How Joyous approaches Employee Experience and Engagement

An overview for HR leaders about the Joyous HR Engagement Model and approach

Welcome! If you’re an HR leader and new to Joyous for Employee Experience (EX), this article will help you understand how we approach employee experience and engagement - what makes our method unique, and why it works.

You’ll also learn how to explain our approach internally if you're transitioning from a more traditional tool.

Key Topics covered in this article

1. Why Joyous is Different
2. Survey Approach: From Broad to Specific
3. Types of Visibility
4. Setting Expectations
5. Survey Design: The Joyous Way
6. A Brief History of The EX Genome Project
7. The Joyous HR Engagement Model
8. Types of Questions
9. Templates
10. Conclusion

1. Why Joyous is Different

Traditional HR surveys are often poorly written, lengthy, and infrequent. Instead Joyous uses shorter, more conversational check-ins to gather actionable feedback at scale. Our approach helps HR and other leaders move from mainly passive measurement to incorporating active listening and identifying actionable improvements - with almost no human effort!

TL;DR: We focus on:

• Large, dispersed workforces who are mostly not desk-based.
• Creating psychologically safe, action-oriented conversations.
• Using clear and specific questions to provide more granular insights.
• Striking the right balance between measurement and action.

2. Survey Approach: From Broad to Specific

For new customers who are switching over from a different engagement model, your Joyous account manager will design your survey and pulse experiences for you. This will be based on your steer - ensuring that important topics and questions from your previous model are mapped or carried over for you as part of launching your annual baseline.

Step 1: Annual Baseline Survey (10-15 min)

• 25 rated statements + 4 open text questions, including eNPS.
• Covers a broad range of engagement topics.
• Helps identify initial focus areas across the workforce.
• Usually confidential or anonymous and non-conversational.

Step 2: Quarterly Pulse Check-Ins(2-5 min)

• 5 rated statements + 1 open text, including eNPS.
• Track progress on the most important categories identified in the baseline.
• Usually confidential or anonymous and non-conversational.

Step 3: Quarterly Targeted Campaigns (1-2 min, 5 days to action)

• To inform an action plan for a specific issue or opportunity.
• Offset from the quarterly pulse check-ins.
• Includes only the relevant cohort of people with 1 rated statement + 1 open text pair per week, for two weeks.
• Usually open or confidential and conversational.

This cycle repeats annually, keeping engagement efforts tightly aligned with what matters most - without fatiguing people.

3. Types of Visibility

Response Visibility

We support a range of visibility models to suit different comfort levels and maturity stages within your organization:

1. Open

• What it means: All participants' feedback and names are visible to the campaign stakeholders.
• When to use it: Great for change or improvement campaigns where transparency supports human conversations, building momentum and collaboration.

2. Confidential

• What it means: Feedback is attributed by name, but only a limited set of people can see the responses.
• When to use it: Perfect for engagement or culture surveys where you still want to follow up 1:1 but need tighter controls on visibility.

3. Anonymous

• What it means: No one sees individual attributed feedback, only aggregated themes and scores are visible in the dashboard.
• When to use it: Suited for sensitive topics or early-stage cultural readiness.

4. Setting Expectations

The best way to build trust for people participating in a Joyous survey or campaign is by clearly setting expectations at the start. Joyous makes this easy by letting you customise the opening message with a simple statement like:

“Your feedback is confidential. Only the HR team can see your individual responses. The rest of the leadership team will only see themes and average scores.”

5. Survey Design: The Joyous Way

1. Keep it short and prioritize the most important questions.

To mitigate drop-off rates and enhance completion, we recommend prioritizing essential questions and ensuring that the most critical questions are at the beginning to maximize engagement.

2. Make It Conversational

Our surveys feel like a chat, not a chore, using clear, friendly messages and conversational language to promote participation.

3. Prioritize Clarity and Psychological Safety

Every question is designed to avoid jargon, stay clear, and flows logically, enhancing comfort and increasing survey completion rates.

6. The Joyous HR Engagement Model

The Joyous HR Engagement model has continuously evolved and been regularly updated. It consists of a library of assets, including survey and campaign templates, all directly available from the tool in the People & Culture category.

7. A Brief History of the EX Genome Project

The Employee Experience Genome Project was first released in 2019 after extensive research and provides a framework for understanding employee experience and engagement.

8. Types of Questions

Joyous supports a variety of question types such as eNPS, rated statements, open text questions, and more to gather feedback effectively.

9. Survey and Campaign Templates

Long Culture Survey Template (10m)

A 10-minute assessment suitable for annual measurement across engagement, well-being, culture & environment and fairness & inclusion.
Download the template in an excel workbook here.

The Medium Culture Survey (5m)

A medium length assessment suitable for six monthly or annual measurement around engagement and well-being.
Download the template in an excel workbook here.

The Short Culture Survey (2m)

A short assessment suitable for quarterly measurement.
Download the template in an excel workbook here.

Action focused campaigns

Targeted campaigns aimed at specific improvements.

Conclusion

And there you have it! If you made it this far, you now have a comprehensive understanding of how Joyous recommends approaching HR and Engagement with our Employee Experience (EX) product. If you have any feedback or questions don't hesitate to reach out to your account manager directly.