Have you ever left a post-project meeting with a long list of feedback, a few vague ideas for improvement, and no clear plan for what actually happens next?
For HR teams, this happens more often than it should. After open enrollment, onboarding, and benefits campaigns, everyone has thoughts. Everyone sees what could be better. But without a simple way to organize feedback, the conversation can quickly become blurry.
The Start, Stop, Keep framework helps solve that. It gives teams three clear categories to work with, so feedback turns into action instead of another forgotten meeting note.
What Is the Start, Stop, Keep Framework?
The start, stop, keep framework is a simple yet highly effective reflection exercise that helps teams turn feedback into action. It gives HR teams three clear categories for organizing ideas, evaluating what’s working, and deciding what needs to change.
The framework is set up with three columns:
Start | Stop | Keep |
New ideas, habits, or strategies to begin | Ineffective habits, processes, or blockers to remove | Successful practices to maintain or reinforce |
For internal HR teams, Start, Stop, Keep is a great strategy to use after a major project, during planning conversations, or as part of a team retrospective. It works especially well when reviewing benefits communication efforts. Open enrollment campaigns, onboarding benefits education, and year-round employee reminders are just a few examples.
Here’s what it might look like: After OE, an HR team might use the framework to identify what they should start doing next year. Maybe it’s segmenting messages by employee group. They might decide to stop relying on long, one-size-fits-all emails that employees don’t read. And they might choose to keep the benefits microsite, digital postcards, or text reminders that helped employees find information and meet deadlines.
The goal is not to point fingers or rehash every frustration from the last project. It’s quite the opposite. Its purpose is to create a clear, constructive conversation around what will help the team work better moving forward.
That simplicity is the magic in the framework. Instead of leaving a meeting with a mess of opinions and “let’s improve this next time” that no one remembers until next time is over, HR teams walk away with a shared understanding of what to begin, what to remove, and what to continue.
Start With a Clear Objective
Before setting up the three columns, there must be clarity on what is being evaluated. Without a defined objective, the conversation can quickly go too broad. One person may focus on OE emails, another on manager communication, and another on a workflow issue that’s been quietly bothering them since last spring.
A clear objective keeps the discussion focused.
Some examples of a session could be:
- Improving next year’s open enrollment communication
- Reducing repeated questions about employee benefits
- Increasing engagement with benefits education resources
- Making onboarding benefits comms easier to understand
Once the objective is clear, it’s time to incorporate SMART goals. Defining what success actually looks like should come before naming what to start, stop, and keep.
A general goal might be: “Improve benefits communication.”
A SMART goal would be: “Increase employee engagement with open enrollment resources by 20% before the enrollment deadline by using segmented email reminders, digital postcards, and a centralized benefits microsite.”
Clarity is what makes the Start, Stop, Keep conversation much more useful. If employees ignored long emails, that might belong in the Stop column. If digital postcards drove clicks, that might belong in Keep. If employees still ask basic plan comparison questions, maybe it’s time to Start using short explainer videos or decision-support tools.
With a specific objective paired with SMART goals, the team can move from feedback to action.
How to Facilitate a Start, Stop, Keep Session
Picture the HR team gathered around a conference table or logged into a shared virtual workspace. The facilitator has three columns ready to go:
Start | Stop | Keep
The objective is clear, tied back to the SMART goal the team set before the session. Everyone knows the focus before the discussion begins.
Give Everyone Time to Think
The facilitator gives the team a few quiet minutes to reflect. People jot down ideas on sticky notes, in a shared document, or in the meeting chat. This pause helps everyone think through their feedback before the conversation starts moving. It also keeps the first response from setting the tone for the whole discussion.
Fill the Columns With Purpose
As ideas come in, the columns keep the conversation organized.
Keep the categories simple:
Start: New ideas, habits, or strategies the team wants to begin.
For benefits comms, this might include using explainer videos, segmenting messages by employee group, sending digital postcards for deadlines, or adding decision-support tools.
Stop: Processes, habits, or patterns that are slowing teams down.
This could include relying on dense PDFs, sending one-size-fits-all messages, waiting until OE to explain benefits, or requiring too many approval rounds for routine updates.
Keep: Practices that are working well and should continue.
This might include a benefits microsite employees used, manager talking points that reduced questions, text reminders that drove action, or total rewards statements that helped employees see the value of their benefits.
Bring Different Perspectives Into the Room
Then the team breaks into smaller groups. Someone from benefits mentions that employees keep asking where to find plan comparison information. A communications team member points out that digital postcards outperformed longer emails. Someone from HRIS notes that last-minute changes created extra work behind the scenes.
Each perspective adds another piece to the picture.
When groups come back together, the facilitator asks each one to share its top ideas. Patterns begin to emerge.
Stay Open and Narrow the List
Throughout the discussion, the facilitator’s role is to listen, ask clarifying questions, and keep them focused. They don’t need to defend every old process. Uncomfortable feedback shouldn’t be explained away.
Openness is what makes the session meaningful. The more willing the facilitator is to listen, the more honest and useful the feedback becomes. That’s how the next steps, the ones that will create real change, happen.
The team can brainstorm freely at first, then narrow the list to the top priorities. A good Stop, Start, Keep session should move from a wall of ideas to a focused action list.
Turning Feedback Into An Action Plan
A Start, Stop, Keep session is only useful if it leads to action. Once the team has filled in each column, it’s time to look for patterns and choose what matters most.
Start by grouping similar ideas. If several people mentioned missed deadlines, long emails, and employees not knowing where to find basic OE information, the larger issue may be communication timing and clarity.
From there, choose a few priorities the team can realistically act on. These should connect back to the objective and SMART goal.
Each priority should have:
- An owner
- A next step
- A deadline
- A way to measure success
The framework moves from being a feedback exercise to facilitating shared ownership. Everyone can see what was discussed, decided on, and who’s moving it forward.
Use the Right Tools to Support the Strategy
Now that the team’s action plan is in place, they can decide how best to execute it. Using the right tools will make it happen.
Confusing benefits terms? Try a short explainer video.
Too many scattered attachments? Build a benefits microsite employees can bookmark.
Missed deadlines? Use digital postcards or text reminders.
Employees unsure which plan fits? Add decision-support tools.
The goal is better communication: clearer, easier, and timed around what employees need.
Make Start, Stop, Keep a Habit
Start, Stop, Keep works because it’s simple enough to use often and practical enough to drive real change.
For internal HR teams, it can make meetings more focused, feedback cleaner, and planning more productive. While it’s especially useful for benefits comms, it doesn’t need to be a once-a-year exercise. Use it after OE, after a benefits campaign, during quarterly planning, or whenever the team needs a reset.
Remember, ask these three questions:
What should we start?
What should we stop?
What should we keep?
Then turn the answers into action.
With the right communication strategy and digital tools in place, HR teams can turn those answers into benefits experiences that are easier for everyone to understand, use, and value.