Successfully implementing Leapsome requires careful planning and preparation. This guide outlines the most common challenges organizations face during their Leapsome journey and provides actionable advice to help you avoid these pitfalls.
Before Making a Decision to Buy Leapsome
Verify Feature Functionality
Don't assume features work exactly as you expect based on their names alone. Even if a platform aspect or feature is called a certain way, it may behave differently than anticipated. Always ask your Leapsome Sales Representative for detailed demonstrations and clarifications - they'll be happy to provide deeper insights into how features actually function.
Avoid Rushing Your Implementation
While there may be compelling reasons to roll out Leapsome quickly, rushing the implementation often leads to problems. A tight timeline can result in not properly thinking through processes, which creates issues down the line. Take time to plan your approach thoughtfully.
Establish a Clear Vision
When implementing a tool like Leapsome, it's essential to "begin with the end in mind":
- Define your purpose: Why are you implementing this platform? What will positively change in day-to-day operations?
- Set success metrics: How will you measure whether using Leapsome has been successful?
- Plan your data analysis: What insights you want to extract will shape how processes need to be configured. Having creative ideas after running processes is often too late.
Understand Data Migration Capabilities
Review what legacy data you can upload to Leapsome and in which formats:
Understanding these limitations early helps set realistic expectations and plan accordingly.
During Your Implementation: Platform Setup
Set Up HRIS Integration Immediately
Many companies rely on HRIS integration to ensure all user data, including demographic information, transfers to Leapsome. Failing to complete this before running processes can cause significant issues:
Survey Analytics Impact: If you run surveys without ensuring demographic data is transferred from your HRIS, you won't be able to utilize that demographic data in analytics. Once users submit survey responses, you cannot retroactively update their demographic data for past responses.
Account and Team Duplication: Setting up integration after manually creating employees and teams may result in duplicate accounts and teams, requiring admins to clean up old data.
If you encounter demographic data issues, contact our support team via the 'Support' button in the top-right corner in Leapsome. The team can 'refresh' demographic data in surveys and reviews answered within the past 365 days.
Complete User Profiles Before Starting Processes
Many user profile attributes are essential for smooth process execution. Ensure all relevant attributes are completed before beginning cycles or surveys. For example, if you're using automation triggered by start or termination dates, this information must be accurate in user profiles for dynamic task assignment to work properly.
Limit Competencies in Your Framework
Adding too many competencies to your Competency Framework can make reviews extremely long when all relevant skills are included in assessments. Lengthy reviews discourage productive employee engagement. We recommend:
- Limiting the total number of competencies in your framework
- Specifying team-specific competencies so appropriate skills are only visible to relevant users
Understand Benchmark Limitations
Only questions provided by Leapsome can offer benchmark data. If you create custom questions, you must link them to our best practice questions to access benchmarking capabilities.
Plan Survey Anonymity Carefully
Survey anonymity status cannot be changed after activation. You must decide whether surveys will be anonymous or non-anonymous during setup - this cannot be modified once the survey is live.
Activate Goal Cycles After Setup
Don't activate goal cycles before adding users or enabling the Goals module for relevant teams. Users won't receive kick-off emails if the specified kick-off date has already passed when they're added to the cycle.
Secure C-Level Buy-In
Make senior leaders champions of Leapsome and your processes by highlighting benefits for them and the organization. Include them actively in your communication plan and prepare talking points to help them advocate for the platform.
Monitor License Usage
Leapsome charges for all users with 'invited' and 'active' status. If your HRIS integration creates too many users or you add users without deactivating old ones, you'll be charged for the highest number of billed licenses for the remainder of your contract. Regularly check that billed licenses match your active user count. If changes need to be made, be sure to do so at least 2 months before your contract renewal date.
During Your Implementation: Change Management
Communicate the "What's in it for Me"
Don't just tell employees they need to use a new tool - explain how it benefits them personally:
- Understand employee pain points to prioritize where to focus your efforts
- Remember that tools are just tools - success depends on people using them effectively
- Emphasize how their engagement with the system will make it work better for everyone
Keep Processes Simple
Avoid overly complex processes that may be theoretically perfect but are too time-consuming or confusing for regular users. If the benefit doesn't clearly outweigh the effort required, adoption will suffer.
Manage Change Gradually
Don't make major changes to existing company-wide processes while simultaneously introducing Leapsome. This creates too much change at once. Discuss your approach with your Customer Success Manager.
Implement Modules in Phases
Roll out modules gradually rather than all at once. This allows users to adapt and provides opportunities to refine your approach based on early feedback.
Provide Relevant Enablement
Different stakeholders have different needs and should receive targeted training:
General Principle: Focus 50-75% on the process itself and why it's designed that way (especially "what's in it for me"), and only 25-50% on how to use Leapsome.
HR Business Partners: Use a train-the-trainer approach focusing on results analysis, action planning, and general process knowledge.
Managers: Clarify responsibilities, explain how to use results, and provide clear escalation paths for questions.
Employees: Process-focused communication is usually sufficient.
After Initial Launch
Protect Survey Link Security
Survey links are personalized and tied to specific user accounts. When responses are submitted through these links, results are attributed to the account holder. Never share survey links between users, as this will confound results. For example, if Pam shares her survey link with Jim and he completes it, the responses will be recorded as Pam's.
Always direct users to access surveys through their home dashboard or the Surveys module rather than sharing links.
Getting Support
If you encounter any of these challenges during your implementation, don't hesitate to reach out to your Customer Success Manager or contact our support team through the purple widget in Leapsome. We're here to help ensure your implementation succeeds.