Creating a Sampling Plan

Sampling Methods

There are three different ways to collect Work Climate insights:

1. Prompting: The executive team issues a “benchmark.” This will prompt employees to go and fill out their work climate. This can be done as frequently as once a month. It could also be done as little as once a year. This is a more traditional method that resembles engagement surveys.
2. As-Needed: Individual employees submit their work climate, unprompted. This could be a weekly check-in that becomes a healthy habit. It gives their direct manager something to talk about in status or one-on-one sessions. This is a new way to capture changes in mood as they happen.
3. A combination of both. This is the recommended approach.

"As-Needed" is a concept. The setting that corresponds to this is "Work Climate Submissions" found under:
Settings > Organization Settings > Work Climate.

"Prompting" is a concept. The feature that corresponds to this is "Benchmarks" and is found under:
Threats > Work Climate > Benchmarks.

Pros & Cons of "Prompting"

Prompting Benefits:

Benchmarks are nice because they capture a larger view of the organization at a specific period of time. We allow you to compare one benchmark to the next to understand how the organization is changing.

It does not require employees to remember to fill out their work climate. It reminds them to. Pushes them to fill it out.

Prompting Cons:

It doesn’t allow direct managers to fix problems as they arise. Instead, the executive team identifies issues and pushes out directions/recommendations periodically.

Learn more about Prompting here. 

Pros & Cons of "As-Needed"

As-Needed Benefits:

When an employee has an issue, it gets raised and their manager can work to resolve it in a reasonable time frame. The manager has access to the Climate Journal which allows them to track issues/progress/notes and helps the manager do a better job.

As-Needed Cons:

If the company is receiving complaints on a regular basis, but not doing anything to resolve them, then that’s going to accelerate further negativity and potentially result in turnover more quickly. 

Recommended Approach

Company culture is going to play a role in how Work Climate is adopted.

It’s important to recognize that traditional engagement surveys provide value only to top level executives and burdens the bottom level employees. This never results in success. The managers in the middle need to be empowered to solve problems. That’s where Climate Journal combined with "As-Needed" submissions form a powerful tool.

Our recommended end-state is using a combination of both methods:

1. Once a month, every two months, or once a quarter, a benchmark is sent out.
2. After the benchmark completes, the executive team analyzes for trends and identifies any hot spots. Plans of action are created and implemented. At the next benchmark, the results determine whether or not the plans were successful. It’s important to note that managers receive details of each submission during the benchmark. So they will be able to react even before the benchmark completes.
3. At any time, employees can submit their work climate.
4. Managers review submissions the next day and incorporate the input into their interactions with the employee. Managers use the Climate Journal to keep track of what’s done and said. A manager may disagree with the employee’s work climate and record that in the Journal. This can be used later on by HR.

Example Plan

For organizations that are unsure, a gradual rollout would look like the following:

Day Zero:

Set “Work Climate Submissions” to “Disabled”. This means employees won’t be able to submit outside of a Benchmark. Create a baseline of your organization by sending your first benchmark.

Day Seven:

After (or during) the benchmark, identify what the actual state is within the organization. Are there lots of trouble spots? 

Days 8 - 60:

If so, continue with just prompted benchmarking. Institute some changes and follow up with another benchmark in 30, 60, or 90 days depending on the amount of work to be done. This process continues until things become more inline with expectations. At that point, "Work Climate Submissions" is enabled and allows for a better response to issues.

Days 8 - 60:

If there aren’t a lot of issues, start using "As-Needed." This is done by changing “Work Climate Submissions” to “Enabled” and then sending out the link to have employees download the mobile app.

Day 60+

Evaluate whether enough "As-Needed" participation is occurring and whether or not periodic benchmarks need to continue to be used. Depending on your organization, you may fall into the common scenario of sending out a benchmark every 1 or 2 months.