Our 2-min survey is based on science, it's easy to run and give you exactly what you need; Overview, benchmarks, trends, analysis and actions.
Know when your employees are experiencing high levels of stress and act proactively.
Zoios’s pulse survey measures employee stress levels by default.
By measuring consistently, you can identify moment of high stress over time and correlate them with events in your organization.
Get insights on whether your employees stress levels are temporary or remain high over longer periods of time.
Zoios can help you identify what’s causing stress among your employees by analyzing their answers.
Most companies know they should measure employee stress. But knowing you should do it and doing it well are two very different things.
We've seen organizations make the same mistakes over and over – mistakes that turn stress measurement into a waste of time at best, and actively harmful at worst. Here are the three biggest ones to avoid.
Many leaders believe that if they don't measure stress, it's not really there. Or worse, they worry that asking about stress will actually create more of it.
But here's the reality: stress exists whether you measure it or not. And when you ignore it, you're just letting it build up until it shows up as burnout, sick leave, or people quietly looking for new jobs.
Measuring stress doesn't create the problem - although it can feel like talking about it is what let it out of the box. So it can feel like the talking created the problem, but it obviously didn’t.
Rather it helps you catch it early, before it becomes expensive and damaging. Think of it like checking your car's oil – you're not causing engine problems by making sure it’s running without overheating.
It's tempting to create your own survey questions. After all, you know your company best, right?
But stress measurement isn't guesswork. There's decades of scientific research showing exactly which factors drive workplace stress and how to measure them accurately. When you design questions from scratch, you're basically throwing that research in the bin and hoping for the best.
The problem? You might measure the wrong things, ask leading questions, or miss critical stress factors entirely. Then you end up with data that doesn't actually help you do anything useful. And worse, puts you in a vulnerable position with management and the managers in the organization who blame you.
When people say they're stressed, the immediate reaction is usually "you have too much work."And sure, sometimes that's true. But workload and stress are different things.
You can have a heavy workload without feeling strained if you have clarity, autonomy, and support.
And you can feel completely overwhelmed with a light workload if everything feels unclear and you don't have the right resources.Treating all stress as a workload problem means you'll miss the real issues. Maybe it's unclear priorities, lack of psychological safety, or feeling micromanaged. If you only ever reduce workload, you're solving the wrong problem.
We can follow the trends and facilitate dialogues to make small or large changes in our everyday work-life - to ensure we accommodate what motivates people and develops them as consultants.
The 3 steps to successfully measure employee stress
Once you've avoided those mistakes, what does good stress measurement actually look like?
It's not complicated, but it does require a thoughtful approach. Here are the three essential steps that separate useful stress measurement from pointless data collection.
It’s important to address stress is before prolonged sick leave is on the table. That's why you need an alert system that catches high strain early.
Here's how it works: when someone's stress levels hit concerning levels, they get a private notification letting them know. They can then choose to share this information with their manager or HR – but only if they want to. This approach respects privacy while creating a safety net.
Think of it as a check engine light for wellbeing. The employee sees it first and decides whether they want help. No surprises, no surveillance, just support when it's needed.
Annual surveys won't cut it for stress measurement. By the time you spot a pattern, people have already burned out or left.
You need frequent check-ins (monthly or quarterly) so you can track trends and catch problems while they're still manageable. But frequency alone isn't enough – you also need depth.
That means segmenting your data by team, role, tenure, and other relevant factors. Because stress rarely affects everyone equally. One department might be thriving while another is drowning. Without segmentation, you'll just see an average that hides the real story.
Getting a stress score of 6.5 out of 10 sounds. It that okay? Bad? Good? Hard to tell, right?
Without context, stress data is just numbers floating in your spreadsheets. You need benchmarks and systematic objective levels to understand what you're looking at.
Compare your scores against industry standards, similar companies, or your own historical data. That's when you can actually say "our stress levels are 20% higher than comparable companies" or "this team's stress has been climbing for three months."
But benchmarks alone aren't enough. You also need to know at what point these levels become concerning or start having real ramifications. Understanding the thresholds where stress turns into actual strain – affecting performance, health, and retention – is critical for knowing when to act.
Benchmarks turn abstract scores into actionable insights. They help you spot what's normal fluctuation versus what's a real problem. And they give you the context to prioritize where to focus your efforts – because not every score needs immediate attention, but some definitely do.
I think the advantage of concrete data is that we can follow the development over time, and that enables us to test our intuitions.
Plus, the data gives us something tangible and actionable to work with.
We have already done it for
Getting started with Zoios is easy and you can trial our pro plan for free. You can also continue to measure employee satisfaction for free on our starter plan.
Import all your employees from an Excel or CSV file. We'll help you do this free of charge within a day to avoid technical issues.
If you have an HR-IS system we can also set up an integration that automatically syncs employee information from your HR system to the Zoios platform.
Add any segmentation that you might want like gender, generation or level.
Make sure your managers are aware that you're introducing this system to get an overview of the organization and be more proactive on employee trends, not to monitor their individual performance.
Communicate it at an all-hands or town hall meeting. Let employees know you'll start measuring more actively and need their input. We have a presentation template you can use that covers anonymity practices, timing and what to expect.
To run your survey you decide what day you want it to be sent, and then Zoios manages all the sending and follow-ups with employees automatically.
If you use Slack then add that integration in just four clicks before the date of your survey.
The system automatically enforces anonymity, so results from any groups that are too small will not be visible.
The data is instantly available and converted into intuitive reports with benchmarks and deep analyses across the entire organization.
You then give your managers access to their departments and teams, and the platform will serve them detailed reports, root cause analyses and concrete actionable recommendations to improve their leadership and the eNPS, well-being, satisfaction and stress levels in their team.
Zoios is anonymous for employees, and SOC-2 TYPE II certified.
Your people are your business. Act accordingly.