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    • Action plan

    Learning to recognise warning signs in your business

    Medium effort

    High impact

    Becoming better at predicting and recognising the signs of a growing problem is important if you want to nip issues in the bud. Paying close attention to employee feedback and regularly checking in on the health of your business can help you to get ahead of problems.

    • We’ve designed our action plans to be completed in the order of steps laid out and explained why each step is important
    • Customising your action plan lets you set your own completion dates, assign tasks to others and get notifications
    • Helpful tools are provided for certain steps while a tracking metric at the end will help you determine the long-term success of your effort
    • A downloadable PDF version of each action plan is available if you’d like to compete it offline
    What's involved? Ways to use this action plan Measuring impact
    1

    Send surveys to employees and customers to get feedback on their experiences, particularly any frustrations or areas in need of improvement

    Impact: high

    Why will this help?

    Employees and customers engage in your business in ways that you don’t. Asking for feedback regularly will highlight issues that could develop without you knowing if they aren’t brought to light and addressed quickly.

    Developing an employee feedback survey

    Employee feedback surveys can be used to measure engagement or assess processes like onboarding or career development.

    Creating a customer feedback survey

    Use this customer feedback survey to gauge how customers feel about your product or service and find ways to improve.
    2

    Check that managers are taking notes about employee challenges in monthly one-to-one meetings and following up in the next meeting

    Impact: medium

    Why will this help?

    Being able to reflect back on previous meetings gives managers better visibility of persistent problems and ensures warning signs aren’t swept under the rug.

    Conducting one-to-ones with employees

    Using a template for employee one-to-ones, like this one from Bristol University, will help to make sure each meeting is as effective as possible.
    3

    Delegate non-essential tasks to employees to free up time to focus on internal processes

    Impact: medium

    Why will this help?

    Getting bogged down in day-to-day tasks can reduce the amount of oversight you’re able to do. Delegating tasks will give you more time to check that key systems and processes are working properly.

    Check employees have everything they need when delegating

    Successful delegation is all in the preparation. Work through our checklist when delegating tasks to make sure employees have everything they need to complete the work to a high standard.
    4

    Perform a business health check to highlight areas that are struggling and might be prone to problems

    Impact: high

    Why will this help?

    Business health checks help evaluate the strength of critical elements of your business and are key to spotting problems before they can develop further.

    Conducting a business health check

    A business health check is a simple way to evaluate the strength of critical elements like cash flow, systems and staff performance.
    5

    Look at what’s been most effective in helping you recognise warning signs and build it into a regular routine

    Impact: medium

    Why will this help?

    Whether it’s customer feedback or input from managers, understanding which activities best alert you to warning signs will help you stay ahead of issues.

    What can I do with this Action Plan?

    Start this Action Plan

    Add some extra information to this plan and we’ll help you get it done.

    • We’ve designed our action plans to be completed in the order of steps laid out and explained why each step is important
    • Customising your action plan lets you set your own completion dates, assign tasks to others and get notifications
    • Helpful tools are provided for certain steps while a tracking metric at the end will help you determine the long-term success of your effort
    • A downloadable PDF version of each action plan is available if you’d like to compete it offline

    Download and print

    Get a printable template for this Action Plan, fill it in with some target dates, and share it with your team. Pin it on the wall where everyone can see it.

    Get the printable Action Plan

    Learning Groups

    We also run Learning Groups on these topics where you can join other leaders tackling the same challenges.

    Find a Learning Group

    How will I know if my action plan is working?

    Business health check results

    Reviewing the risks that exist in your business.

    Why this metric?

    Business health checks allow you to identify areas with potential problems and measure the impact of improvements.

    How do I start tracking?

    Complete a business health check each quarter and compare the results to previous quarters to track where you’ve made the most progress.