The People Element platform makes it easy to collect employee feedback. However, what comes next can be challenging. Taking action can take many forms and what fits one organization might not fit another. Your approach may vary depending on organizational size, structure, or resources available. However, below is a two-pronged approach that allows for org-wide action planning and action planning by key demographics important to you.
Org-Wide Action:
Some actions will be applied across the entire organization. To ensure this action is taken and not bottlenecked within leadership or HR, it can be helpful to create an Engagement Committee. This approach can create employee ownership, encourage diverse and innovative solutions, and serve as a development opportunity for committee members.
- Appoint an Executive Sponsor: The executive sponsor is typically a member of leadership or HR. This person will set expectations, ask difficult questions, hold the committee accountable and report their recommendations back to leadership for approval. Ideally, the executive sponsor will be familiar with the People Element platform and reporting.
- Build a Team: Recruit a cross-functional team (6-12 people) from diverse roles within the organization. Typically, the team is recruited through a volunteer process but can be selected by leadership if needed. The team will be responsible for org-wide action planning. This includes pinpointing focus areas and providing the executive sponsor with action items to present to leadership. They are also responsible for managing the execution of the approved action plans.
- Cascade Data: The executive sponsor will share org-wide data with the engagement committee in as much detail as needed to action plan. This might include providing them with access to the People Element platform or sharing exported reports.
- Accountability: It is important to record your action plans and track their progress for an additional layer of accountability. The People Element platform makes it easy record action plans using our action planning tool.
Key Demographic Action:
With action planning already occurring at the org-wide level, some action will be targeted by a key demographic such as manager or department. This depends on what demographics you have available and how much data you have per demographic.
- Key Demographic: It is important find the demographic that works for your organization. While it may sound great for every manager to build an action plan, there may not be enough data by manager, or depending on the number of managers, you may not have the resources to manage the process. Other common demographics that might work are department, job family, or location.
- Cascade Data: Provide demographic specific data to the people responsible for taking action. For example, if you are taking action by department, you may provide each department head with access to their data (survey & data level access).
- Data Education: Ensure the people taking action have a solid understanding of the platform and their data. The People Element knowledge base has tons of resources, but having someone familiar with reporting, review their data with them and help them prioritize opportunities can also be helpful. People Element also has a Manager Action Guide available, intended to help managers and team leaders action plan.
- Accountability: It is important to record your action plans and track their progress for an additional layer of accountability. The People Element platform makes it easy record action plans using our action planning tool.