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TINYpulse

Score6.4 out of 10

16 Reviews and Ratings

What is TINYpulse?

TINYpulse is an employee surveying and feedback tool. It includes employee recognition, coaching, and performance tracking functionality.

Centralize your goals and feedback with TINYpulse!

Pros

  • TINYpulse is great for creating/organizing/following up on goals for yourself and your employees.
  • TINYpulse allows for anonymous feedback to ensure every employee can speak his/her voice without fear.
  • TINYpulse is a great way to send/receive feedback at any time.

Cons

  • Originally, requests for feedback ("360s") were not customizable, and employees didn't feel the pre-written questions were particularly helpful. TINYpulse has since changed this format so we can either use default questions or create our own.

Return on Investment

  • TINYpulse allowed us to retire old-fashioned ways of employee reviews (which nobody liked). It lets us centralize and organize efficiently.
  • TINYpulse ensures all employees can speak up comfortably and anonymously when desired.
  • TINYpulse gives all employees the chance to give immediate cheers to others for going above and beyond!

Other Software Used

SnapEngage, Zendesk, Genesys PureCloud

Keeping your finger on the TINYPulse of your team!

Pros

  • Helps increase team camaraderie and rapport by celebrating wins and showing appreciation.
  • Helps monitor any team issues by asking (anonymous) questions about company and team dynamics.
  • Team members are able to safely provide feedback and make suggestions without concerns of awkwardness or friction.

Cons

  • The variety of the question offerings could be greater (this is a picky complaint because there is the option to ask custom questions so there really is not a limit to the variety of questions you can ask).
  • We tend to only get about a 50% participation rate and wish it was greater. I'm not sure what TINYpulse could do to encourage more responses however and that's likely up to us/team culture.

Return on Investment

  • It's an easy way to get feedback and suggestions. I think it contributes to the team culture of wanting to always question and improve.
  • It's an easy way to build rapport among teammates and I think contributes to overall sense of team building (especially for a dispersed team).
  • It's an easy way to keep your finger on the overall pulse of the team and allows management to be able to quickly address any frustrations or issues before they become bigger concerns.

Other Software Used

Zoom Video Webinar, SurveyMonkey, ServiceNow

Makes Me Feel Like My Voice is Heard

Pros

  • The platform asks an easy question each week that typically doesn't take more than a minute or two to respond, which makes it easier for me to set time aside and offer my feedback. Often it's as simple as "rating" my feelings from 1-10 (like how happy I am at work in general).
  • The platform is anonymous, so I feel safe offering any suggestions.
  • You can send "cheers" to specific colleagues, and the platform prompts you to do so when answering a question each week.
  • My personal favorite is the "streak feature." It shows how many questions you've answered in a row, and it's a silly but satisfying method to prompt me to keep responding to not "break my streak." I've answered every question since I started, so it's a cool way to see how much time has passed since I began my job.

Cons

  • I wish I could respond in-email to questions. I get email prompts with each question, but I'm redirected when I respond to the platform. It would be simpler and faster to respond to simple questions directly in the email, especially if they are "yes" or "no" questions or rating questions.

Return on Investment

  • I've seen real changes implemented from my suggestions on TINYpulse, even if they're small. We also discuss TINYpulse feedback together as an agency and I think it gives us more control over our work life.

Other Software Used

BigTime IQ, Trello

Usability

TINYpulse is a sound solution to for staying connected to the pulse of your employees !

Pros

  • TINYpulse provides a nice, prepackaged survey platform with a library of suggested questions to use and hard-coded timelines and processes... so it is truly a "plug and play" tool.
  • The platform produces some graphics and other methodology for assisting HR in delivering survey results to the rest of the executive team and/or to share with employees.
  • TINYpulse does a DYNAMIC job in selling the message that the employee's responses are anonymous. Not sure if it is a generational issue or the result of younger generations watching a parent go thru a RIF or other job elimination, but the notion of radically-candid feedback is not one which I've found to be present with many Millennials (here or in past organizations), so this is a big selling point for TINYpulse.
  • The TINYpulse platform offers a "Cheers for Peers" program, allowing the company to promote another form of peer-to-peer recognition which can even be linked to Slack (or nearly any business-based instant messaging system) to create a constant feed for all to see those receiving recognition for going above-and-beyond.

Cons

  • Reporting in TINYpulse is quite limited. While we recognize - and support - the concept of anonymous feedback, it can be abused, and sadly, we have experienced this with a small group of employees who know they can hide behind this "wall of anonymity" and take aim at a manager they don't care for because the manager holds them accountable for their performance or behaviors. As with most such platforms, if the N is <5, the group can't be tracked at all; if the N is >5, it does allow us to track to a job family and even a location code, but still lacking enough detail to take action when there is reasonable cause to believe the tool is being misused.
  • Reporting of employee comments and suggestions cannot be produced in the middle of a "cycle". And since these cycles always run from precisely one survey question to the next, this means HR must wait until the prior survey has completely closed before any reports can be extracted. This inefficiency can't be explained by anyone at TINYpulse beyond "that is how we set it up", which is not a great response. If I or anyone else on the C-team sees something of concern within the first few days of a particular survey question's release, we want to be able to dig in and try to assess where the greatest "bleeding" may be coming from so that we can take action... but this is not allowed by the system.
  • Some of the suggested questions from the TINYpulse question library are simply silly (which results in employees questioning just how seriously we take the use of the program). As one recent example, the scheduled question was to the effect of "You just opened a fortune cookie about your company. What does it say?" With no context at all around such a question, most of the responses/comments we received were along the lines of "are you kidding me?" !! (and I'd have to agree; not certain what business context such a question can address) We attempted to explain it away by suggesting it was a creative way for the company to ask the employee to consider how they would want the company to be perceived by those outside and inside the organization in the future... but the response wasn't well-received. Most still felt it was just silly.

Return on Investment

  • The use of TINYpulse has allowed us to uncover a number of employee interests related to our benefit plans which was used in our 2018 benefit plan offerings.
  • TINYpulse has been instrumental in helping the executive team identify a number of policy/process issues which needed to be addressed or updated to better meet both employee and operational needs.
  • TINYpulse comments have been helpful in identifying a couple of managers exhibiting unacceptable behaviors, yet were flying just enough below the radar that no one at the executive of Sr. management level were aware of these behaviors. We were able to initiate investigations based on allegations or concerns raised by survey comments submitted and deal appropriately with each.

Alternatives Considered

TalentKeeper, Employera and Waggl

Other Software Used

Slack, Lattice HQ, SmartDraw

Honest Feedback and Pulse of Your Organization

Pros

  • TINYpulse allows admins to create custom questions to ask the entire company, and allows users to answer those questions anonymously. The responses are then available to the admins to review, without a user's name attached.
  • TINYpulse has a great reporting feature for all of the questions asked. You can look back on previous questions and answers and identify trends.
  • TINYpulse also allows the admins to reply to user responses while keeping the user's identity anonymous. This encourages open dialogue.
  • When we have contacted TINYpulse for questions, they have always been very helpful.

Cons

  • TINYpulse sometimes makes updates to their app and website, and when navigating as an admin, I have found some of the links to be broken after an update.
  • The pricing structure of TINYpulse has changed since we first began using it, changing from a pay per user amount to a bulk-buy amount. This led to some confusion when we went to add more users.

Return on Investment

  • We have been able to implement a number of suggestions that our employees have posted on TINYpulse, things that our management may not have thought of but made a positive difference.
  • We are able to identify pain points before they become a systemic problem, and can act to correct our shortcomings or adjust procedures to remedy the situation.
  • Sending Cheers to employees is a real morale booster for everyone.

Alternatives Considered

None

Other Software Used

HubSpot, Box, Delighted, Trello, Slack, Adobe Illustrator CC, Adobe Photoshop