Pulse: CareerPlug's employee engagement survey

Pulse gives greater visibility into your team's well-being, highlights issues contributing to employee attrition, and offers actionable recommendations to reduce turnover proactively. With Pulse, you can quickly identify the underlying issues affecting your team and gain the necessary feedback to retain and grow your employees.

In this article:

What is Pulse?

Pulse is CareerPlug's employee engagement survey tool that identifies employee engagement and surfaces feedback to drive employee retention and growth. Pulse helps you understand what your team and employees need to be successful.

Adding Pulse to your account gives you access to:

Pulse employee
engagement survey
  • Send engagement surveys weekly to get a pulse on how your employees are doing.
  • Survey sent via text message and email, depending on an employee's account preferences.
    • If employees have not added a phone number to their profile or they've opted out of text message notifications, they will only receive an email with a link to the survey.
    • Employees can respond from their phones with no sign-in required, making it easy to give feedback.
Pulse notifications
and reminders
  • Set the day and time when the Pulse notifications are sent to employees.
  • Automatically send reminders to employees after 24 hours.
  • Our employee surveys let you control when reminders to take Pulse are sent, including day of the week and time. Employees have the option to recieve them via email or text.
Pulse dashboard
  • View survey responses and feedback at an individual employee level and monitor trends in an employee's sentiments over time.
  • Leverage employee feedback to identify areas for improvement, make informed decisions, and proactively address morale.
Pulse manager
recommendations
  • View actionable recommendations to an employee's specific responses to address morale and growth.

What are the benefits?

Increase visibility into
employee well-being
  • Quickly identify if an employee is struggling, feeling disconnected, or experiencing challenges.
Increase employee
engagement
  • Gauge the level of employee engagement, identify areas for improvement, and proactively boost engagement.
  • Engaged employees are more likely to be productive, satisfied, and committed to their work.
Make data-driven
decisions
  • Leverage data to make informed decisions about resource allocation, organizational changes, and employee initiatives.
  • Identify trends, track progress, and evaluate the impact of interventions related to employee engagement and satisfaction.
Reduce employee
turnover
  • Establish regular check-ins with employees and implement recommended strategies to reduce the high cost of turnover and enhance employee retention.

How do I set up Pulse for my team?

1. Click the Team tab in your top navigation bar.

Dashboard (4.19.24) (Team arrow).png

2. Click the Pulse tab on your Team page.

Team tab - Team Directory (Pulse tab arrow).png

3. Verify that all of your direct reports are listed on the Team Pulse page.

Team tab - Team Pulse page (employees highlight).png

Note: If you don't see all of your direct reports listed on the Team Pulse page, you need to assign yourself as their manager from the Team Directory page.

It's important to set your team up properly because Pulse will only be sent to a manager's direct reports and a manager can only see responses from their direct reports.

4. Click the Settings button.

Team tab - Team Pulse page (Settings arrow).png

5. Verify that Survey Notifications are toggled On — if not, click the On option.

6. Select the Day of the Week you want to send the Pulse survey to your direct reports from the drop-down menu.

7. Select the Time of Day you want to send the Pulse survey to your direct reports from the drop-down menu.

8. Click the Save Changes button.

Team tab - Team Pulse page (Pulse Survey Settings drawer) (arrows).png

The Pulse survey will now be sent to your direct reports on the designated day and time.

What if I don't see all of my direct reports listed on the Team Pulse page?

1. If you need to assign yourself as the manager for an employee not listed on your Team Pulse page, navigate to your Team Directory tab.

Team tab - Team Pulse page (Team Dir arrow).png

2. Click the checkbox next to any direct reports that are missing from your Pulse page.

3. Select Assign Manager from the Select an Action drop-down menu.

Team tab - Team Directory (Bulk employees selected) (checkbox highlights).png

4. Choose your name from the Select New Manager drop-down menu.

5. Click the Submit Change button.

Team tab - Team Directory (Bulk employees selected) (arrows).png

Note: With the bulk select option, you can mark an employee as former to keep your retention rate accurate and stop them from receiving notifications. Select Assign Status from the Select an Action drop-down menu, then Former from the Select New Status drop-down menu, and click the Submit Change button.

Team tab - Team Directory (Bulk employees selected) (Assign Status - Former) (highlights).png

How do employees use Pulse?

Note: If employees have not added a phone number to their profile or they've opted out of text message notifications, they will only receive an email with a link to the survey. They can add a phone number from the Personal tab in My Profile.

Employees will receive the Pulse survey notification weekly on the designated day and time. This notification — sent via text message and email — includes a link with five questions for employees to answer.

Employees can also complete Pulse from within CareerPlug. They must navigate to the Pulse tab in My Profile and click the Take Survey button.

Employees can answer as few or as many questions as they'd like every week, and there's an option to add comments with each answer.

How do I view my team's Pulse feedback?

1. Navigate to Team > Pulse.

Team tab - Team Directory (Team+Pulse highlights).png

2. Click the View Pulse button next to any of your direct reports.

Team tab - Team Pulse page (View Pulse arrow).png

On the Pulse tab of the employee's profile, you'll see each Pulse survey question/statement represented by a tile. Each tile shows:

  • The survey question/statement
  • A chart showing the employee's responses to the statement
  • An average of the employee's sentiment (if available) represented as weather conditions (cloudy, sunny, etc.)
  • An actionable recommendation (if applicable) to address an employee's response to a specific statement

Employee Profile - Pulse tab (Tile highlights).png

3. Click any tile on an employee's Pulse tab to see employee comments on a particular statement and more details on manager recommendations.

Employee Profile - Pulse tab (Tile arrow).png

4. Review the full Manager Recommendation and consider how you can apply the recommendation to your employee.

Employee Profile - Pulse tab (Pulse Insight Details) (top) (highlights).png

Note: You can see how frequently a particular question/statement is sent to the employee at the top of the Pulse Response Details page.

5. Review the full Employee Comment(s) to get more details on your employee's feedback.

Employee Profile - Pulse tab (Pulse Insight Details) (mid) (Emp Comm).png

6. Click the Create To-Do or 1-on-1 Follow-up buttons to create a follow-up task to effectively track your actions and resolve any concerns or suggestions raised by the employee. 

Employee Profile - Pulse tab (Pulse Insight Details) (mid) (Follow Up box).png

7. Complete all fields in the Follow-Up Task: Take Action! drawer and click the Create Task button.

Employee Profile - Pulse tab (Pulse Insight Details) (To-Do Task drawer) (unmarked).png  Employee Profile - Pulse tab (Pulse Insight Details) (1x1 drawer) (unmarked).png

8. To enhance feedback continuity for a particular question/statement, turn on the Revisit - Ask Statement Again toggle. This will include the question/statement in the employee's Pulse survey again so you can track their feedback over time.

Employee Profile - Pulse tab (Pulse Insight Details) (bottom) (Ask Again toggle).png

How do I view my team's Pulse engagement?

From the Pulse page, you can identify your unengaged employees and use bulk select to quickly send them a reminder to complete the Pulse survey.

1. Select Unengaged Employees using the Show Me... drop-down menu at the top of the page.

Team tab - Team Pulse page (Show Me drop-down) (highlights).png

Note: On the Pulse page, you can also get an at-a-glance view of your team's engagement using the Last Response Date. This column can help track which employees are engaged and notify you when there is new feedback to review.

Team tab - Team Pulse page (LRD highlight).png

2. Click the checkbox to the left of any unengaged employees' names.

3. Click the Send Reminder button.

Team tab - Team Pulse page (Unengaged employees selected) (Send Reminder) (highlights).png

Frequently asked questions

Q: How often is the Pulse survey sent?

A: Once per week on the designated day and time.

Q: Who can see an employee's feedback?

A: Only an employee’s direct manager can see their Pulse responses and feedback.

Q: Is there any other way to view Pulse feedback besides from within an individual employee's profile?

A: Yes. On the Team Pulse page, managers can see which employees have responded to Pulse and how recently.

Q: How do I encourage more employees to complete the Pulse survey?

A: If you notice low survey engagement from an employee, connect with them in person. Explain what you are hoping to accomplish and that you are committed to taking action on their feedback.

Q: How do I know what to do with the feedback I receive as a manager?

A: Pulse visualizes data to help you uncover patterns in overall and individual employee morale and sentiments. Pulse also offers specific and actionable manager recommendations for an employee's survey responses.

Q: Can I request a question/statement be presented to an employee again within the next survey?

A: Yes. If you click into the card for the statement that you want to ask again, you’ll notice a section titled “REVISIT - ASK STATEMENT AGAIN”. Turn that toggle on and then this statement will reappear prioritized in the next Pulse survey. 2. There are a maximum of 5 statements presented in each Pulse survey. If there are more than 5 statements marked to ask again, they won’t all be presented within a single survey.