Pulse Surveys help you gather timely feedback on how employees feel about your organization. You can use them to track morale and engagement over time, understand the impact of company initiatives, and identify areas where action may be helpful.
Pulse Surveys are typically shorter and more focused than traditional annual surveys and can run more frequently. They’re flexible enough to use for regular check-ins or as your organization’s main engagement survey. You can create customized questionnaires, collect anonymous comments, and use eNPS to understand how likely employees are to recommend your organization as a place to work.
What can you do with Pulse Surveys?
Pulse Surveys give you the flexibility to gather the feedback that matters to your organization. You can:
Create customized surveys or start with pre-built templates
Run one-time or recurring surveys
Measure eNPS
Collect anonymous comments
Analyze results across employee groups and time periods
Step 1: Prepare your questions
Before creating a survey, decide what you want to learn and how you plan to use the results. Having a clear goal makes it easier to choose focused questions and take meaningful action on the feedback you receive.
Read our guide to planning your Pulse Survey for guidance on setting a goal and writing effective questions.
Tip: Start light. Short, focused surveys are easier for employees to complete regularly, and you can adjust future surveys based on what you learn.
Step 2: Build your survey
Go to Pulse Surveys > Company and select + Create Survey. From there, you’ll choose your participants, configure the survey schedule, build your questionnaire, and set up notifications.
Choose participants
Choose whether you want to include your entire company or a specific group of employees.
To choose specific participants, use Select People and select employees based on departments, locations, or other employee attributes.
Continue to the survey details when your initial participant list is ready.
You can add more employees after creating the survey, so your participant list doesn’t need to be final.
Set the name and introduction
Give your survey a descriptive name. The default title is “Monthly Pulse Survey,” but a more specific name can make surveys easier to identify, particularly if you run several.
Add an introduction explaining what you’re hoping to learn, why employee participation matters, and how you plan to use the results.
Giving employees this context can help them understand the survey's purpose and provide more meaningful feedback.
Configure the schedule
Set when the survey should launch, how often it should repeat, and how long employees have to respond.
Set the Start date. This is the date the survey launches and participants receive their configured notifications.
Set the Deadline to determine how long participants have to respond to each survey occurrence.
Choose the Frequency: weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly, custom, or non-repeating.
Enable Avoid weekends if you want surveys scheduled over a weekend to launch the following Monday instead.
For recurring surveys, optionally set Repeat Until to determine when the survey should stop repeating. If you leave this blank, the survey will continue to repeat without a set end date.
Note: Repeat Until controls when a recurring survey stops launching. It is separate from the Deadline, which determines how long participants have to respond to each survey occurrence.
Build the questionnaire
You can start with a pre-built survey template or create your own questionnaire.
Pre-built templates provide ready-to-use questions and rating scales for common survey topics. After selecting a template, you can customize the questionnaire to fit what you want to learn.
If you prefer to build your own questionnaire, you can add and configure questions from scratch.
As you build your questionnaire, you can:
Add numbered rating-scale questions
Add free-text questions
Customize rating-scale labels
Use rating scales with up to 10 options
Allow participants to leave comments
Make questions required or optional
Reorder or remove questions before launching the survey
Add questions from existing pre-built survey templates
Note: Once a survey has been launched and responses have been collected, its questions cannot be deleted or reordered.
Add eNPS
eNPS can be enabled when setting up your questionnaire and used on its own as a standalone survey or included with other Pulse Survey questions.
Including eNPS with other questions can help you understand the experiences that may be contributing to your overall score. Running eNPS on its own gives employees a quick, lightweight way to share how they’re feeling.
The same anonymity and confidentiality thresholds that apply to other Pulse Survey questions also apply to eNPS results.
Configure notifications
Choose how participants should be notified when the survey launches.
Select email, Slack, or both. Make sure at least one notification channel is selected.
Choose whether to enable an automatic reminder before the deadline.
The timing of automatic reminders depends on the survey frequency:
Weekly or biweekly surveys: 24 hours before the deadline
Monthly or longer surveys: Seven days before the deadline
Once you’ve finished configuring your survey, create it using the action available in the bottom panel.
Step 3: Communicate and launch
When the survey launches, Small Improvements sends participants an email, a Slack message, or both, depending on the notification settings you selected.
Clear communication can help improve participation and help employees feel comfortable sharing meaningful feedback. Before or around the launch, explain:
Why your organization is running the survey
How and where employees should participate
Who will have access to the results
How your organization plans to use and act on the feedback
Who has been invited to participate, when relevant
It’s also helpful to explain how responses are anonymized and the steps your organization and Small Improvements take to protect confidentiality.
Step 4: Analyze the results
Survey results update as employees respond. You can review responses, analyze results across different time periods and employee groups, and explore eNPS results when eNPS is included in your survey.
See Viewing, analyzing, and sharing Pulse Survey results to learn how to review, analyze, and share your results.
Frequently asked questions
How many questions can I include in a survey?
How many questions can I include in a survey?
There is no limit to the number of questions you can include. The right number depends on what you’re using the survey for.
For regular pulse checks that run weekly, biweekly, or monthly, aim for around five to seven questions to keep participation quick and focused. If you’re using Pulse Surveys for a larger annual, quarterly, or engagement survey, you may want to include more questions to cover a broader range of topics.
Tip: Start with what you want to learn, then include only the questions that help you get there. Keeping your questionnaire focused can make it easier for employees to participate and for you to act on the results.
Can I run eNPS without adding other questions?
Can I run eNPS without adding other questions?
Yes. You can run eNPS as a standalone survey or include it with other Pulse Survey questions.
Are survey questions required?
Are survey questions required?
You can make individual questions required or optional when setting up the questionnaire.
Survey results update as participants respond. Participants can edit their responses until the deadline, and incomplete responses may still be included in the results.
How can managers or company leaders view the results?
How can managers or company leaders view the results?
You can share survey results with other people in your organization. See Viewing, analyzing, and sharing Pulse Survey results for instructions.
How do I remind employees to participate?
How do I remind employees to participate?
You can enable an automatic reminder when setting up the survey. Depending on the survey frequency, the reminder is sent either 24 hours or seven days before the deadline.
For additional reminders, you can use your organization’s internal communication channels, ask managers to remind their teams, include the survey in a newsletter, or mention it during an all-hands meeting.
How do I export survey results?
How do I export survey results?
You can export results from the survey overview using the available export option in the Admin drop-down.
Can I delete a survey?
Can I delete a survey?
Yes. First, archive the survey from the Admin drop-down. Once it has been archived, the deletion option appears in the drop-down.
Before deleting the survey, you’ll be asked to confirm that you understand it cannot be recovered or restored.