Enabling conversations & comments acknowledgments

Peakon offers two-way communication within the platform, providing people leaders the ability to acknowledge or respond back to comments while the employee's identity remains protected.  

These are powerful tools that allow for quick action on feedback, reducing wellbeing and safety concerns, and reducing the gap between leadership and employees. The permissions to act on comments can be set in the access control and can vary according to a leadership position.

This article covers:

• Overview of what managers can see with conversations
• Granting access to acknowledgments
• Granting access to comments
• Overview of the notifications

Overview of what managers can see with conversations

• Admins and managers (when enabled in access control groups) are able to see which managers have access to the comment, by clicking on the person icon on the comment itself to reveal the manager names. 
• The list of managers with access to the comment is sorted by distance to the employees so this would typically result in the line manager being at the top of the list. 
• Managers will also be able to see all conversations tied to comments, including conversations made by other managers with access to the comment.
• Managers see their own replies in black text boxes and other manager’s replies in text boxes with names attached.
• Replies from employees are also in text boxes but appear without any name attached.
• Internal notes are in orange text boxes.

Granting access to acknowledgments

People leaders have also the ability to quickly acknowledge comments with a simple click. In a couple of seconds, leadership can demonstrate that feedback has been heard and the employee was listened to. This is hugely valuable while action planning taking place, showing that feedback has been read and the employee voice heard. When granting access to this option, you can share the guide Acknowledging comments with your leaders.

There are five different acknowledgments that can be sent to an employee either on the App or desktop:

• Great idea
• Thanks for sharing
• I agree
•  Working on it
• Would love to talk in person

To enable acknowledgments 

1. Head to Administration
2. Click Access Control
3. If you want to grant access to engage in conversations, click on Comments, ensure that comments are enabled first
4. Choose which acknowledgments you want to toggle on:
   - Acknowledge driver comments
   - Acknowledge value comments
   - Acknowledge open-ended comments
   
5. Click  Save Group to save changes

Granting access to conversations

As soon as conversations are enabled, the option to initiate a conversation will show for all leaders within the access control group update.  We recommend sharing Advice for using Peakon's conversations most effectively with managers, who are getting started with using this feature.

To enable conversations

1. Head to Administration
2. Click Access control
3. Select the relevant access control group
4. Click on the Comments section of access controls
5. Toggle Access conversations to allow access to the conversation feature
6. Click  Save Group to save changes

Comment preview in emails

Administrators can also enable/disable the comment preview in comment reply emails, for managers. This can be done in Administration > Data settings > Comments. If the preview has been disabled, the comment and conversation will only be visible after clicking on the link.

Comments managers 

Admins and managers (when enabled in access control groups) are able to see which managers have access to the comment by clicking on the person icon on the comment itself to reveal the manager names. 

Limitations

• Conversations require that employees have email addresses in order for them to receive the notifications
• The conversation feature cannot be used with employees using kiosk mode or SMS to complete surveys
• Managers completing surveys using kiosk mode will not be able to use the conversation feature either as access to a dashboard is required to use conversations

Overview of the notifications

• Employees receive an email (with a randomly generated time delay) when the conversation is started by the manager. The email contains a link for the employee to click on to give a reply. 
• Managers receive an email when employees reply to their conversation and they will also get a notification in Peakon. Email notifications are configured in profile settings (see Viewing your user profile in Peakon).
• All managers with access to the comment who have also participated in a conversation initiated from the same comment will also receive a notification every time a manager or employee adds to the conversation.
• Managers receive an email and Peakon notification when they are @mentioned in an internal note.