Employee Surveys: Why Combining Comprehensive and Pulse Measurements Pays Off

Employee Surveys help you understand the company climate and catch what’s really going on in time. Comprehensive surveys provide deep insight, while Pulse Surveys allow for quick reactions. Together, they’ve proven to be a powerful tool for driving change and preventing quiet quitting. Marta Fabiánová, Managing Director of TCC online, summarizes how they work in practice.

People often leave their jobs silently, and management may only find out once it’s too late. The reasons can vary. According to Jobs.cz, the most common are a better salary offer for a comparable role, more engaging work, or greater flexibility.

Other causes might include poor relationships with managers or colleagues, overload and stress, lack of feedback or recognition, limited career growth, distrust in leadership or the company’s future, personal reasons, and many more.

Dissatisfaction can be “quiet” and long-term, and leadership might not realize anything is wrong until they hear it in an exit interview — if one even takes place. The issue of “quiet quitting,” when people technically stay in their role but do the bare minimum with no initiative or extra effort, is seen by many as a troubling trend of our times. And it’s not limited to younger generations.

So, what can be done about it?

The key is to stay informed about what’s going on, not just relying on impressions but on reliable data provided by Employee Surveys. Experience shows that both comprehensive and pulse surveys are highly valuable. What do these two formats offer, and where do they hit their limits?

Let’s take a closer look.

Comprehensive Surveys: A Stable Foundation for Insight and Change

Traditional satisfaction, engagement, and loyalty surveys (typically administered annually or every other year) offer a big-picture view that supports strategic planning. They give deeper insight into company culture, relationships, processes, and leadership. Tracking trends year-over-year, benchmarking results, and looking into the needs of different teams or demographic groups. All of this helps establish a well-informed strategy for change.

That said, one downside is their slower response time. The company mood or situation can shift faster than leadership can react.

Comprehensive surveys usually focus on:

• Engagement and intrinsic motivation
• Employee identification with the company (loyalty)
• Satisfaction areas: working conditions and tools, communication clarity and timeliness, growth and career development, team dynamics and collaboration, pay and benefits, management style, fairness and integrity, psychological and physical safety, company values, ideas for improvement, and more.

Here’s an example of a standard output report from TCC online’s Employee Survey. Output can also be much more detailed, allowing comparisons to past results, benchmarks, and by team or demographic.

Pulse Surveys: Real-Time Insights into Mood and Impact of Change

Pulse Surveys have grown in popularity in recent years. These short, often quarterly “mood checks” or “temperature checks” (whatever you call them) aim to quickly and effectively capture current sentiment. They focus on a specific issue, metric, or the impact of a recent change. Pulse surveys help companies catch warning signs early before they grow into real problems.

Due to their short format (typically 5–10 questions), they’re easy to complete and interpret.

Their limitation is the narrow focus — some important topics may not come up simply because they weren’t top of mind for employees. Research shows that consciously, people often highlight working hours, flexibility, and pay. But on a deeper level, drivers like career growth or leadership perceptions also play a big role in loyalty, which is why these tend to surface more in comprehensive surveys.

Examples of Pulse Survey focus areas:

• eNPS (employee Net Promoter Score) — whether employees would recommend the company as a place to work
• Overall sense of satisfaction
• Mood and team atmosphere
• Loyalty metrics (such as openness to other job offers) and engagement (e.g. willingness to go the extra mile)
• What employees liked or disliked most recently
• Other targeted, timely topics (e.g. checking the impact of a new policy)

Here’s a sample Pulse Survey output report from TCC online.

Combining Approaches for Greater Understanding

Both tools offer undeniable benefits. The classic survey gives a “full-picture snapshot,” while the pulse survey catches small shifts over time. Combining them is highly effective.

Here’s a quick summary of the benefits:

• Depth + Timeliness
  Comprehensive surveys offer deeper insight and context; Pulse Surveys quickly catch what’s going on right now.
• Strategy + Tactics
  The annual survey informs long-term strategy; the pulse survey checks whether actions like new perks or policies have made a real difference.

How AI Improves Analysis

Surveys usually leave space for open comments and suggestions. Thanks to advances in AI, it’s now much easier to analyze, summarize, and report on hundreds or even thousands of these free-form comments. AI provides a detailed overview of the most common topics, sentiment (positive vs. negative), and the intensity of feelings behind them.

Asking Is Not Enough — Acting Is Key

Just collecting data is not enough. Companies need to act on survey findings. The most common mistake companies make is gathering data without communicating results or changes. Too often, they fail to involve employees in discussing the findings or to inform them about the resulting actions.

Following a few basic principles can greatly improve the impact of your surveys and enhance employees’ trust and willingness to participate again.

What to Remember When Conducting Surveys

• Share and Discuss — Data is a starting point for discussion, not a solution. Engage with employees, talk about priorities, and next steps.
• Communicate Actions — Show employees you listen by applying the “You spoke – we heard – we acted” principle to build trust and belief in the process.

Interested in traditional Employee Surveys or Pulse Surveys? Contact us at info@tcconline.eu. We’d be happy to send you a sample report and talk through your specific needs.

Sources:
Forbes: Another Quiet Trend: Quiet Quitting
Jobs.cz: Chcete jinou práci? Nejste sami. Tady jsou tři nejčastější důvody, proč mění práci ostatní
TCC online: Employee Survey Data from TCC online