Turn data into action and employees into advocates. This guide will help you discover the power of an action plan, as well as how to create and execute a plan that makes measurable improvements to your employee experience.

1. You’re planning an employee feedback survey with the intention to better
understand your employees – how they view the employee experience.
What’s important to them. What’s working, what's not. It could be an annual
survey or a periodic pulse survey. You’ve been very intentional about your
objectives and determined the essential questions.
What you haven’t determined is: What do I do with the data I capture, so that my
employees know their voice is heard, we improve the employee experience, and
ultimately the company’s bottom line?
In this report, you’ll discover:
• What an action plan is and why it’s important to have one for every employee
feedback survey campaign.
• How to put your employee data to work.
• How to create and execute an action plan to make measurable improvements.

2. 1
THE POWER OF A SOLID ACTION PLAN
INTRODUCTION
Improving any element of your organization:
talent retention, culture, performance,
productivity and innovation – begins with
quality data.
Every company has a seemingly unlimited
number of priorities on which to focus.
Quantitative data grounds your strategy in facts
and takes out the guesswork.In that regard,
conducting an employee survey is one of the
best ways to gather insight around the
employee experience.
Employee feedback surveys are a time-tested
method to collect helpful insights. Although
most companies have conducted these surveys,
and most employees have taken them, the
results of these efforts vary greatly. The most
successful employee feedback surveys are those
in which timely action is taken on the data that is
collected.
To yield the most positive benefits, an Action
Plan is an essential part of your employee
feedback survey plan. Execution of an Action
Plan is a powerful predictor of success in
improving the employee experience.
There are many types of employee feedback
surveys, including an annual survey and shorter,
more frequent pulse surveys.
More on this topic:
Best Practices for Employee Feedback Surveys
Roadmap to Employee Engagement
Employee Engagement Surveys – Best Practices to
Get Started
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
ABOUT ACTION PLANS
The Action Plan Defined
An Action Plan is a specific set of steps that you
propose to take as a result of findings from your
employee feedback survey. The activities in the
plan are aligned with your business goals and
desired end results.
An Action Plan will ensure that the discoveries
from the feedback survey can be translated into
direct, positive impact on the organization.
Initiatives You Might See in an
Action Plan
Action Plans use the insights discovered in
survey(s), combined with actionable deliverables
designed to close the gaps and solve the
identified problems. Here are some examples of
initiatives that could be part of an Action Plan.
• Manager training
• Executive coaching
• Focus groups to gain deeper insight into
employee concerns
• New recognition programs
• New department or business line strategies
• Upgraded or new technology
• Training programs
•
•
New communication methods, such as
Enterprise Social Media tools
New processes/procedures such as exit
interviews, performance management or the
recruiting process

3. 2
THE POWER OF A SOLID ACTION PLAN
Why Action Planning Is Meaningful
Simply put, an Action Plan drives effective
change. While sharing a report of findings with
various stakeholders in the company is a good
start, it’s not enough. Without an actual plan,
your risks include:
• Concentrating on the wrong data
• Becoming overwhelmed by the analytics
and doing nothing as a result
• Lack of accountability for actions
• Limited employee involvement beyond
answering survey questions
• Inability to track whether actions tie back
to data collected in the survey
• Perception that no action was taken as a
result of the survey
Another reason an Action Plan is necessary is
that it creates a bridge between your C-Suite
and HR. Often, feedback is assumed to be HR’s
responsibility. In reality, it is a shared
responsibility. The Action Plan connects
employee analytics with business goals in a way
that involves senior leadership and ties them
into the process. Action Plans also help you get
buy-in from leadership. These plans are
tangible and actionable which helps leaders
understand that the investment in an employee
feedback survey can lead to improvement in
your bottom line.
USE DATA TO BUILD AN
EFFECTIVE ACTION PLAN
Good Data Is Based on the Decisions
You Make Before You Deploy a Survey
You should not use the survey to measure
everything because you cannot take action on
everything. Though you may be interested in
feedback on a number of areas, it's important to
carefully select those that you plan to address in an
action plan. The Talmetrix team can help with this
step.
Some considerations to determine how you want
to use the data you’ll collect in the survey:
• Which feedback drivers do you plan to take
action on? Remember, you shouldn’t ask
employees questions about things that you
don’t plan to take action on.
• What are the demographic segments you’ll
want to include? Determine what it is
important to report back on, in a specific
context, for example, tenure, location, job
role, job level and other factors. You’ll need
to ask demographic questions that will yield
data in those segments.
• Which reports will each stakeholder group
find important? Senior leadership will
require different reports than line managers.
Collect data that will enable you to provide
the analytics that they’ll find valuable. If this
is your first survey, or the results you
provided in the past weren’t up to
expectations, it’s worth taking the time to
query these groups to find out what will be
valued.

4. 3
THE POWER OF A SOLID ACTION PLAN
How Talmetrix Supports Action Planning
Talmetrix provides all the insight you’ll need to
create relevant Action Plans for your organization.
Talmetrix evaluates the data collected during the
feedback survey so that you’ll have a high degree
of confidence that you’ll be able to understand what
employees have shared.
Talmetrix offers powerful dashboards and reporting
tools that allow you to identify the insights that will
make the most impact to your desired outcome.
Filter the Data
How do you create an Action Plan that will
resonate with employees and leaders? Ensure
that it reflects the feedback they reported in the
employee feedback survey.
As a result of conducting an employee feedback
survey, you will have an abundance of data.
You’ll need to dig deep to understand what it
means and then choose appropriate action
items to concentrate on.
Be sure to choose a survey partner or tool, such
as Talmetrix, who can not only provide powerful
data, but also the insights you’ll need to create
relevant Action Plans. The insights uncovered in
the data should be directly linked to the
perceptions identified by employees. How do
you create immediate value?
• You can take action and avoid the
feedback/data becoming stale.
• Plan to report back on the results and
begin enacting Action Plans very soon
after the close of the survey, while the
data is fresh and relevant.
• Ensure that planning doesn’t happen in a
vacuum: Executives, Managers,
Employees should all play a role.
The data that individuals will find important will
vary greatly by their role and where they work
within the organization. For example, a Vice
President might want to compare geographic
scenarios. Whereas, a Senior Leader may want
to compare his or her highest level direct
reports (Finance, Marketing, etc.).
Filtering the data allows you to think about
results from all angles. Ultimately, the Action
Plans and the priorities within them should
make sense to survey respondents. Thus, the
plan must directly link back to survey feedback.
If you’re provided with the most important,
most relevant data, as Talmetrix provides, you’ll
also be able to make decisions on business
issues, even those that are not directly related
to talent.
EXECUTING YOUR ACTION PLAN
FOR OPTIMAL RESULTS
After you’ve identified meaningful data from
your employee feedback survey, you’ll be
prepared to create and execute an Action Plan.

5. 4
THE POWER OF A SOLID ACTION PLAN
Elements of an Effective Action Plan
According to a Bersin research report1
, an
essential ingredient to your Action Plan is clear
guidelines on who is accountable for taking
action on each identified item. Without these
guidelines, business leaders may continue to
think that HR is ultimately responsible.
Everybody is responsible for the employee
experience and as such, everybody should have
a role in implementing change as a result of your
employee survey.
Your Plan should define an owner for each item
and indicate all the other individuals, teams or
departments who should be involved.
Another core component to an effective action
plan is communication. This goes beyond
announcing the results of the survey. Action
Plan communication shares what is going to
happen and when. Some examples of
communication to drive your Action Plan
forward includes:
• Dashboards for leadership
• Status updates for employees
• Announcements on implementation of
organizational changes as a result of the
Action Plan
While we hope you’re convinced about the
importance of an Action Plan, another thing to
keep in mind is that you should have one
master Action Plan. Splitting the Plan up into
multiple Plans and sharing it with different
parts of the organization, can create confusion.
Confusion often leads to inaction. You want
managers, and in turn employees, to be
1 Evaluating Employee Engagement Measurement Options,
Bersin, 2016,
http://www.bersin.com/Practice/Detail.aspx?id=19725
involved in the process. However, be cautious
of trying to accomplish this by having them
create independent Action Plans. Reflect all
activities in one Action Plan. Obtain buy-in
from senior leadership early and position them
to lead the process.
Each action you identify should include not
only the required activities, but also the
operational requirements. How does your
organization need to change the way you do
things in order to implement the action item?
Timing is another important element of your
action plan. While certain actions may take
multiple years, be sure that it’s clear what you
plan to accomplish in the current year. Then,
build additional actions into your
organizational goals for the years that follow.
Your actions are built and guided by the data
you collect from your employee feedback
survey. So the Action Plan should include the
relevant data to support the planned actions.
What’s the Ideal Timing for Your
Action Plan?
Organizations who begin action planning within one
month of closing their survey generally experience
greater employee participation. Not only is the
survey more relevant and recent for employees
within that time period, but the credibility of the
organization and leadership can also be enhanced by
timely action planning.

6. 5
THE POWER OF A SOLID ACTION PLAN
Finally, measurement is essential. To determine
ROI for your employee feedback survey and
measure the effectiveness of the changes you’re
making, it’s necessary to regularly review the
results – and communicate them. What are the
feedback drivers for your Action Plan? This is
important to know from the start.
Additional Insights on This Topic:
Building an Engagement Action Plan: Holding All
Levels Accountable
4 Steps to Building an Engagement Action Plan
The Key to Taking Action After an Employee Survey

7. 7
THE POWER OF A SOLID ACTION PLAN
CONCLUSION
Research supports that the more an employee is engaged, the higher the chance that they’ll be a
quality individual contributor. Identifying meaningful insights from your employee feedback survey is
just the beginning. Be sure to plan to leverage that data into an Action Plan – that’s where you’ll
experience the meaningful, value-added results.
Talmetrix can help. Our advisory support team, with over 60 years of experience, can help you make
an Action Plan that is tailored to your needs. Email the Solutions Advisor team at info@talmetrix.com
or call us at (513) 399-6301.
HOW TO CHOOSE WHAT TO ACT UPON
While the Talmetrix platform can help guide you toward what to focus on, here are some
foundational questions to consider when deciding what to act upon.
□ Is it “low-hanging fruit,” or easy to correct, so it makes sense to address it quickly?
□ Is it impacting a crucial part of your business’ bottom line?
□ Can you manage the cost of addressing the issue? (Getting started on something you
can’t finish due to cost constraints is not the best use of your time.)
□ How long is the timeframe before this would make an impact? Does that timeframe fit
your goals?
□ Which area would provide the most alignment with and biggest impact on your strategic
goals?
□ Do you require resources to help you implement? Are they internal or external
□ How many people does this impact beyond the survey?
□ Is there enough data available to act on the findings?