Are you a manager at your company? Perhaps one of your biggest concerns is motivating your staff. It is a common issue that managers deal with. The concept of motivation can lead to successful management.

In fact, some companies end up spending thousands of dollars to motivate their employees. Plus, even when employees are motivated there may still be unaddressed problems.

If you really want to motivate your employees and boost their morale, then there’s no better way than to get closer to them. When managers get to know their employees and find areas that require improvement, then employees feel that they are valued. This can trigger them to get motivated.

How do you get to know your employees then? Through staff pulse surveys, that’s how!

What Are They?

To put it simply, they’re a gateway to your employee. Staff pulse surveys are surveys that are usually sent on a monthly basis. They ask questions related to the job such as the employee’s satisfaction, their relationship with their work, the work environment they are in and other questions related to the job.

These surveys sound amazing, right? In fact, they’re a very easy and convenient way to get to know your employee better. However, the struggle doesn’t end here. Still, let’s go over the advantages of staff pulse surveys first.

Advantages

First off, staff pulse surveys are convenient. How easy is it to print a few survey forms and hand them out to your esteemed staff? Since they’re basic questions, your employees won’t take a lot of time filling them out. They’ll return them quickly, so staff pulse surveys are time-efficient as well. If managers don’t have to personally interview or inquire about the work environment from their employees, they can do it this way.

Moreover, this feedback can be extremely essential to figure out what’s wrong with the workplace. It can be very tricky to find out what’s wrong with your workplace. That’s why problems at the workplace are a topic that stresses many managers. They know how tough it can be to figure out what’s wrong. So managers find it very helpful to collect and gather resourceful information about their employees through these surveys.

Speaking of information, successful managers are often concerned about the way they are leading their team. Humans have faults and successful managers know this. Through staff pulse surveys, they can figure out the problems in their leadership style, and then change it accordingly to make the workplace better for everyone.

Staff pulse surveys can make employees feel valued. Not every business organization cares for the opinions of their employees. Some don’t even bother to take feedback. So taking surveys, especially the ones that talk about job satisfaction, can have a positive impact on employees. This may motivate them. Leading to efficiency at work and better results.

Disadvantages

There are several advantages of staff pulse surveys, but we can’t just ignore the fact that humans are at work here, right? Even something simple like staff pulse surveys can go wrong in many ways. Here’s how:

First, not every business organization knows what to do with this information that they suddenly have about their employees. When it comes to information, employees might believe that the problems they have identified will be worked on.

Is the management flexible enough to overview those problems? Let alone change according to them? The answer might not be an immediate yes. Plus, if the employees feel that the staff pulse survey was just a formality and that their opinions are not valued in the workplace this may demotivate them. Demotivation can lead to a huge crisis at work in terms of low employee morale. Any demotivated employee is contagious as demotivation does not stick to one individual only. It often leads one person into a conflict with someone else at work, and this chain continues until it is stopped.

Managers don’t want conflicts at work, and they definitely want to avoid multiple conflicts.

So how do managers use staff pulse surveys properly? Is there even a proper way to use them?

The Proper Way

Organizations are slowly moving toward an environment where employee valuation is necessary. Where employees are actually treated like humans, not slaves. So why not use staff pulse surveys properly?

The most common problem is when companies collect too much data and they don’t know what to do with it. Suddenly, they have a lot of information related to their employees, but they don’t know how it can be made useful.

That’s when you know your purpose was not defined. Managers need to understand that before doing any activity, survey, or task the purpose needs to be well-defined. If there are no proper aims, then there’s nowhere for the information to go.

Proper directions need to be set. These directions will allow the manager(s) to decide the course of actions they should take after collecting the information. For example, before the survey the proper questions need to be asked to ensure that the right data is collected. Quality surveys can be created using many questions. But after the survey, the data needs to be properly documented and stored so that it can be used in the best way possible.

Analyzing Data

Another key element is to analyze the data that has been collected. Data analysis can take shape and form in many ways. There is a simple way, where you can illustrate data in charts, diagrams and then make analysis from it.

Another way is to take out conclusions from the data that has been collected through the staff pulse surveys. For example, 15 out of 20 employees chose casual clothing on a normal day and 5 chose formal clothing. You can safely conclude here that the majority is in favor of casual clothing.

However, since it is the workplace, things may not be so simple. The manager may need to make decisions and changes that do not please everyone. This will likely impact the whole organization and some might not be happy with how things turn out. That is where conflict resolution comes into play.

Staff pulse surveys are an amazing way to figure out what’s wrong with your organization. Managers should actively try to hold staff pulse surveys for the welfare of their employees and to find out if the organization needs a change in policy or leadership style. This can easily motivate employees when they actually see their opinions being valued in the workplace.