Business is all about people
Management know that one of the most important assets is their employee workforce.
Successful businessman, entrepreneur and pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, says: “If you look after your staff, they’ll look after your customers. It’s that simple.”
When your teams are happy and satisfied, they are productive and play a big role in the company’s success. However, when they are unhappy and unmotivated, then retention rates drop, absenteeism climbs and the culture suffers, leading to an unproductive workplace.
In fact, a recent study showed that happy employees are up to 20% more productive than unhappy employees. A decade of research has also proven that employee happiness improves nearly every business and educational outcome: raising sales by 37%, productivity by 31%, and accuracy on tasks by 19%, as well as countless health and quality of life improvements. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise – when people are more fulfilled, they are more content across all aspects of their life, including their employment, and this boosts their enthusiasm towards related tasks.
But, what if there was a way to ‘check the temperature’ of your workplace and identify these issues before they become a problem? Is there a way to know what’s bothering staff before the exit interview?
As with all concerns of this nature, prevention is always better than cure. More specifically, is there a way to keep an eye on employee’s feelings over time and determine what actions need to be taken to keep them happy and engaged?
What is a QWL Pulse Survey?
An employee pulse survey is a fast and frequent questionnaire conducted within a business which involves asking a few, simple questions that can be answered easily. This allows businesses to undertake them at regular intervals without too much disruption - hence the name ‘pulse’.
Management can then compare the results over time to gain a comprehensive insight into the health of their company and the collective attitude of all staff.
However, not all pulse surveys are the same.
A QWL Pulse Survey is designed specifically to rate and measure people’s Quality Of Working Life (QWL), which describes a person's broader employment-related experience.
This concept is considered to produce more meaningful results than general pulse surveys because QWL is based on research and models which take into account factors that are motivating, making the job experience positive, and hygiene which can make for a negative experience if missing.
A number of rating scales from different contributing authors have been developed over the years which aim to measure employee’s overall quality of working life and what that means for both employees and the business as a whole.
For VibeCatch QWL Pulse Surveys specifically, the entire platform is supported by extensive scientific QWL analysis which works to determine the performance of a workforce with scientific accuracy. By combining both quantitative and qualitative rating options in the pulse survey (seen in the photo above), the strategically-selected questions are designed to highlight the strengths and areas of improvement that other methods fail to detect.
The responses from staff are then automatically gathered into a measured database and compared against other time periods, seen below.
What’s the purpose of the QWL Survey?
This is all well and good, but what’s the rationale behind them?
After all, data is just numbers without any conclusive use. However, when assembled together, it can lead to significant insights which can improve a business.
When discussing the topic of why businesses need to incorporate QWL Pulse Surveys into their standard operations, Juha Huttunen, the CEO of VibeCatch, said:
"The purpose of QWL is primarily to improve an organisation so that employees are happier and more motivated to produce better results. A QWL Pulse Survey collects this information from teams and provides aggregated data that empowers management to make more informed decisions for the good of both their teams and the business.”
So, thoughts and behaviours that would blind sight other businesses can be effectively identified, managed and improved upon with a QWL Pulse Survey system. “It combines a scientifically proven method with a practical approach,” Juha said. The VibeCatch platform goes one step further.
By running the QWL pulse survey data through the inbuilt algorithms, Management will receive a report similar to the above, which automatically draws insight and suggests actionable steps.
“The reality is that a lot of employee performance can be improved through practical steps and improvement actions,” said Juha. “However, because businesses don’t take advantage of these pulse surveys, they can miss important and potentially harmful issues that would easily be picked up by simply asking staff for their opinions.”
How VibeCatch can help you conduct QWL Pulse Surveys?
Average employee surveys are great, but they provide basic information at best. That’s because they are ongoing and under appreciated, and therefore largely ignored. Using these can lead to poor insights which end up being a waste of time.
However, what does work is active, scientific-based listening and learning of your internal workforce to yield better (and trackable) results.
This is where the VibeCatch platform can help you.
VibeCatch is a Human Resources platform based on 15 years of proven research, offering you the opportunity to make a positive difference not just for everyone around you, but your business and customers too.
It’s simple and automated, which makes checking on your culture easy to ensure that your business is optimised.
How can your business benefit from a science-based approach?
We’d love to show you, so you can see it in action for yourself.
Book an obligation-free consultation and we’ll discuss your options to demonstrate how VibeCatch can help you help everyone.
