Action Plans in 15Five are strategic plans that HR teams use to organize and measure the work you're doing to improve HR outcomes (employee performance, engagement, and/or retention) in your organization. This article walks through how to create an Action Plan. Once you've created your plan, you can add actions: tasks that contribute to the plan's progress and success over time.
In this article, you will learn...
Access and availability
⛔️ Required access to Engagement or the HR Outcomes Dashboard.
👥 This article is relevant to Account admins and Managers.
📦 This feature is available in the Engage and Total Platform pricing package.
Tip
If you're creating an Action Plan based on engagement survey results, check out this article for more tailored instructions.
How to draft an Action Plan 📝
This section walks through how to draft an Action Plan from your homepage. To learn about other places in 15Five you can draft Action Plans from, refer to the FAQs at the bottom of this article.
- Click Home in 15Five's main, left-hand navigation.
- Use the top navigation to open the 'Action Plans' tab.
- Click Draft Action Plan in the top, right-hand corner of the page.
- The creation form will open on the right-hand side of the page. Fill out the following information:
Target GroupFirst, select a Target Group. This is the group of people you intend to impact with the Action Plan. Account admins can create Action Plans for any cohort within the organization, whereas Managers can create Action Plans for anyone in their hierarchy (e.g. their direct reports, their direct reports' direct reports, and so on).
Click Add filters to refine the target group. Available filters are:
- Groups: Target a specific group(s). Groups in this list are organized by Group Type.
- People: Target specific individuals. All employees in your organization's 15Five instance will appear in this list.
- Demographic Attributes: Target individuals who specific demographic attributes are applied to. Demographic attributes include Tenure, Age, Salary, Gender, Race, and Ethnicity. Learn how to enable and populate demographic attributes.
- Outcome Segments: Target individuals who fall within a specific performance level (top, mid, bottom, or unmeasured). Please note that it's not possible to target individuals who fall within specific engagement levels to protect confidentiality.
Tip
Let's say you want to create an Action Plan with a goal to drive the performance of people in Jane's hierarchy. You select Jane's hierarchy as the target group but don't want to include the top performers on Jane's team since the Action Plan won't be relevant to them. In this case, you can use the "Outcome Segments" filter to select all performance levels except top performers.
Action Plan NameProvide a descriptive label for your action.
Note
The name you select will be visible to anyone with access to the the HR Outcomes Dashboard in the "Action Plans" tab. After you launch the Action Plan, anyone who is assigned an action will also be able to see the Action Plan's name and description from their homepage.
Action Plan DescriptionProvide a brief overview of the purpose of the Action Plan.
Note
As is the case with the Action Plan's name, this description will be visible to anyone with access to the the HR Outcomes Dashboard in the "Action Plans" tab. After you launch the Action Plan, anyone who is assigned an action will also be able to see the Action Plan's name and description from their homepage.
Outcomes we plan to impactSelect which outcomes the Action Plan is intended to impact: Engagement, Performance, and/or Turnover. Learn more about HR Outcomes.
MetricsIn the "Metrics" field, select the metrics you want to track in connection to the Action Plan. Once you launch your action, you'll have access to a dashboard containing selected metrics so you can easily measure progress.
Note
For a list and descriptions of the metrics you can select for your action plan, check out this article.
- When you're done, click Draft Action Plan.
What happens next? ➡️
After clicking Draft Action Plan, you will be directed to the Action Plan Overview page, where you can start adding actions. Actions are the specific tasks that drive the progress and success of the plan over time. For detailed steps on how to add actions, refer to our "Add actions to an Action Plan" article.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) ❓
An Action Plan in 15Five is a structured framework that helps managers and HR leaders address specific engagement challenges identified in survey results. It involves setting clear goals, defining actions, assigning responsibilities, and tracking progress to improve employee engagement.
Help Center article 💡: Action Plans: Tool Overview
Managers and account admins can create Action Plans. Managers can create plans specific to their teams, while admins can create and oversee plans across the entire organization.
You can also create Action Plans from the HR Outcomes Dashboard and Engagement reporting. Check out the articles below to learn more.
Help Center article 💡: Use the HR Outcomes Dashboard
Help Center article 💡: Create an Action Plan based on engagement survey results
This may be because you applied an Engagement Level filter. To protect confidentiality, an action plan can't target people of a specific engagement level.