5 Tips on Turning Results into Action

5 Tips on Turning Results into Action

Publish Date: 2022-06-01

Author: Victoria Bond

You’ve completed a great survey, you’ve got tons of awesome feedback. But what do you do now? How do you turn that insight into action?

It goes without saying that you should be taking action from each survey, but it can be easier said than done.

Look at it another way. By not taking feedback seriously you risk losing valuable team members. Employees who don’t feel comfortable providing upward feedback are 16% less likely to stay in their organisation.

Encourage employees to share their thoughts and ideas to show their opinions matter. It helps to improve feelings of recognition and increase employee retention.

 

Taking action is key!

Employee feedback via surveys are most powerful when you create a culture of feedback and action in a business.

There are a few ways to speed up the growth of employee engagement:

  • Bake employee feedback into your culture
  • Demonstrate action
  • Deliver each and every time

In 2018, a study found that over 65% of Gen Z employees reported needing frequent feedback. They preferred to get feedback at least once a week. This need for feedback goes both ways. Their desire to provide feedback is also strong.

Feedback and approachability play key roles in combating disengagement. In that sense, Gen Z pushing for a more feedback-centric work culture could have far-reaching benefits for staff of all ages.

The journey to an incredible workplace doesn’t need to be a radical transformation. It's often achieved in small incremental steps. To show progress link action, improvement and investment to the feedback your employees have given you.

Here’s our top 5 tips to getting into a great cycle of feedback and action…

 

1. Before you begin …

Get everyone charged up and ready! Setting the scene in advance is a valuable use of time. In advance of the survey, plan out the time needed to analyse & share results. Make time and space for action planning. This will make sure it happens soon after the survey takes place.

Make sure that your leaders understand the part they play and what is expected of them to support the feedback & action process. A study shows trust in leadership has the biggest influence on employee engagement. Make sure your teams know that their leaders care about bettering the workplace. This way, your employees are more likely to give honest feedback.

 

2. Tell a story with your results

You can help create extra insight from your results by sharing them effectively. It can help people connect with them and understand the action that they need to take next. It’s easy to get lost in the data - try not to! Consider key themes, quick wins and longer term big wins from each survey.

 

3. Create accountability

If you’ve ended up with a huge action plan, that’s great. How will you know when it’s completed? Where does the accountability sit? Using an action planning tool in the survey platform can be a great way to keep the action close to the results. We’ve created a Space HR tool that does just this!

 

4. Keep the conversation going

It’s important to talk about engagement and action planning regularly. Is there time at board / leadership / management meetings? Not just the first meeting after a survey, but every one. Continue to share actions with wider employee groups. You can share the continual progress and show that you're keeping the conversation going.

It can take some time for your action plan to gain traction in your business. In fact, on average it takes more than 2 months before a new behaviour becomes automatic - 66 days to be exact. So being consistent with your action plan is the best way to get a new workplace habit to ‘stick’.

 

5. Survey regularly - to keep the action happening

You’re aiming to create a culture and habit around employee feedback. Shorter, more regular surveys and check-ins will help your team get into a great cycle. They will be able to accept feedback and take action for improvement. Creating great processes & habits around employee feedback & actions will pay off. This will come through in both survey completion rates and engagement levels.

At Ten Space we offer quarterly surveys which allow teams to share their honest feedback anonymously. This gives leaders the chance to listen to their team, understand the problems in the organisation and work on changing things for the better. We also provide tools which help you with reporting. These enable you to take the feedback to your leaders quickly and effectively. 

 

It’s important to make the most out of your survey. You need to make sure that you are creating an effective action plan every time you receive feedback from your team. Use our tips and tricks to create an incredible workplace.

At Ten Space, we can help you check in on the engagement and wellbeing of your team through anonymous employee feedback. Check out how we can help at www.tenspace.co.uk.

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