Building a culture of listening: How Friday Pulse has helped shape the people strategy at TSL

Stacey Gearey, Head of People and Culture at TSL, shares how Friday Pulse has helped make listening a consistent part of the culture - and how regular feedback has helped shape people decisions, build trust, and support continuous improvement across the business.

We know our people are our greatest asset, and so building an intentional culture that can scale as we evolve has been a key focus for the business. This belief is founded and championed by our Managing Director, Dexter Copeland, and it’s achieved by really listening to the team so that the leadership team understand the successes and moments to celebrate, and also where our team might require additional support or change.

We introduced Friday Pulse in 2023 to enable us to better listen to our team as it grew, to measure culture and, importantly, to empower us to act on the feedback. Like many organisations, we already spoke regularly with our people. But with teams working in our offices and on multiple construction sites across the UK, we wanted a more consistent way of understanding how everyone was feeling. We didn't just want another survey; we wanted a way to genuinely listen, identify trends and make informed decisions that would improve the employee experience.

Making feedback part of our culture

We wanted our culture scores to be a regular rhythm for the business, so the surveys from Friday Pulse suited us perfectly. The short weekly survey can take a little as 10 seconds to complete, and the SLT review them weekly to understand the scoring themes. Everyone knows this happens weekly, which validates their scores and comments.

When trends emerge, we share them openly and look at what practical improvements we can make or what successes there are to share. Our team know their feedback becomes part of real conversations and genuine decision making. That consistency has helped build trust. People can see that we listen, respond and continue to improve.

Turning feedback into action

The quarterly culture surveys complement the weekly engagement scores and have helped shape our people strategy, showing areas to prioritise and where our team take most value and enjoyment. The culture scores have helped to shape improvements across wellbeing, recognition, communication, development opportunities and leadership capability.

Additionally, Friday Pulse encourages peer to peer feedback with the comments and thank you features, plus in the category of team relationships and feedback give guidance to those working directly with teams. This is a fantastic opportunity for all businesses, but particularly for us where our team is split between office and sites.

Measuring progress over time

One of the things we value most is being able to track progress rather than relying on assumptions. We can see whether initiatives are genuinely making a difference, celebrate improvements and quickly identify new areas that need attention.

The results have been encouraging. We've seen our key people metrics improve year on year, and pinpoint trends in scores. The benchmarking reports and impact report also give guidance on where we stand to add most value. Whilst we're incredibly proud of our results, we don't see them as the finish line. They simply show us that listening consistently and acting on feedback works.

Building a culture of continuous improvement

Our culture foundation remains the same, but as our business has evolved over time, the Friday Pulse surveys have guided people decisions to ensure it is scalable. It's built through hundreds of small conversations, consistent actions and demonstrating that every opinion matters. Friday Pulse gives a fantastic platform for two-way feedback and we regularly ask teams and individuals to give insight into scores. It gives our people a voice every week, gives our leaders valuable insight and helps us make better decisions for everyone across the business.

Our culture has grown with the business, but it remains an environment where people feel listened to, respected and confident that their feedback will lead to meaningful change. Our journey certainly isn't finished, but Friday Pulse has become an important part of how we continue to listen, learn and improve together.

If you’re interested in measuring happiness in your teams like TSL does, you can try Friday Pulse for free.