Employees have busy working lives, there are often deadlines to meet, and targets to hit. So, naturally, they need to be shown that pulse surveys are worth taking the time out to respond to.
A higher response rate means that your survey results better represent your whole employee base. The more data you have, the clearer a picture you have of your staff, making your resulting changes in the workplace much more effective.
To help improve your survey response rates, it’s important to communicate the importance of feedback to your employees. Let them know how it can influence the direction of their organisation and help to build a better workplace for everyone.
If you make this clear, your employees will see the value in giving their honest feedback.
Employee survey fatigue is when your team starts feeling overwhelmed or uninterested in filling out yet another survey. It happens when surveys come too often, or feel too long and boring. To avoid this, keep surveys short and sweet, and spread them out over time. This way, your team stays engaged, and you get the insights you need.
A good employee survey response rate usually falls between 70% and 80%. However, this can vary based on factors like the type of survey, the size of your organisation, and what’s considered normal in your industry. Remember, the higher the response rate, the more reliable your survey results will be!
Encouraging employees to join in surveys is all about making it easy and appealing for them. Clearly explain why the survey matters and how their input will be used. Ensure their responses are kept anonymous to boost trust. And don’t forget to always thank them for taking the time to share their thoughts!
Since working with Stribe, we've increased our annual survey response rate from 32% to 82%. 
Pulse surveys, in their nature, are short and sweet, making it easy for your employees to respond. However, the way you structure your initial and follow up question, and what tools you use – can also make a big difference.
At Stribe, we recommend that pulse questions begin with a question or statement that’s answerable using a sliding scale, a yes/no button, or symbols to summarise your employees’ feelings – such as a range of smiley faces. This makes it super-quick for your employees to respond to. A follow-up question asking about the reason for their response can then be sent to get some more insight into their answer.
If you can, try to pick a time where your employees are not especially busy. This is especially important if you intend on asking a string of questions. Picking a window away from periods where project deadlines are around the corner will likely boost your overall response rates.
According to our data, Stribe receives the most pulse responses at the following times:
Following on from the previous tip, some organisations give their employees a period of time away from their work to answer any pulse surveys – this could be a 15 minute window before lunch (for example) or a recurring weekly slot for their staff to answer any surveys that they’ve yet to respond to.
As we’ve established, pulse surveys are quick to complete. Setting expectations before the survey is important for both employee buy-in and achieving a high response rate. For example, you could preface the survey with “we’d really like your feedback on these three questions and should only take a few minutes to complete”, reminding your employees that it’s not going to take much time out of their day.
Once your pulse survey has been sent out, it’s beneficial to send a reminder after a short period has elapsed, to further increase your response rate. For most tools that contain pulse surveying features, like Stribe, you can issue reminders and leave the window open for responses to whatever timeframe you like.
It’s important that your employees know they are not going to be singled out for any constructive criticism. Pulse surveys exist to get honest feedback from your employees, both the good and the bad. So, making it clear that your employees will not have their names attached to any of their comments allows them to speak freely, and for you to get honest information on how they are feeling at work.
At Stribe, we ensure all responses are anonymous unless individuals chose to reveal their identity.
At Stribe, we recommend that organisations should only send pulse surveys when they can follow up with relevant actions or a response to employee feedback. If employees don’t see any changes being made as a result of giving their honest feedback, they won’t feel heard and may not respond to future surveys.
Making workplace changes as a result of what your employees tell you is a great way of proving that you take their thoughts, suggestions and constructive criticism seriously. Your employees will be able to see the value in these surveys, and will engage with future questions at a higher level – now that they’ve seen the positive changes in their working environment.
Depending on what tools you are using to send and manage your pulse surveys, it’s important to ensure it’s accessible and usable on a range of devices. In a world where remote working is more common, it’s integral to ensure that your survey questions are answerable on a variety of desktop and mobile platforms. Make sure to test the survey across a host of devices before sending, to make sure it’s working correctly, and to maximise your response rates.
If you want to encourage your employees to respond to your pulse surveys, a great way is for managers to lead the way. If there’s any sense that management is not paying attention to the feedback being given, or skipping on survey participation, this could demotivate the overall employee base from giving their feedback.
Be wary of sending out too many surveys. This may discourage your employees from leaving their feedback or they may forget which ones they’ve responded to and which ones they haven’t.
Now that you’re well on your way to maximising your pulse survey response rates, take some time out to reassess your current pulse survey setup. If you have the right tools in place, sending pulses, receiving feedback and analysing data is quick and easy, giving you more time for your day-to-day tasks.
Stribe’s survey software has everything you need to gain quick and actionable insights from fully customisable surveys, sent directly to your employees.
About the author
Lucy Harvey, COO at Stribe, has 11+ years’ experience in purpose-driven leadership roles across health, wellbeing, internal communications, employee engagement, and marketing. She is passionate about creating workplaces where people are happy, fulfilled, and feel comfortable and safe to talk.
