Most pulse tools send five questions and draw a line. Attuned also knows what motivates each person on the team, so when the line dips you see which motivator moved and what to ask about it.
Or see how Attuned compares, from US$99 a seat a year ↓
Any form tool can ask eight people how they feel every other Friday. The hard part is Monday.
The score is down six points and the dashboard can't say why. The manager mentions it in the team meeting and waits. People notice: only 8% of employees strongly agree their employer acts on survey results (Gallup). Answers get thinner, then stop.
So judge pulse survey software by what it hands the manager the week after.
What each option gives you the week after the pulse.
| Capability | Attuned | Typical pulse survey tools | Google or Microsoft Forms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sends a short recurring survey | ✓ | ✓ | Manual |
| Minimum answers before a team result shows | ✓ 3 | Varies, ask | ✗ |
| Questions tuned to each person's motivators | ✓ | ✗ Same for all | ✗ |
| Names which motivator moved on the team | ✓ | Partial (topic categories) | ✗ |
| Response rate on the same chart as the result | ✓ | Usually | ✗ |
| Coaching for the manager's next 1-on-1 | ✓ TalkCoach (early access) | Rare | ✗ |
| Setup | ~10 min assessment per person | Question design and rollout | An afternoon |
Comparing named vendors? See our engagement platforms compared, the Lattice competitors rundown, or the TINYpulse alternative comparison.
Slack delivery, question banks and eNPS come standard in employee pulse survey software. These seven decide whether you still get honest answers in month six.
Five to ten questions, under two minutes, on a phone. Any longer and people treat it like the annual survey.
Pick the fastest rhythm your managers can respond to before the next round arrives. See the cadence table.
Ask how many answers a team needs before results show. Without a floor, a four-person team's "anonymous" pulse can be read one person at a time.
"How was your week, 1 to 5?" trends nicely and explains nothing. Each question should point at something you can change. Attuned's point at the 11 intrinsic motivators.
A team at 3.8 out of 5 can be five people who are fine and one who has checked out. Results by motivator turn "engagement fell" into "Autonomy fell after the new approval process."
A dashboard says there's a problem. Look for a tool that suggests what to ask, like an AI coach for managers that reads the result for you.
"38% satisfied" means one thing when 14 of 14 answered and another when 4 did. A falling response rate is often the first warning, weeks before the score moves.
Gallup puts 70% of the variance in team engagement on the manager. So the result has to reach the manager as a task with a name on it.
Each person maps across 11 intrinsic motivators, such as Autonomy, Progress and Feedback. That's the baseline every pulse is read against.
A couple of minutes on a phone: how satisfied each person is on their own top motivators.
Once enough people have answered, the team result flags it by name: "Autonomy needs attention."
Ask TalkCoach (early access) how to raise the dip with one person. It reads their motivator profile and the team's latest pulse result, then drafts an opening question and what to steer around.
Doctors have a name for blood pressure that runs high only in the clinic: white coat hypertension. The reading is accurate. It is partly a reading of the doctor. A pulse that people suspect their manager reads line by line has the same condition, and the cure is the same: make the measuring feel less like being watched. On why the anonymity floor matters
Use these in any tool. Each points at a motivator, so a low score tells you where to look. Use a 1 to 5 scale, ask five or six per round, and rotate the rest.
Managers read the open-text answers first, and people stop writing them first when nothing comes back. Reply to one theme in the team channel within a week.
Every two to four weeks for most teams. That's fast enough to catch a dip while a conversation can still fix it, and slow enough to act before the next round.
| Cadence | Works well for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly | A reorg, merger or launch crunch | Managers rarely act within a week |
| Every two weeks | Teams with regular 1-on-1s | Needs a very short survey |
| Monthly | Large or distributed teams with a monthly leadership review | A dip can sit unseen for weeks |
| Quarterly | A light check between annual surveys | Too slow to catch one person drifting |
Whatever the cadence, tell the team the result and one thing you'll do, every round. Building the whole program? See how to measure employee engagement.
Bring a team whose numbers have been drifting. We'll show you what their motivators say and what the first two pulses would flag.