Pulse Surveys are a quick and effective way to gauge employee satisfaction and engagement levels within your company. They can be used to measure your employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) over time, as well as to ask your employees general questions about their experience of working for your organisation.
In particular, Pulse Surveys allow you to:
- Quickly collect employee opinions at scale.
- Measure employee experiences and engagement levels over time and spot trends.
- Calculate eNPS scores and other key metrics.
- Use analytics to identify where employee satisfaction levels can be improved.
This article gives an overview of Pulse Surveys and how they work in the following sections:
1. Key Terms / Concepts
The following terms and concepts in Cezanne are important to understand when planning and sending out your surveys.
2. How is eNPS and NPS calculated?
Detractors, Passives and Promoters
To get the eNPS and NPS, survey participants are first divided into 3 categories based on their response scores for each question:
1. Promoters: 9-10
- Promoters are the most satisfied, happy and / or engaged employees.
2. Passives: 7-8
- Passives are the employees who are content but not passionate about the organisation or their work.
3. Detractors: 0-6
- Detractors are the employees who are dissatisfied and / or have low levels of engagement.
Calculating eNPS and NPS
To calculate the eNPS or NPS for each survey question once responses have been collected, you must remove the Passives, and then subtract the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters, i.e:
% Promoters - % Detractors = eNPS or NPS
For example:
In this Pulse Survey, 6 Participants have answered the eNPS question and given a response. 1 was a Detractor, 2 were Passives and 3 were Promoters.
To calculate the eNPS score using the equation above, the 2 Passives have been removed and the % Detractor has been removed from the % Promoter:
50% - 16.67% = 33.33
So the eNPS = 33.33
What is considered a good eNPS / NPS score?
eNPS and NPS scores can range from anywhere between -100 and 100.
The closer your score is to -100, the more detractors you have and the closer to 100 your score is, the more promoters you have. Because of the way eNPS is calculated - and the type of questions typically asked in Pulse Surveys - scores are unlikely to be very close to either end.
Generally speaking, a score from 10-30 is considered good, a score from 30-40 is considered very good and a score over 40 is considered exceptional.*
3. Question Types
There are 4 possible Answer Types that can be chosen when an HR Professional sets up a Pulse Survey:
Zero to Ten
The rating scale used for this question type is as follows:
- Scores 0-6 = Detractor
- Scores 7-8 = Passive
- Scores 9-10 = Promoter
Five Faces
The rating scale used for this question type is as follows:
- Very Unhappy Smiley = 2 (Detractor)
- Unhappy Smiley = 4 (Detractor)
- Medium Smiley = 6 (Detractor)
- Happy Smiley = 8 (Passive)
- Very Happy Smiley = 10 (Promoter)
Five Stars
The rating scale used for this question type is as follows:
- 1 Star = 2 (Detractor)
- 2 Stars = 4 (Detractor)
- 3 Stars = 6 (Detractor)
- 4 stars = 8 (Passive)
- 5 stars = 10 (Promoter)
Three Faces
The rating scale used for this question type is as follows:
- Very Unhappy Smiley = 3.33 (Detractor)
- Medium Smiley = 6.67 (Passive)
- Very Happy Smiley = 10 (Promoter)
4. Making your Survey Anonymous
Pulse Surveys can easily be made anonymous during their set up.
If this option is selected, the system will keep responses completely anonymous by:
- Allocating Participants random numbers (e.g. Participant 05) while an Instance is running.
- Detaching survey responses from an employee's person records once they have submitted them.
As a result, HR Professionals will not be able to identify any Participants with running or completed surveys once they have started an Instance.
For more information about setting up a Pulse Survey, see: Setting up and sending a Pulse Survey.
5. Sending Pulse Survey Instances Manually vs Automatically
Pulse Survey Instances can either be sent out manually or automatically. This will be decided during the initial set up of your Pulse Survey.
Manual Scheduling
- To start a new Instance you must manually add and set up a new Instance. (You can manually schedule in multiple Instances at the same time.)
- This option enables you to start an Instance on any date of your choosing, for any duration period.
- This option enables you to choose a select list of employees using a people search.
Automatic Scheduling
- Instances will be sent out at regular intervals (every 1 month, 3 months, or 6 months) to the same group of employees (either all employees or employees grouped by Company, Location or Org Unit).
- Instances will be sent out on the same date each month (at the chosen regularity).
- This option ensures consistency for your Pulse Surveys, and cuts down on set up time.
For more information about setting up a Pulse Survey, see: Setting up and sending a Pulse Survey.
6. Completing a Pulse Survey
Survey Participants will be notified via E-mail when a Pulse Survey Instance has been started. A notification banner will also display in the system when a user has an outstanding Pulse Survey to fill in.
Following the link from their E-mail will take them directly to the survey, while the View button on the banner will take them to the My Surveys page where they can click into the survey. Participants can then respond to the survey:
7. Pulse Survey Analytics
Once enough participants have responded to your survey instance, analytics will automatically be generated and visible to HR Professionals.
eNPS Analytics
A Pulse Survey's eNPS will display separately to other questions:
You can use these analytics to look at eNPS Score, Average Score and Questions Answered % Charts, organised by Org Unit or Timeline View.
Questions Analytics (non-eNPS questions)
All non-eNPS questions will be displayed together in the Questions tab:
They can be organised by Question, Tag, Org Unit or Instance.
Questions, Tags, Org Units or Instances can then be drilled into for further analytics, e.g:
Depending on the organisation type selected, different charts and views can be selected similarly to eNPS questions.