When Fredrik Eeg joined CatalystOne as CFO in autumn 2022, the Finance team was going through significant change. The team was growing while managing day-to-day operations and building the structures needed to support a growing software company.
The team shared a strong sense of direction. But as many leaders know, shared ambition doesn’t automatically mean that everything feels clear, balanced or sustainable.
Regular pulse surveys gave Fredrik and his team a structured way to understand how people were experiencing the changes and, importantly, a starting point for deciding what to do next.
The pulse results didn’t come as a major surprise. Fredrik was already speaking regularly with his team. Buy what they did provide was a shared view of clarity, workload, recognition and development.
Instead of responding immediately with broad team initiatives, Fredrik used one-to-one conversations to explore what was behind the results.
“Teams can easily spend too much time discussing symptoms when the real improvement comes from identifying and addressing the root causes.”
The team then discussed the findings together. This really helped them to build a shared understanding of what needed attention before agreeing on what to change.
The pulse results showed where to look. The conversations helped the team understand why.
There was no single initiative behind the team’s approach. Instead, employee feedback became part of an existing rhythm of conversations and follow-up.
The team worked with:
Engage gave the team a regular way to check how things were developing and provided a common starting point for conversations.
For Fredrik, that distinction matters. Pulse surveys can highlight patterns and show where attention may be needed. But the value comes from what leaders do with that information.
“A leader can ask people directly whether things are going well, but that doesn’t always give the full picture. Pulse data creates a more neutral starting point for discussion.”
As the team continued to work with the results, the monthly pulse surveys provided a way to follow their progress.
The Total Pulse Index reached 83 out of 100, with positive movement across several areas, including Inclusion, Clarity, Efficiency, Recognition, Development and Autonomy.
The improvement wasn’t tied to one isolated initiative or one engagement driver. Instead, it developed over time alongside clearer priorities, regular conversations and continued follow-up.
An important part of the story is that engagement rarely comes down to a single factor. It’s rather shaped by the everyday experience of work, and by leaderships behaviour around communication, clarity, recognition, prioritisation and trust.
Fredrik’s approach isn’t a blueprint for every manager or team. But it does illustrate nicely what becomes possible when leaders have regular insight into the employee experience, and a clear way to act on it.
A few points that we think really stand out:
For HR, the opportunity is to give leaders the insight and structure they need to have these conversations across the organisation.
Engage helped make the team’s experience visible and gave Fredrik and his team a consistent way to follow its development. The conversations and actions that actually followed were what turned those insights into change.
Our takeaway? Pulse surveys show where attention is needed. The real impact comes from what leaders do next.