How to act on employee pulse survey results

As the name suggests, a pulse survey can be a brilliant way to keep your finger on the pulse of your workforce.

It’s short, regular and focused; just what’s needed in a world where employee expectations are changing faster than ever.

But here’s the truth: the magic isn't in sending the survey. It’s what happens next that really matters, and too often employees feel like their feedback just disappears.

So how do you get this right?

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1. Start with the right questions

Before you even think about taking action, check your questions.

Are they relevant? Are they tied to what matters in your organisation and your teams right now? Or are they lifted from a generic template that could apply to any workplace, anywhere?

If the questions don’t speak to your real priorities, the answers won’t either. And if the answers are vague, so will the resulting insights and actions.

So ask questions that:

• feel relevant to people’s actual roles
• prompt actionable responses
• align with your organisation’s current focus

The ASX-listed IT firm Atturra did exactly this, which is why their CEO Stephen Kowal is able to say:

“With Teamgage I can actually predict the performance of teams 6+ weeks out.”

So this is where a carefully tailored pulse survey can really shine!

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2. Avoid the black hole

You’ve run your survey. The results are in. Now what?

This is where many organisations stumble.

The feedback disappears into a mysterious process, and employees are left wondering if anyone even read it. That’s when engagement starts to slide.

And disengagement is not something you want to add to, with data from Gartner finding that that the number of employees that consider themselves as highly engaged dropped to 19.6% in late 2024, a 10% decline from 2022.

So a powerful way to build engagement is to acknowledge and communicate your survey results in good time. This can be as simple as sharing the focus and themes from the latest survey and the next steps.

Nicole Newton, Manager, People and Culture at Mount Barker District Council, puts it well:

"One area of concern may get 33 comments and so this is what our focus will be for that month."

People don’t need a glossy report. They need to know their voice was heard and that something is happening as a result.

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3. Talk about the results

To start taking employee engagement to the next level, we need to consider opening up the conversation around our survey results and it's important to find the most appropriate level for these discussions. That may be at the individual team, department or regional level for example.

This could ultimately depend on where the insights are most relevant and where action can realistically be taken; too broad and you lose context, too narrow and the team may not feel empowered to act.

When the discussion does happen though, we've seen Teamgage customers adopt the Start, Stop, Keep methodology with participants using their results as a platform to ask:

• What should we start doing?
• What should we stop doing?
• What should we keep doing?

We've also see teams look at their results together and ask:

• What stands out?
• What needs to be addressed?
• What strengths can be built on?

As a senior leader of an ASX-listed metals and mining company said about Teamgage:

As our business evolves towards becoming an innovative and agile company, it’s vital we bring our people along the journey with us.

It’s a great reminder of the importance of involving people at every possible of stage of the improvement process.

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4. Empower action at the right level

And while we're talking about action, change and improvement, the results from your tailored pulse survey (that targets your key priorities) can then be used to help make the case for any larger changes needed.

As Tony Tyler, Manager of ICT Support Services at the Department for Education, South Australia explains:

"So not only can Teamgage help surface those insights, but also help you to make the business case for removing those smaller frustrations too."

It's important to try and resist the urge to pull all themes and insights into a centralised, top-down action plan though.

Instead, give your teams permission to act locally on the feedback they’ve raised. That could be as simple as a team member taking responsibility for an action to help team communication or removing a blockage.

Dinabee Sander, Manager, People, Strategy and System Services at the Department of Human Services SA, shared how Teamgage helped to do exactly that:

“The staff were given the opportunity to step outside of their normal roles and develop their project management skills.”

That kind of ownership doesn’t just lead to change. It builds capability, responsibility, shared ownership and trust.

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5. Let leaders lead

An effective pulse survey doesn’t just provide great data. It can give all leaders critical, real-time visibility.

The kind of visibility that shows what’s happening across every team, department, region and demographic in your organisation.

For example, Andreea Visanoiu, Engineering Practices Lead at SEEK, said:

“We've been able to identify issues early and ensure action is targeted at the right demographic and areas.”

But that kind of early intervention can only happen if insights are seen by the right person for them to take action. And it shouldn't fall solely on HR to be responsible for that.

Where possible, regular check-ins on team results need to become part of every leader’s business as usual. To help make that process as quick and effective as possible, the survey platform needs to ensure leaders can move fast with confidence without drowning in data.

It's why Teamgage have invested in:

• the latest AI technology to summarise results in second and suggest next steps
• easy to understand dashboards created with direct input from HR leaders
• the ability for thousands of comments to be grouped by topic and sentiment in seconds

This is all about surfacing the right insights to the right leaders before things escalate, and then equipping leaders to lead.

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In summary

Okay, let's recap!

We need to:

• Start with the right questions
• Avoid the black hole
• Talk about the results
• Empower action at the right level
• Let leaders lead

And remember, if your people take the time to respond, your organisation needs to show it's listening and acting.

That’s how engagement turns into real improvement; the kind that drives performance forward.