Engagement action plan: 30, 60 and 90 days after the survey
By Deibson Silva · Reviewed on
An engagement action plan picks one or two drivers per area, gives each action an owner and a date, and asks again at 90 days only about what was worked on. The first 30 days are for giving the results back and acting without a budget, the 60 for what needs preparation and the 90 for measuring.
Why do so many engagement surveys end without a plan?
Because the plan is thought about once the results are already in. By then staff have been waiting for weeks, senior management has moved on to something else and HR is holding a forty-page report with twenty open fronts.
What follows is usually a presentation to senior management, a long list of initiatives and no name beside any of them. Three months later nobody remembers what was promised.
The remedy is a matter of order. The plan's timetable is decided before the survey goes out, and the survey goes out when there is someone to deal with whatever comes back.
What is decided before the survey goes out?
Four things, in writing. The date on which staff will see the results, which should be no more than two weeks after it closes. Who will present them in each area: its manager, with support, and not an outsider. How many drivers each area will work on, which means one or two. And what budget and time each manager has for acting.
Staff are told when they are invited to answer. Saying 'on the 20th you will see your area's results and on the 30th you will know what we are going to change' lifts participation more than any reminder.
What happens in each stretch?
The plan has five moments. The table says what is done in each, who answers for it and how you know it is going well.
| Stretch | What is done | Who answers for it | Sign it is going well |
|---|---|---|---|
| Days 1 to 15 | Give the results back to all staff and to each area | Senior management and each head of area | Nobody hears the results in the corridor |
| Days 15 to 30 | Each area chooses one or two drivers and a first action with no budget | Head of area, with their team | The action has a name and a date |
| Days 31 to 60 | Actions that need preparation: training managers, changing a meeting, redrawing how work is shared | Head of area and HR | The team notices the change without being told |
| Days 61 to 90 | Follow-up on the actions and a pulse survey on the chosen drivers | HR or the consultancy | At least as many people answer as the first time |
| Day 90 | Tell staff what changed, what did not and what comes next | Senior management | What did not work is said as well |
How are the drivers chosen?
With three filters. The first is the result: the drivers with the fewest favourable answers, which on a five-point agreement scale are the fours and fives. The second is importance: of those that come out low, which touch on what the area has to deliver. The third is reach: which ones the manager can do something about without asking permission.
Whatever does not depend on the area, such as pay or tools, is set apart and goes up to senior management with a date for a reply. Leaving it in the area's plan only breeds frustration.
One or two drivers per area look like few. They are what fits into 90 days if you want something to change in earnest.
How is an action written?
With a verb, a name, a date and a way of knowing whether it was done. 'Improve communication' is a wish. 'The warehouse manager gathers the afternoon shift for ten minutes each Monday to share out the week's load, from 1 December' is an action.
Each area's first action should be doable with no budget and in under a month. Its job is to show that answering was worth it.
Actions come out of the conversation with the team. The manager presents the result, asks what lies behind it and makes a proposal; the team corrects it. A plan written in an office gets carried out less.
What is the consultancy's role?
To hold the timetable and to prepare the managers. The consultancy that supports the survey does not own the actions: if it did, the plan would end on the day the contract ends.
Its work has three parts. Beforehand, helping senior management to fix the dates and the number of drivers. During, teaching each manager to present their result without getting defensive and to draw an action out of the conversation. Afterwards, comparing areas, pointing out where the plan has stalled and preparing the second measurement.
At 90 days the client company should be able to repeat the cycle alone. What the consultancy leaves behind is the method and the data ordered by area.
What must not be done with the answers?
Looking for who said what. Recital 26 of the GDPR only leaves outside the regulation information that does not allow the person to be identified, and a survey stops being anonymous as soon as it is crossed with enough data to point at someone. That is why small groups are not shown and ever finer breakdowns are not requested.
Nor are they used for another purpose. Article 5 of the GDPR asks for data to be processed for the purposes it was collected for. What staff answered in order to make work better does not turn up later in an individual assessment.
If the results are crossed with behavioural profiles, check the Spanish data protection authority's list on impact assessments, which places those profiles under its first criterion.
And in Spain, if an action brings relevant changes to how work is organised, Article 64.5 of the Workers' Statute gives the works council the right to be informed and consulted. Other countries have their own consultation rules.
How do you measure at 90 days?
With a short pulse survey, only with the questions for the drivers each area chose. Repeating the full survey after three months tires people and measures things nobody has touched.
Each area is compared with itself. If the driver rises, you say so and keep the action going. If it does not move, you ask the team why before changing plan.
The result is shared with all staff, just as the first one was. That closes one cycle and opens the next with more credit.
Sources
Frequently asked questions
- How long should it take to give the result back?
- No more than two weeks from the close of the survey. After that, staff assume nothing is going to happen.
- How many actions should each area have?
- One or two per driver, and one or two drivers per area. A plan with ten actions has nobody to follow it.
- Who owns the plan?
- The head of each area. HR or the consultancy hold the timetable and the method, but the action belongs to whoever manages the team.
- What do you do with what does not depend on the area?
- Set it apart and take it to senior management with a date for a reply. The reply may be no, but it has to arrive and be explained.
- Does the full survey have to be repeated at 90 days?
- No. A pulse survey with the questions for the drivers worked on is enough. The full survey is repeated after a year.