to engage the entire workforce and make survey sharing seamless:
By leveraging theEMPLOYEEapp’s suite of internal comms channels, you can effectively distribute pulse surveys to your entire workforce, increasing participation rates and ensuring that no employee’s voice goes unheard.
To ensure your pulse survey strategy is grounded in measurable reality, keep the following benchmarks in mind:
Response rate: Aim for 50–70% participation in well-communicated, short pulse surveys. This can be even higher when frontline or deskless workers are effectively included.
Engagement index (EI): For larger organizations (5,000+ employees), expect an average EI of around 6.7 in early 2025 — anything above 7.0 is a strong positive indicator.
Trend-change measurement: Track improvements over time rather than one-off scores — for example, “Did the average wellbeing score improve from last quarter’s 3.2 to 3.5?”
Time to action: Organizations that acted on pulse feedback within two weeks recorded an average 5-point increase in recognition scores over six months.
Using these metrics helps shift the focus from simply “we ran a survey” to “we used it to drive meaningful action.”
Sydney Lauro is the Demand Generation Manager for theEMPLOYEEapp. Prior to joining the team at theEMPLOYEEapp, Sydney worked in internal communications for Chipotle Mexican Grill. She uses her internal comms expertise and passion for improving communication and the employee experience to create content and share best practices to help other communications professionals.
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