Keep Your Finger On The Pulse With Your Remote Workers

Since the arrival of Covid-19, many more of us are now remote workers. However, some organisations may still be unfamiliar with managing remotely or be too large and complex to check in with each member of staff. While it may not be realistic to check in with all your remote workers directly, a pulse survey could be an effective alternative.

The essentials of remote working

The essentials your people need while working from home include: - Adequate space to work, such a desk or table that is separated from their day-to-day activities - The ability to access the systems required to do their job, for example, email and CRM systems - A way of communicating with other colleagues during work hours

How to use pulse surveys to check in with remote workers

The idea of a pulse survey is for it to be a quick exercise which gives you an accurate snapshot of your people and their feelings towards work. For a pulse survey to be the most effective, we recommend having a few short questions that take no longer than 5 minutes to complete. Your questions can be as simple as: - ‘I have space at home where I can work comfortably’ (Yes, No). - ‘I feel like I can switch off from work outside of working hours’ (Yes, No). - ‘I can keep in good contact with my colleagues’ (Strongly agree to Strongly disagree). - ‘I have the correct access to the systems I need to carry out my job’ (Yes, No).

Act on results to keep remote workers engaged

The results of this survey should give you enough data to act or follow up on specific areas to gain more insights. For example, if most people responded “No” to the question “I have the correct access to the systems I need to carry out my job” this would need immediate action. Your IT team could follow this up by sending out instructions or remotely accessing computers and checking access. Sometimes, the action needed is not immediately apparent, and this is where a follow-up survey can prove useful. If your people responded “No” to “I feel I can switch off from work outside of working hours”, you could delve into this a bit more by sending a follow-up pulse with questions focussed on well-being would be a positive and actionable next step.

Tips for running a successful pulse survey

Ensuring your pulse survey is a success is always a concern. Our top tips for a successful pulse survey are: - Send to a specific demographic - Keep it short and focus on one topic - Make sure questions are to the point and actionable - Do something with the results (and shout about it) – this will encourage people to participate in future surveys In our survey platform, The People Experience Hub, it is possible to set up and send a pulse survey like this in a matter of minutes. If you would like to schedule a demo to find out more about our flexible employee feedback platform and how we could support you, please feel free to contact us at hello@pxhub.io