Proven Action Planning Tips

1. Share survey success stories at all-employee/town-hall meetings. Invite employees and their manager to present where their action plans have “made a difference” for their department. Not only will the manager and the employees feel recognized for their success with the survey, but others in the audience will naturally question what has been done with the survey in their own department. In addition, the employee’s presence increases management’s accountability that action plans will be implemented.

2. Add a “Survey Update” column to your employee newsletter/publication. The column’s consistent theme should be “Here’s what you said, here’s what we did.”

3. Have the head of your organization make 10 to 15 strategically-placed requests to review line-level supervisors’ action plans; this will effectively make use of your organization’s “grapevine” and send the widespread message that the survey’s eventual outcomes are being tracked and monitored at the highest level of the organization.

4. Add a set item in every supervisor’s staff meeting agenda to discuss updates to the Employee Opinion Survey. The reason for implementing a set item on the agenda is for the employees to recognize the accountability of the management team to fully implement the action-plans resulting from the Employee Engagement Survey. It is essential that management regularly communicate any changes that are being implemented which resulted from the information obtained during the staff meeting. Additionally, this is a key opportunity for management to share the survey action-planning information with the employees for their feedback and “buy-in.” By involving and continually communicating information to the employees, it will help ensure that the action plans that management established are meaningful, accountable, and successful.

5. A Pulse Survey is a great way to hold managers and the organization accountable for implementing their action plans. As you know, on average, most organizations survey their employees 18 months, using the survey the way it was meant to be used, that is, as an ongoing system of measurement as opposed to a one-time event. But why wait eighteen months to find out if your managers and the organization implemented action plans that introduced positive change within the organization as well as the work groups? Positioning the Pulse Survey three months after the action planning has been implemented from the last full employee survey, allows enough time for the employees to recognize the positive changes that occurred as a result of their comments and suggestions.

6. Host an awards banquet for those managers who have implemented the most effective action plans as a result of the Employee Engagement Survey. This is not only an excellent way to recognize those managers who took full advantage of the survey feedback and made positive changes, but it also allows the managers to share “tips” on why their action plans were so successful.