Free tools for HR leaders

Pulse survey questions

10 questions across 5 themes, each with the scale to use. Filter, copy, print. Free, no sign-up.

Pick a theme, then a format. Every question carries the scale to use with it, because a good question on the wrong scale produces data you cannot act on. Copy what you need, then cut the survey down until people will actually finish it.

How these were written, and the five steps to a survey worth running ↓

Theme:

Format:

10 showing

Workload

My workload this week was manageable.

Five-point agreement scale, strongly disagree to strongly agree.Rating scale

What made this week harder than it needed to be?

Open text. Keep it optional.Open text

Blockers

I was able to make progress on what mattered this week.

Five-point agreement scale, strongly disagree to strongly agree.Rating scale

What is currently blocking you?

Open text. Keep it optional.Open text

Morale

How are you feeling about work right now?

Five-point scale, poor to great.Rating scale

Anything you want us to know?

Open text. Keep it optional.Open text

Support

I got the support I needed this week.

Five-point agreement scale, strongly disagree to strongly agree.Rating scale

Who helped you this week, and how?

Open text. Keep it optional.Open text

Recognition

Good work in my team was noticed this week.

Five-point agreement scale, strongly disagree to strongly agree.Rating scale

Is there someone whose work should be recognised?

Open text. Keep it optional.Open text

No questions match those two filters together. Clear one of them.

You have the questions

Trends are easy.
Causes are not.

Copy every question and run it yourself. A pulse tells you something moved. What it cannot tell you is which team, which function or which location moved, or what about the way they work explains it.

Compono Engage · Work personalityDivision = Delivery Team

The eight ways of work a team needs covered, shaded by how strongly this team prefers each. Deep Doer and Auditor coverage, nobody in Pioneer or Campaigner. That is why this team asks for more innovation and then struggles to deliver it, and it is not something the survey answers alone can tell you.

Compono Engage · Culture alignment12 dimensions

Innovative

Risk Averse

Responsive

Planned

Customer Focused

Internal Effectiveness

Centralised Control

Delegated Control

Current cultureDesired culture4 of 12 shown

Every dimension measured as current against desired, on a scale that has been validated rather than invented. The gap is the finding, and it is the thing a single culture score can never give you.

Compono Engage · SubculturesBy division

InnovativeProcessTaskCollectivistControlStructureResponsiveConformityAcceptingCooperationCustomerFormal

Whole organisation (27)

Customer Service Team (12)

Executive (1)

HR and Finance (2)

Widget Delivery Team (12)

AlignedMisaligned

The same 12 dimensions cut by division, function, location or job level. The whole-organisation row hides what the Executive row shows. Averages are where culture problems go to hide.

See how Engage measures itValidated model, 12 dimensions, sliced by team, function, location and job level.

What is a pulse survey?

A short, frequent check-in, usually weekly or fortnightly, on how work is actually going. It is a trend instrument rather than a diagnostic one.

How these were written

Nothing here is calculated. Each question is written against two tests: can somebody answer it honestly, and can you act on the answer. Each one carries the scale it should be asked on, because the scale is part of the question and mixing scales inside a survey makes results much harder to compare. Filter by theme to cut whole sections rather than trimming words, and by format to balance rating questions against open text.

Assumptions

These are a starting point, not a survey. Cut hard. Response rate falls with every question you add.
Scales are part of the question. Five-point agreement for most, frequency for behaviour. Pick one convention and hold it.
Anonymity has to be explained, not asserted. People assume the worst when you are vague, and it shows up in the answers.
Written for Australian workplaces and Australian English. Compono product terms are reproduced exactly as they appear in the platform.
Do not ask more often than you can act. Asking without visible follow-through does more damage than not asking at all.

Sources

Compono, The culture, engagement and performance model

What to do about it

Most survey problems are not question problems. They are what-happens-next problems, and people can tell the difference by the second round.

1

Decide what you will do with the answers before you ask

If no decision is waiting on the result, do not run it. An unused survey teaches people not to answer the next one.

2

Cut it until it hurts

Remove whole themes rather than trimming words. Eight sharp questions beat forty thorough ones nobody finishes.

3

Say how anonymity actually works

Who sees what, at what group size, and what happens to free text. Vagueness reads as surveillance.

4

Report back before you fix anything

Tell people what you heard, including the uncomfortable parts, within two weeks. This is the single biggest driver of next year's response rate.

5

Where a tool helps

Pick one thing and visibly change it

One change people can see beats five they cannot. The point of a survey is the change, not the score.

Ask weekly, act weekly
or do not ask.

Compono Engage tracks how sentiment moves over time and connects it to culture and team data, so a dip in a pulse becomes explainable rather than just visible.

Step 5 is where most survey programs stall: the score arrives and nobody agrees what it means. That is an interpretation problem, and interpretation is what the platform is for.

See how it works

Compono Engage

8%+

reduction in turnover

Common questions

How many questions should a pulse survey have?

Five or fewer per round. If it takes more than two minutes it stops being a pulse and starts being ignored.

How often should you run a pulse survey?

Weekly or fortnightly, and only if you can act between rounds. Asking more often than you can respond destroys trust faster than not asking at all.

What is the difference between a pulse survey and an engagement survey?

Pulse tracks movement; the annual survey diagnoses. Pulse tells you something changed, the engagement survey tells you what.

These questions are a starting point, not a survey. Cut hard: response rates fall with every extra question, and a short survey people finish beats a thorough one they abandon. Say what you will do with the answers before you ask, and be honest about how anonymity actually works, because people assume the worst when you are vague. Last reviewed July 2026.

Next step

Employee engagement

What engagement actually measures, and how it differs from satisfaction.

Read the definition →Related tool

eNPS calculator (employee net promoter score)

Put a number on what the survey surfaces.

Run it next →Buying

Requirements builder

Score the platforms you are looking at against the two risks, must-haves first.

Build the scorecard →Talk to us

Bring us your results

A conversation about what your survey is telling you, not a demo script.