Developing recommendations for action
Developing recommendations for action is not as difficult as you might think.
The whole thing follows a systematic system. This makes it easy for you to develop recommendations for action.
The filters and comparisons are used again to develop the recommendations for action. This allows you to discover the areas where action is recommended.
Generally speaking in advance:
Every survey and every goal behind it is individual. Always coordinate the results with the company's objectives.
If, for example, you see that the canteen’s offer is not sufficient for the employees, but at the same time the number of employees in the office is decreasing (home office), then one measure may be to optimize the menu, but the “canteen” area is not on your priority list in the current situation.
Okay, let’s get started.
First, look at your overall results.
For example, if you have used matrix questions to assess a situation, try to recognize where a significant threshold value (ø value in the assessment) has been undercut based on a value you have set.
This allows you to mentally set a benchmark line and take a rough look at the results. Make a note of all areas/answers where your imaginary line was undercut.
This doesn’t work for every question – but for most of them. It is important that you draw an imaginary line for each question and see where the result is below the line.
Once you have noted the results where your benchmark line has been undercut, then use filters and comparisons to see whether the undercut/result – e.g. in an employee survey – has taken place in every department or only in 1-2 departments.
This step will tell you where your benchmark line has been undercut.
If this was only the case in 1-2 departments, then make a note of the topic and the department.
Now go through your results step by step.
The method described here does not apply across the board to all results and surveys. Depending on the question and its importance for the company, even small negative swings in the company may require a high degree of urgency.
Example: You ask whether all employees have enough information to complete their tasks. If only a small number of them say that they do not have enough information, then this is immediately an important issue. How else is the employee supposed to complete their task?
I think you have understood how to go about developing the recommendations for action.
Up to this point, we have highlighted the results that are important in terms of change.
The next step is about the actual recommendation for action.
Let’s take the example of “sufficient information to complete the tasks”.
If this is not given, then think about how the information can be provided better.
Start by writing down everything you can think of:
- Weekly meetings on new developments
- Handouts as an overview of where all the information can be found
- Set up a chat for questions
- Etc.
And if you don’t have a suitable recommendation for a grievance, then form a working group with the people from the team. Take the grievances with you and then discuss together how the grievance can be improved. And then take the best suggestions from the ideas.
But how are the best proposals defined?
We’ll show you in the second part:
Action planning using the ICE model
If you have started to write down recommendations for action or work out actions in a meeting, you will probably receive a lot of ideas. The task now is to find and implement the best ideas.
You won’t be able to implement all the ideas. But that is also normal. For reasons of time alone and the budget available to you, it won’t be possible.
It is therefore all the more important to draw up a plan for which measures will be implemented.
And for this we use the ICE model: Impact, Confidence and Ease.
To create the ICE action plan, simply open an XLS file. Now write your ideas for measures in each line. No matter how simple or absurd the ideas are. Write them all down.
Now add 3 new columns next to it:
- Impact
- Confidence
- Ease
And now you rate each idea according to the 3 criteria.
You have a range of 1-10 for the evaluation, where 1 = the lowest value and 10 is the highest:
- Impact – How high will the impact of the measure be?
Use this to estimate how high the impact will be once the measure has been implemented.
- Confidence – How strongly do you believe that this measure will be successful?
Again, rate from 1 = no success to 10 = absolute success.
- Ease – And finally, rate each measure in terms of how easy it is to implement.
1 = very difficult to implement; 10 = very easy to implement.
Once you have done this, multiply the individual values in the column next to it (Impact * Confidence * Ease = XXX).
And now sort your table using the multiplied values. The idea with the highest score is at the top and then descends downwards.
This gives you a list of recommendations for action and an action plan for which of these will be implemented.
As already mentioned, you cannot implement all the measures. But that’s not a bad thing. If you have communicated this beforehand, then all participants/stakeholders know that only 2 – 3 measures will be implemented in the end.
I hope we were able to give you some inspiration in this part on how you can define actions and measures. And if you would like us to provide you with holistic support for your goals, just get in touch.
With easyfeedback’s “Performance Consulting”, we integrate the feedback loop into your company and tackle your goals together.