Pulse surveys only work if you’re brave enough to act on them

A few years ago, we introduced pulse surveys across Rokt. Short, regular check-ins to understand how people were actually experiencing work, not at the end of the year when the data is ancient, but in close to real time.

And then we did something that a lot of organizations skip: we actually used them.

I want to talk about that second part. Because I think the survey is the easy bit.

The data will tell you things you don’t want to hear

Pulse surveys, done honestly, surface friction. They surface disconnection. They show you where the gap is between the culture you think you have and the one people are actually experiencing.

The first time you see results that surprise you (and you will), there is a very human instinct to explain them away. To question the methodology. To say that people don’t understand the context, or that this particular quarter was unusual.

Sometimes those things are true. Often, they’re not. And the difference between organizations that improve and organizations that stagnate is largely in the willingness to sit with uncomfortable feedback.

“The leaders who say our culture is great, and the teams who quietly disagree: that gap doesn’t close itself.”

What acting on feedback actually looks like

Acting on pulse survey data is not the same as fixing everything immediately. Sometimes what people need is simply to know that you heard them.

When we’ve seen themes come up consistently, around communication, around clarity of direction, around recognition, we’ve tried to respond in a few ways:

• Share the data back, honestly. Not curated to look good. The actual themes.

• Name what we’re going to do differently, specifically. Vague commitments erode trust faster than no commitment.

• Come back to it. Months later, when it’s easy to have moved on, address it again. Did it change? Did our actions make a difference?

This loop (listen, acknowledge, act, return) is what builds the kind of trust where people actually tell you the truth. And that is, ultimately, what good culture requires.

The culture you don’t see

One thing I’ve learned is that the culture of an organization is not what happens in all-hands meetings. It’s what happens in the conversations people have when they don’t think leadership is listening.

Pulse surveys give you a window into that. They’re imperfect. No survey can capture the full complexity of how people feel about work. But they give you signal. And signal, honestly received and honestly acted on, is enormously valuable.

I think there’s something more fundamental here too. The decision to regularly ask your team how they’re experiencing work is itself a statement of values. It says: your experience matters. It says: we think getting this right is important enough to measure.

That message, delivered consistently over time, shapes culture as much as any policy or program.

A question for leaders

When did you last ask the people in your organization a genuinely open question, not a satisfaction score, but a real question about what’s working and what isn’t, and then visibly changed something as a result?

If you can answer that easily, you’re probably doing it right. If you’re not sure, that’s where to start.

Culture isn’t built in the moments when everything is going well. It’s built in how you handle the moments when it isn’t.