Action planning enables teams and organizations to create actionable solutions around a survey's most impactful questions.
In this article:
- Overview
- Requirements
- Navigate the Action Plan
- Create an Action Plan: How to Add Focus Areas
- Create an Action Plan: How to Add Action Items
- Action Plan Assignments: Owners, Contributors, Viewers
Overview
Surveying your organization is an essential initial step toward enhancing engagement, with a critical step being the implementation of actions based on insights uncovered from the survey results.
Employees who see action following a survey are 12 times more likely to be engaged the following year than those who don't experience any follow-up. Additionally, engaged employees are three times more likely to feel that they have ownership and get involved in taking action on engagement. Because of this, we strongly encourage organizations to give their managers access to Engagement survey analytics to empower them to take action with their teams supported by Quantum Workplace's reporting tools.
By developing action plans focused on the survey result's key issues, teams can devise practical solutions, further supported by different features, e.g. Best Practice Action Library, Action Assistant, Discussion Assistant, etc. to create intelligent and actionable action plans.
Additional Resources:
- Product Training: Action Plans
- Manager's Guide to Action Planning (eBook)
- Action Plans for Managers
- Survey Access Settings
- Action Plan Analytics
Action Plan Access
Access to an action plan is configured via a user's assignment to a specific node or branch on an org tree or custom org tree. This applies to the automatically generated Manager Org Tree and any custom org trees launched by your organization.
Users with access to a survey's analytics can manage their action plans when the survey closes.
Learn more about survey Access Settings.
Enable Action Planning in the Survey Creator
To enable action planning for a survey, confirm that the Action Planning toggle is enabled in the Details step of the survey creator.
Navigate the Action Plan
To navigate the Action Plan tab:
- A. Your Action Plans: Lists action plans for which you are an Owner or Contributor
- B. Action Plan Status: A visual of the total number of the survey's action plans and their status
- C. Action Item Completion Rate: A visual of the total number of Action Items and their completion rate over time
- D. Nudges & Search Action Plans: Lists all of the survey's action plans in your downline, as well as an option to nudge an action plan's Owner
Create an Action Plan: How to Add Focus Areas
To build your action plan, start by analyzing your survey results. Use the Slice and Filter functions and various reports to identify interesting data points or trends within the data and create Focus Areas. Learn more about Engagement survey analytics.
Action plans are made up of Focus Areas which focus on a specific topic or issue uncovered in the survey results. Focus Areas are then made up of Action Items, which are the smaller, individual steps required to complete the Focus Area's objective.
As you evaluate the Insights you’ve created, focus on 1-3 survey questions that you and your team want to invest in. How to Create an Effective Employee Engagement Action Plan.
Preset Focus Areas
Additionally, as an admin or survey-admin, create Preset Focus Areas for specific branches of an org tree to provide organization-level guidance to align a team's Focus Areas with an organization's overall initiatives.
Preset Focus Areas appear in the selected branch's action plan alongside any other Focus Area, and are indicated with the text, Preset by [Organization.]
Learn more about Preset Focus Areas.
Add a Focus Area via a Question with an Insight
When viewing survey results, use Insights to bookmark thoughts and context for specific survey questions to review at a later time. Learn how to create an Insight.
To add a Focus Area via a question with an Insight:
- Navigate to the survey's analytics
- Click and navigate to the Action Plan tab
- Click + Add to Action Plan to expand the Add to Action Plan menu
- Identify the question with an Insight and click Add to Plan to view the Insight as a Focus Area
Add a Focus Area via Custom Focus Areas
To add a Focus Area via a custom Focus Area:
- Navigate to the survey's analytics
- Click and navigate to the Action Plan tab
- Click + Add to Action Plan to expand the Add to Action Plan menu
- Click + Add Custom Focus Area
- Complete the Add Title and optionally, Add Description, field
- Click Add to view the Custom Focus Area as a Focus Area
Click View Insights for a Focus Area to view the insight and the author.
After a question has been added to an action plan as a Focus Area, Action Items can be added via the Action Library or as custom Action Items.
Create an Action Plan: How to Add Action Items
As you populate your action plan with Focus Areas, add Action Items to each Focus Area. Action Items are the actionable steps to achieve the larger goal of the Focus Area.
As you carry out and complete Action Items, click the corresponding ☐ icon to mark the item as complete.
To communicate any context or additional information, action plan Owners and Contributors can comment on each Action Item. Notifications are delivered to everyone in the comment thread.
Continue reading to learn how to add Action Items to an action plan.
Discussion Notes
Use the Discussion Notes feature as a place to organize and capture information as you meet with your team about your action plan.
Discussion Starters are available for Focus Areas as effective questions to prompt productive dialogue and uncover inspiration for Action Items. Learn how to use the Discussion Assistant to create and add intelligent, contextual discussion starters.
Add Action Items via the Action Assistant
The Action Assistant recognizes the Focus Area and provides a list of intelligent and actionable Action Item options. Learn more about the Action Assistant.
To dynamically add an Action Item via the Action Assistant:
- For the intended Focus Area, click Generate Ideas
- Click an Action Item's corresponding ☐ icon to select it
- Optionally, click Re-Generate to reload a new list of Action Items
- Click Add Selected to add the selected items to the Focus Area
Add Action Items via the Action Library
To add an Action Item via the Add from Library button:
- For the intended Focus Area, click Add from Library
- Click an Action Item's corresponding ☐ icon to select it
- Click Add Selected to add the selected items to the Focus Area
Note: The Add from Library option is not available for custom Focus Areas, custom survey questions, or Outcome survey questions.
Best Practice suggestions are regularly added to the Action Library.
Add Custom Action Items
To add a custom Action Item via the Add Custom Action button:
- For the intended Focus Area, click Add Custom Action Item
- Enter the title and description in the appropriate fields
- Click Add
Edit & Delete Action Items
To manage an existing Action Item, hover over the Action Item and click the ⋮ icon. Click Edit to adjust the Action Item's Title and Description. Click Delete to remove the Action Item.
Action Plan Assignments: Owner, Contributors, and Viewers
To foster collaboration and teamwork in completing action plans, both Owners and Contributors share the same abilities in completing and managing Action Items. Nonetheless, the action plan Owner is ultimately accountable for the action plan's progress.
Viewers have visibility into the action plan but can not make any edits.
Note: Viewers are not indicated on the action plan the way Owners and Contributors are even when a user is assigned as a Viewer.
An Action Plan can only have one Owner, but any number of Contributors and Viewers.
Learn more about assigning users to an assignment for an action plan.