The 1 + 3 Method™
Your 1 + 3 Method™ reports are now available to download in your Workplace Insight Tool (WIT). This guide answers the questions clients most often ask, what the method does, what's in each pack, and how the results are worked out. If anything isn't covered here, the support details are at the end.
The basics
Q. What is the 1 + 3 Method™?
A. It's our way of turning your survey results into a clear, focused set of priorities. The method analyses your 8 Factor results and surfaces 1 Area to Celebrate and 3 Opportunities to Improve giving you defined, actionable messages that are relatable at every level of your organisation, rather than a wall of data to interpret yourself.
Q. Why just 1 to celebrate and 3 to improve?
A. Focus. Naming one genuine strength makes it easy to recognise and build on, while three improvement areas give your leaders a realistic, manageable agenda. It's enough to drive meaningful change without overwhelming teams or diluting effort across too many priorities at once.
Q. What packs can I download?
A. Two report types, depending on your audience, a People Leader Pack and a Team Pack (explained below). Each comes with an Action Planning pack to help turn the priorities into trackable next steps, and is available in a Detailed (recommended) or Concise format.
People Leader Pack vs Team Pack
The two packs draw on a different pool of factors, so each is pitched at the right audience. Here's the key difference at a glance:
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People Leader Pack |
Team Pack |
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For managers and leaders |
For team-level conversations |
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Considers all 8 engagement factors for the full picture |
Considers a reduced pool of 5 factors |
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Pulls in job grade data to sense-check the findings |
Focuses only on factors teams can directly influence |
|
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Leaves out Leadership, My Manager and Fair Deal, which sit outside a team's control |
Q. Why does the Team Pack use fewer factors?
A. Because a team can only act on what's within its reach. We remove Leadership, My Manager and Fair Deal from team-level analysis, so the priorities you share with teams are ones they can genuinely influence, which keeps action planning credible and motivating.
How the results are chosen
Q. How is the 1 Area to Celebrate selected?
A. The method ranks your factor results, then checks each factor for positive movement first against your previous survey (year-on-year), then against your stretch benchmark. The strongest performer becomes your Celebrate factor. If nothing has improved year-on-year, it ranks by stretch performance instead and looks at the smallest gaps.
Q. How are the 3 Opportunities to Improve selected?
A. It works through your ranked factors looking for the biggest gaps again, prioritising year-on-year change and then stretch benchmark and repeats until three opportunities are identified. Some factors carry extra weight in this step: for example, if wellbeing is significantly negative it can take priority, because weakness there can hold back progress elsewhere.
Q. What data does the method use to make these decisions?
A. Your previous survey results (year-on-year) and/or your stretch benchmark the natural next step up for your organisation. Where both are available, the method can give you a fuller, more reliable picture.
Q. Why is my previous survey prioritised over the stretch benchmark?
A. Because year-on-year movement reflects the real-time experience of your employees. Acknowledging genuine improvements or declines on your own engagement journey is more meaningful than measuring solely against an external target, so the logic leads with that comparison and uses the stretch benchmark as a secondary lens.
Q. Are the factors weighted?
A. No opportunities are identified through the influence and correlation between factors rather than fixed weightings. The one nuance is that certain factors (such as wellbeing) can be given priority because, left unaddressed, they limit progress across other areas.
Your data and edge cases
Q. Does job grade data affect my results?
A. Only when it's available, which is in the People Leader Pack. There, the method sense-checks its factor findings against each job grade and, if a grade clearly disagrees, re-checks the data and selects the next most appropriate factor. Team Packs don't include job grade data, so it plays no part in their analysis.
Q. What happens if my results are predominantly negative?
A. The method adapts and refers to a lower benchmark, so you still receive a meaningful Area to Celebrate and a focused, fair set of improvement priorities to work from.
Q. Do I need year-on-year data to use 1 + 3?
A. Not necessarily - the method can work from your stretch benchmark alone. Year-on-year comparison adds depth and is prioritised when it's available, but a single survey can still generate your 1 + 3 priorities.
Q. Can I compare against a previous BC8 survey?
A. Not in the BC8's current format, as the method relies on predicted factor scores. This is an area we're actively developing, and we'll keep you informed as that capability becomes available.
Q. Why does the 'current reality' narrative differ between the Team / Concise packs and the People Leader pack?
A. Each current reality is written using all the data available in that pack for the relevant factor, alongside employee comments (which aren't shown in the pack itself). Because the People Leader Pack includes job grade data and the Team Pack doesn't, the two narratives draw on different information so a People Leader current reality may reference how different job grades responded, whereas a Team current reality won't.
Q. Where do the 'current reality' comments come from - what is the system looking at?
A. The current reality is built from several layers of your data for the factor in question: the overall factor score against your previous survey and stretch benchmark, the factor score broken down by job grade against those same comparisons, and the individual statement scores against previous and stretch. We then draw on the relevant employee comments for that group or organisation to add helpful context. All of this is brought together and used to generate the written narrative you see in the pack