This guide will cover:
- How to set questions on a team-wide and individual level
- Modifying the frequency of check-ins
- Reviewing an employee’s update
- Responding to issues raised during check-ins
- Sending an 'overdue' reminder
To give and receive feedback in Perform & Engage 365, you’ll need to make use of our employee check-in feature. First, you’ll need to set an update schedule. This can be different for each team member, or the same across the board.
At the bottom of the section with their name are three buttons. Click the middle one, which has a calendar symbol on it. This will take you to the ‘My Team’s Goals & Questions’ section. This can also be accessed from your dashboard via either the ‘Goals’ or ‘Questions’ tabs on the ‘My Team’ section of your dashboard.
Whether you’re setting questions on an individual or team-wide level, the process is the same. Next to the tabs for your overall team and any existing members, you’ll see a plus sign. Clicking it will bring up the ‘Create Question Set For Individual’ menu.
Select an employee from the dropdown menu, and click ‘Create’. You’ll be returned to the ‘My Team’s Goals & Questions’ section, but now there will be a tab for the newly added employee.
On this page, you can change their update schedule using the editing button to the right of their current due date, above the red ‘Delete’ button, which deletes the whole tab for that employee. To the left is a green tick button that adds commonly used questions and goals to that employee’s update.
Clicking the button to edit the update schedule opens the ‘Update Recurrence Pattern’ menu. ‘Cadence’ allows you to choose between daily, weekly and monthly. You can modify this even further using the ‘Every’ box, allowing you to schedule updates every three weeks or every two months, for example.
If you would prefer to add your own questions, enter them manually using the ‘Individual Questions’ form. Select the question type, write out the question, and hit ‘Create’. If you want to reuse a question for multiple employees, you can favourite it with the star button, next to ‘Create’.
When an employee has completed their check-in, it will be visible from your dashboard.
As you can see, Harry Williams has submitted his update, which is visible in all three major sections of the ‘My Team’ screen. The update can be reviewed either by clicking where it says ‘Review’ in blue text at the top right of the ‘To Do’ section, or the blue ‘Review’ button in the ‘Last update’ column of ‘Team Overview’.
At a glance, we can tell that Harry’s update was on time, and that his overall sentiment was mostly positive based on our rating scale questions.
In that screenshot, we can also see Harry’s written response to our first question where he has highlighted his lack of appropriate seating. You can use the four buttons in the bottom right to respond.
The thumbs-up button allows you to like this comment. The arrow sweeping to the right allows you to forward the issue to your manager, although it’s generally best to check with the employee first before you do this.
The zigzag arrow button allows you to view the update history for this question. This can be useful to check if the issue is longstanding, and ensure that problems don’t go unaddressed for too long.
Finally, there’s the comment button, which enables you to respond directly. When you submit a response, the employee will receive an alert. When you type a response to an employee’s answer, remember to press the ‘Submit’ button in the bottom right of the question’s section.
Here, we also have a rating scale question, which is very useful in terms of data. Combining these with open-ended, text-based questions, enables you to better understand the issues affecting your employee’s engagement and wellbeing.
While Perform & Engage 365’s goals and objectives keep you up to date on employee output, text questions can give you a more qualitatively informative breakdown.
Here, we also have a recognition-based question. While it looks very similar to the text question, it is a distinct category of its own, which enables employees to ‘mention’ each other. Each employee’s profile keeps a running total of their mentions and pass-ups.
Finally, we have any goals assigned to this specific employee. We can see the goal’s target number and its progress. We can also see its due date, which is automatically determined by the parent goal. Along with the same options available for the questions, you also have the option to archive your goals. This should be done only once they have reached 100% completion, or their deadline has passed.
Sending an 'overdue' reminder to employees
If a team member forgets to complete their check-in, it’s easy to send them a reminder. From the ‘My Team’ section of your dashboard, you’ll be able to see who has made their check-in. As we can see in the example below, Steve has missed his deadline.
Moving the cursor over Steve’s row in the 'Team Overview' section will turn the ‘Overdue’ label into a red ‘Remind’ button. Just clicking this will send a reminder via email or Microsoft Teams, depending on employee preference.
We’ll be talking more about goals in the next section, so check that out for a detailed breakdown.