Guide for New Admins: Getting Started

In this article:

 

Overview

First, congratulations on your new role. Second, bookmark this page. This resource is not meant to be read in one sitting. You will want to refer back to it in the future. 

Before you jump into the tool, click here to learn about who Quantum Workplace is.

We here at Quantum Workplace are on a mission to make work better every day and our tool reflects our mission and values. Each of the tools we offer are designed and regularly updated to promote engagement holistically across an organization. To explore our tools in-depth and learn how they can apply to your organization, check out our Maturity Framework and Feature Checklist.

As a new administrator for your organization, you have access to all the features your organization has purchased. Some key admin-specific abilities include launching and managing cycles, survey analytics and editing user demographics.

The rest of this article is focused on providing the necessary information to get you up to speed and learn how you can use our tools to improve your organization’s work culture and employee engagement, as well as associated best practices.

Where to Start?

So, where do you start? We recommend starting by identifying what your organization has already launched. This includes past surveys and feedback cycles as well as ongoing cycles. 

Let’s begin by logging into your Quantum Workplace account. From the Home page, click Administration in the left sidebar to expand the menu. This is where you have access to admin-specific abilities. For this example, we will look at past and ongoing surveys.

From the Administration sidebar menu, click Surveys & Pulses to see a list of active cycles and unpublished cycles. See the Status column to see whether a survey is Open or Complete. You can also click Analytics at the end of each cycle row to dive into the data.

Your Points of Contact at Quantum Workplace 

You won't be on your own as you move into your new admin role. The Customer Success team here at Quantum Workplace are a talented group that can walk you through any concerns or questions you may have as you transition into this role. Your contacts here at Quantum Workplace include:

  • Customer Implementation Manager: CIMs will facilitate your onboarding and get you accustomed to Quantum Workplace's features, and provide best practices specific to your organization's use cases.
  • Customer Success Manager: CSMs act as your trusted advisor, providing ongoing guidance and support to accommodate your organization's needs. Your CSM will partner with you to meet your organization's engagement goals.
  • Insights Analyst: Your Insights Analyst uses expertise in employee engagement to coach best practices, aid you with survey or performance design and help identify key data insights. This may or may not be included in your contract. If you are unsure, ask your CSM
  • Technical Support: The technical support team is your go-to for any one-off questions or any technical assistance you may need. They can be reached Monday-Friday, 8 am-5 pm CST by phone, email, or chat on our website.

Administrative Functions

The links below will walk you through:

Depending on how your organization chooses to distribute administrative responsibilities, your organization may have general administrator roles or include focused admins who have limited access to specific subsets of your organization. For a thorough breakdown of what focused admins can and cannot do, as well as how to set up new focused admin roles, follow the link below.

As an administrator for your company, it is likely that you will work with an IT team and an HRIS (Human Resources Information System). The articles below will guide you through the setup process for new HRIS and HRMS. Also included below is a guide on our SFTP site to easily manage and transfer information, as well as setting up Single Sign-On for your employees for easy access to our tool. Depending on your organization, the IT team may be more or less involved in these processes and should be contacted for assistance and security compliance.  

Goals

Meaningful and well-designed goals are critical for a productive and engaged employee population. Quantum Workplace provides you with tools to launch effective goals like the goal wizard and an intuitive dashboard where you can track all your goals at a distance or dive deeper into specific goals for greater detail. 

Creating and managing goals is one matter, designing goals that help individuals and teams achieve an organization’s goal is another matter.

1-on-1s

Utilize our 1-on-1 feature to ensure meetings between managers and their direct reports are focused and maximized. Holding consistent 1-on-1s strengthens relationships, builds a more engaged work culture, and helps keep employees on track with goals.

1-on-1s are launched as single or automated cycles. You can create a new template from the ground up with your own question set. Alternatively, you can also use existing templates and edit them as needed. Conversation Boosters are a straightforward way to place a spotlight on an employee’s goal(s) or feedback to encourage dialogue and accountability. As an admin, you have control over how the Conversation Boosters are integrated into your templates, if at all.


Holding effective and engaging 1-on-1s requires that managers have the necessary skills to guide and coach their direct reports.

There is still more value to be had after the 1-on-1 has been held. Quantum Workplace provides a robust analytics tool to examine data points and trends across all 1-on-1s. Responses for a specific 1-on-1 or across an entire cycle can also be exported.

Feedback

The Feedback feature within Quantum Workplace provides an effortless way for employees to give and request honest productive feedback. This has the benefit of giving managers insight regarding their employee’s performance and how to individualize their development plans. Feedback also allows employees to see their strengths and opportunities from peers and managers as well as a more regular look at their performance, as opposed to annual performance reviews.

Using the Feedback feature is open to all employees and can be initiated at any time to capture public opinion at a moment’s notice.

Depending on your existing workplace culture, feedback may or may not be a celebrated and encouraged value. Countless amounts of research have shown that organizations perform better and have a more engaged employee population when employees can share feedback comfortably. Below are a few strategies you can implement to build a feedback culture.

Recognition

Employees feeling valued consistently ranks as a key factor in employee engagement. It is important that organizations show recognition and appreciation for their employees in ways that make employees truly feel valued, rather than an over-reliance on awards and empty celebrations that accomplish little for employee engagement.

Our Recognition feature enables anyone in your organization to recognize colleagues naturally. Whether it’s calling out good work, seeing someone go above and beyond, or someone crushing a goal they had set, Recognition provides the space to empower your employees to take recognition into their own hands.

Now that you understand how to use the tool, it is important to understand the psychology and research behind recognition to nurture a workplace culture that encourages and welcomes recognition.

Surveys

Quantum Workplace's comprehensive survey tool gives you the ability to create customizable surveys that capture employee voices and measure engagement in a variety of scenarios.

Some of these scenarios include:

  • Automated new hire and exit surveys to measure employee perceptions over time as they onboard or if an employee voluntarily leaves an organization
  • Quick Pulse surveys to quickly capture employee engagement, useful to gauge sentiment following a new benefits plan, new organizational strategy, etc. 
  • Full Engagement surveys offer a comprehensive survey to thoroughly measure engagement that, when coupled with Quantum Workplace's analytics, provides robust data to strategize ways to increase engagement

Follow the links below for walkthroughs on creating and launching the different surveys available with Quantum Workplace.

Survey analytics are available in real-time during a survey cycle. It is common for new admins to feel overwhelmed when trying to make sense of the survey data. The following links will guide you through the fundamentals of understanding the analytics tool. Remember, you can always reach out to your CIM/CSM or Quantum Workplace’s Help Library for more information and assistance.  

For best practices and research-backed strategies, consider the following articles.

Talent Reviews & Succession Planning

Quantum Workplace's Talent Review and Succession Planning offers a streamlined approach to managing and developing your employee population for future roles.

Gain insights from performance potential assessments to identify high-potential employees and craft effective succession strategies to ensure organizational continuity and employee development that aligns with business goals. 

Talent Reviews

Succession Planning