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Working at Iowa Survey 2012 – Action Planning Guide
Principle One:
| Open sharing of survey results and the process for utilizing the results. There is an opportunity to positively impact engagement by being open and transparent as soon as possible. To gain the advantage of this step, communicate early. The longer the lag time between when faculty/staff took the survey and first communication response about the survey, the harder it may be to link recognition and improvement efforts back to the survey. |
Key Steps | Things to Consider | Outcomes and Resources
Key Steps
Engagement drives productivity. It is recommended that organizations take action as soon as possible when receiving their results in January 2013.
- Thank faculty and staff for taking the time to participate. Share organizational reports as soon as you are ready and as quickly as possible.
- Develop and communicate a timeline:
- Plan for who gets the results right away, and who gets them after some dialogue
- Plan for dialogue about survey results. Who engages in dialogue sessions? When will sessions occur? Who is responsible for convening and running these sessions? Should existing meetings and structures be used or form ad hoc groups committees for this purpose?
- Who will draft and then approve action plans? Again, organizations may work with existing committees or you may create a special task force.
- Decisions on each point should be communicated to faculty and staff early and should clearly connect the efforts to the Working at Iowa survey results.
Things to Consider
The point of an engagement survey is to get faculty and staff talking and collaboratively planning to utilize strengths and plan for improvements. Therefore, it is not necessary or advisable to have all of the answers or solutions planned before sharing the results and getting ideas from the participants.
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If your organization is accustomed to working with data and open to working together on action plans, you may forward your organizational results via e-mail, post on a website or intranet, or distribute in a staff meeting as soon as possible after receiving the report.
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If your organization is not accustomed to broadly sharing information and collaborating on solutions, or if the results are less positive than you expected, you may want to start with a leadership team planning session, distribute the results, and then ask for input when you have the outline of a plan developed.
- The desired outcomes of these steps are, 1.) to thank faculty and staff for participating, 2.) be transparent about the results and the process moving forward, and, 3.) link efforts back to the survey.
- Communication - email templates are available.
Page last updated December 2012