Don’t Just Pulse: Share, Engage, and Connect

Now more than ever before, companies need to connect with their employees. In addition to checking in on employee well-being, there is an urgent need to avoid operational disruption in these very disruptive times. New kinds of challenges are surfacing as employees adjust to new ways of working, and the faster they are uncovered, the faster they can be resolved. Today’s fluid work environment requires flexible, real-time communication.

Pulse surveys are not enough

To address this, many providers are offering pulse surveys as a solution. At Explorance, we’ve also shared a set of questions that can be used to help organizations who need to begin gathering data quickly. Although this is helpful and the intentions are good, launching regular pulse surveys in practice is less than optimal for several reasons:

• Survey Fatigue: There is a strong risk of diminishing response rates because, in this dynamic environment, you’re likely to need employee feedback at multiple points in time.
• Reporting: As data is collected, it must be analyzed. Who will do this, and how quickly?
• Follow Up: It is inherently challenging to close the loop on survey data in a personalized way, which is even more critical right now. How will employees know that their feedback has been heard, and how can follow-ups be done while respecting their privacy?
• Complexity: It’s deceptively easy to set up the first pulse survey but asking the same questions over and over may not be helpful. Different audiences may need different questions based on what has been learned from previous surveys. Making constant adjustments to tailor surveys start to get too cumbersome, as does the analysis.

A simpler solution for employee engagement

What’s needed right now is a solution that allows for the flexible feedback gathering and decision agility that every organization needs, but in a way that keeps employee engagement at the forefront. The Bluepulse application and mobile app from Explorance can serve those needs and act as your two-way employee engagement hub.

There are a number of benefits to creating a two-way engagement hub with Bluepulse:

• Leaders can quickly share information, resources, updates
• Leaders at any level can pulse their employees with relevant questions
• Flexibility is essential. Not only can managers pulse the people that report to them, but senior leaders can pulse their entire teams. For example, the CEO could pulse everyone in the organization, or a Finance VP could pulse everyone in Finance.
• Responses are confidential by default, so employees can be candid as they are either sending direct feedback or responding to a question
• It’s easy to create dialogue by creating ‘discussion’ topics that enable employees to share and engage with each other

There are no surveys to create

With Bluepulse, it takes seconds to ask a question, share resources, or create a discussion thread, and results become visible as responses are submitted. It’s also easy to follow up and respond directly, either to a group of individuals who responded similarly or to specific individuals who need rapid follow-ups. Confidentiality is maintained, even if a follow up is personalized to the individual.

Here’s a real-world example

We use Bluepulse internally at Explorance to share information and provide a dedicated place to collect employee voice. Earlier this week, our CEO, Samer Saab, sent a company-wide update email. Immediately after, he posted a question on Bluepulse inviting employees to ask any questions about the message. He set up the question so that the responses would be confidential; the employee’s identity would not be revealed. This is important because even in the most transparent environments, fear tends to hold people back from sharing candid feedback. The responses were not public, either. As the question originator, only he saw the responses that were submitted. As questions came in, he shared each question and his response on a discussion thread so that all employees could see. It was a very efficient and effective way to gather immediate feedback and close the loop right away.

Everyone benefits

Bluepulse makes it easy for both leaders and employees to share, engage, and connect. It can complement your organization’s continuous listening strategy to help improve employee engagement, change management, transformation, development programs, and many other areas. However, during this unprecedented time, this simple yet powerful solution can help keep everyone together and moving forward. We want to help keep organizations moving forward even when the world feels like it’s standing still.

Let us help.

It’s easy to get started! If you would like to learn more about how Bluepulse can become your organization’s engagement hub, let’s talk!

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