Evolution of Pulsing
Employee engagement has evolved from annual reviews and quarterly reviews to short frequent Pulsing. Pulsing is the practice of using short, frequent check-ins to get valuable feedback. By pulsing employees, you can find out the sort of vital information that will not only help employee engagement but also boost retention and make your company culture thrive.
Era of Hyper-Communication
Instant messaging apps such as Whatsapp and Facebook messenger have become a huge part of everyday life. Within the workplace, this trend of instant communication has accelerated at a huge speed in 2020 due to the rise of remote working. Companies that have turned to technology tools such as Slack and Microsoft Teams have seen usage skyrocket in 2020. The rise in workplace communication tools brings with it opportunities and challenges. There has never been more workplace fatigue for Zoom Calls, constant messaging leading to the obvious engagement challenges such as burnout and alienation. The challenge for the leader to actively engage his team in a meaningful way has challenges and opportunities. Leaders want to show they are listening and employees want to feel like they have a voice but do not want to have yet another distraction in their day. A pulse needs to be short yet - achieve maximum value in the shortest amount of time. Hence Happyteams turned to the phenomenon of Emoji to capture employee sentiment.
Short Response - Ensure employees are being listened to without being distracted.
- Having short, sharp questions feels manageable, leading to higher response rates
- Employees can offer feedback in emoji format without feeling judged
- Short pulses collect specifically defined data, making it easier for managers to absorb information
- Employees feel more comfortable submitting an emoji - therefore the accuracy of responses over time is hugely powerful.
Source: https://www.businessofapps.com/data/slack-statistics/
Why Emoji
This Pulse needs to be frequent - to form a habit and it needs to be short. When Happyteams looked at the problem of capturing as much data in as short as possible the one tool that we kept turning to - the Emoji.
As reported in a 2019 Adobe Survey12 , by 2019, 92% of the connected population used emoji in personal communication with 61% utilizing emoji at work - specifically the power of emoji to communicate across language barriers, instantly sharing thoughts and ideas.
Emoji use is everywhere and is in essence as argued in Wired recently we are witnessing the birth of a new language. It is ever-evolving to cultural changes. In short, there is no other tool in the world that can capture and convey emotional nuances in such a short, clear, and succinct manner.
As outlined by Matt Mahon Emoji are strong indicators of intent – even a person’s thought process – and can represent compelling documentary evidence. This is not something that can be overlooked.
Emoji responses protect and support the anonymous principal with the Happytemas pulse and also help protect employees so they can speak their true thoughts without needing to play politics or worry about being judged as a negative influence in the company. Essentially the employee is far more likely to press an honest emoji response than actually articulate their feelings in free text. This data capture when compounded over time can be hugely insightful and beneficial for the organisation and leadership team. Taking the shackles off feedback supports the organisation in truly unlocking the data required to make a winning game plan.
HappyTeams Methodology
HappyTeams approach to Pulse is grounded in Science and designed to optimise maximum data value for an organization. All employee questions are curated by our team of organizational psychologists on a continuous basis which is segmented into categories to maximise insight for the organisation. Each question has been subjected to scientific rigour and tested in the field. All questions are designed to maximise the capture of sentiment that can be translated with the common emoji.
Our renowned team of technologists and organisation Psychologists work directly with the product team to continually update Happyteams questions, content, and methodology, ensuring their expertise is shared with all our Happyteams Users.
The key to Pulse and ensuring engagement levels remain high is to ensure action is taken with the data. For more information on how HappyTeams solve this problem please review our article on Data, insights, and how we are combining organisational psychology with data-driven nudges. [ Click here to review this article ]
