Engaging in conversations with employees

People leaders can view and interact with comments from survey responses by initiating conversations or adding internal notes, directly from comments. Conversations are a great way for managers to gain more insight, by asking follow-up questions or simply leaving a response to the comment. We have seen increased participation from employees, whose managers engaged in comments and took action quickly. 

Internal notes are useful if you need support from other business members or you want to make them aware by tagging them in the feedback. If you are setting up your account permissions, see Enabling conversations & comments acknowledgments.

This article covers:

• Overview of conversations
• Email notification to the employee 

If you are looking for advice on how to reply back to an employee, check out Advice for using Peakon's conversations most effectively.

Overview of conversations

Leaders can engage in internal or external conversations through:

• Replies: these initiate direct conversations with employees, who receive replies to comments
• Internal notes: these are not sent to the employee who left the comment. They are visible only to managers or other business members who also have access to the comment because they have access to that specific segment. 

Direct conversation with employees

When a manager initiates a conversation from a comment, it’s important to note that the employee who left the comment remains confidential during the conversation. The employee will receive an email containing the comment, the manager’s response to the comment, as well as the manager’s name. The email to the employee emphasizes that the employee’s identity remains protected. 

To initiate a conversation, the manager will need to click on the conversation icon on the comment itself. The conversation sidebar will then appear, where the manager will have two options to click on: “Reply” and “Note”. The “Reply” option will send a reply to the employee who left the comment.

Internal notes 

Internal notes can be used when a manager wants to bring a comment to the attention of colleagues by using an @mention in the note. Notes are internal and will not be sent to the employee.

Only those managers, who also have access to the comment and the conversation functionality, can be @mentioned in an internal note. If enabled for your access group, you can click on the icon next to the comment date, to display a list of managers who have access to the comment.

Email notification to the employee 

The email will state the manager's name along with the question and comment left by the employee and the manager's response. It will not be sent instantly, to further protect the employee's identity.

The email will also contain a "View message and reply" option should the employee wish to engage in the conversation.