Pulse survey
A pulse survey is a short, frequent employee survey — typically 1–5 questions on a weekly or bi-weekly cadence — designed to track engagement, sentiment, and team health over time.
What is a pulse survey?
A pulse survey is the lightweight cousin of the annual engagement survey. Where the annual survey is exhaustive (40–80 questions, low frequency), pulse surveys are short — usually 1–5 questions — and frequent: weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly.
The frequency is the point. Annual surveys produce one data point per year. Pulse surveys produce a trend line. A trend line catches problems while they are still solvable.
What to ask in a pulse survey
Mood / energy. 'How are you feeling about work this week?' on a 1–5 scale.
eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score). 'How likely are you to recommend working here to a friend?' on a 0–10 scale.
An open-ended optional question. 'What's one thing that would make next week better?'
Why anonymity matters
If employees suspect responses are tied to their identity, the data is worthless. Good pulse-survey tools (including Psyth) aggregate anonymous responses and never display data below a minimum cohort size — typically 5 — to make re-identification impossible.
FAQ
How often is too often?
Weekly is the sweet spot for engineering teams. Bi-weekly or monthly works for less change-prone organizations. Daily creates fatigue.
Related features
Lightweight pulse surveys
Weekly check-ins, mood trends, and anonymous feedback.
Open featurePerformance reviews that aren't busywork
Self assessments, manager assessments, ratings — informed by real work.
Open featureYour employee directory, source of truth
Org chart, departments, teams, profiles with skills and hierarchy.
Open feature
More from the glossary
- OKR (Objectives and Key Results)
OKR is a goal-setting framework pairing a qualitative ambition (Objective) with 2–5 measurable outcomes (Key Results) used to align teams and individuals on what matters most each cycle.
- Sprint velocity
Sprint velocity is the average amount of work a team completes per sprint, typically measured in story points or completed issues, used to forecast capacity for upcoming sprints.
- Burndown chart
A burndown chart visualizes work remaining over the course of a sprint, plotting actual progress against an ideal trajectory to surface delivery risk early.
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