Action Plans for Managers

As a manager, use the Action Plan tool to create data-driven, collaborative, and measurable action plans that drive team engagement.  

In this article: 

• Overview
• Post-Survey Analytics
• Navigate the Action Plan
• Create an Action Plan: How to Add Focus Areas

  • Add a Focus Area via Question with an Insight

  • Add a Focus Area via Custom Focus Areas

• Create an Action Plan: How to Add Action Items

  • Add Action Items via the Action Idea Generator (BETA)

  • Add Action Items via the Action Library

  • Add Custom Action Items

  • Edit & Delete Action Items

• Action Plan Assignments: Owner, Contributors, and Viewers

 

Overview

As a manager, use the Action Plan tool to create data-driven, collaborative, and measurable action plans that drive team engagement.  

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 Idea Generator, Discussion Starter Generators, etc. to create intelligent and actionable action plans. 

Additional Resources:

• Product Training: Action Plans
• Manager's Guide to Action Planning (eBook)
• Survey Access Settings
• Action Plan Analytics

Post-Survey Analytics

Once your direct reports have completed their survey, you can view the survey results and begin analyzing the data. 

To protect survey participants' confidentiality, if a team does not meet the survey's minimum-response threshold, survey results are not visible. Depending on the survey's settings, you may be able to view results of your upline to still analyze results and create an action plan. Contact your HR department if you have any questions regarding survey results visibility. 

For a manager to view their team's responses, enough of your team must complete the survey to meet the minimum response count. To protect confidentiality, if the minimum response is not met, the team's results are not visible.

Use the various analytical tools and reports to effectively look through the survey data and uncover actionable, meaningful insights.

Refer to the following resources for great starting points:

• Team Report: Available for Engagement surveys, the Team Report provides a breakdown of your team's results; additionally, the Team Report automatically highlights your organization's High Impact questions, recommends Focus Areas based on your team's survey responses, and, if applicable, allows you to view progress on previous Focus Areas
  • Note: The Team Report is initially labeled as the Overview tab until a team is selected
  • Use the following guide as a helpful resource to create action plans that address real issues
    
    
• Insights: Use Insights to bookmark thoughts and details for specific survey questions when viewing a survey's results
• Discussion Starter Generator: Use the Discussion Starter Generator to generate intelligent Discussion Starters to encourage rich conversations with your team when reviewing survey results and brainstorming your team's action plan
• Survey Analytics: A guide to each analytics report available to you:
  • Engagement Survey Analytics: All Reports
  • Survey Analytics: All Reports
  • Webinar Recording: Survey Analytics as a Manager
• FAQs: High-Impact Questions & Other Frequently Asked Survey Questions
• View all help articles related to survey analytics and reporting

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

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.

Add a Focus Area via 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 create an action plan and add Focus Areas via a question with an Insight: 

1. Navigate to the survey's analytics
2. Click and navigate to the Action Plan tab
3. Click + Add to Action Plan to expand the Add to Action Plan menu
4. 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 create an action plan and add Focus Areas via the Add Custom Focus Area button:

1. Navigate to the survey's analytics
2. Click and navigate to the Action Plan tab
3. Click + Add to Action Plan to expand the Add to Action Plan menu
4. Click + Add Custom Focus Area 
5. Complete the Add Title and optionally, Add Description, field
6. 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.

Add Action Items via the Action Idea Generator (BETA)

The Action Idea Generator recognizes the Focus Area and provides a list of intelligent and actionable Action Item options. Learn more about the Action Idea Generator.

To dynamically add an Action Item via the Action Idea Generator:

1. For the intended Focus Area, click Generate Ideas
2. Click an Action Item's corresponding ☐ icon to select it
   
   • Optionally, click Re-Generate to reload a new list of Action Items
3. 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:

1. For the intended Focus Area, click Add from Library
2. Click an Action Item's corresponding ☐ icon to select it
3. 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:

1. For the intended Focus Area, click Add Custom Action Item
2. Enter the title and description in the appropriate fields
3. 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.