Manager/Admin Guide
How to launch Foundation for others, monitor progress, review submissions, and support edits when needed.
Who this is for
This guide is for managers, WeMatter leads, admins, and other authorised users who can launch or review Foundation for other people in their organisation.
Foundation is more personal than some other WeMatter workflows, so this guide is less about process volume and more about how to use the reflection well once it exists.
Why Foundation matters for you
Foundation gives you access to the person's own account of what supports their best work, what is currently getting in the way, and what kind of future direction feels important from here.
That changes the quality of later conversations. Instead of guessing what someone needs from work, you can start from their own priorities, drivers, and reflections. In practice, that usually leads to better one-to-ones, better support, and more credible development planning.
What Foundation improves
Foundation does not replace conversation. It gives the conversation a more accurate starting point.
Launching Foundation for someone else
Foundation is usually launched from the person's profile.
Open their profile actions, choose Launch Foundation, and set the deadline. Once launched, the person can begin completing the reflection themselves.
The deadline is part of the live Foundation from the outset, so launching is not just a permission action. It is the moment the reflection becomes active.
If the action is unavailable
If you do not have the right access, the product will usually explain why the launch action is disabled.
Finding and opening Foundation later
The main Foundation area is the oversight surface for the workflow.
From there, you can search, filter to specific people, and open individual Foundations to see their dashboard, progress, and current state. The dashboard itself then shows whether the Foundation has not been started, is in progress, or has already been submitted.
That is one of the useful qualities of the Foundation UI. It does not only tell you that a reflection exists. It tells you where it sits in the journey.
Reading progress and status well
Foundation generally appears as Live while it is still being worked on and Submitted once it has been completed and formalised.
The dashboard also shows completion percentage and, while the Foundation is still active, points to the next incomplete part. If everything is complete, the flow moves towards summary and submission instead.
So status tells you the stage. Progress tells you how close the reflection is to being ready.
Reviewing a submitted Foundation
Once a Foundation has been submitted, the summary becomes the main review view. This is where you can read the reflection as a whole rather than as separate answers spread across multiple sections.
The strongest review questions are straightforward. Does the reflection feel clear? Does it feel specific enough to understand the person's current reality? Do the different sections hold together? And does the overall picture point towards what may need to happen next?
You are not looking for polished writing. You are looking for an honest and usable account of what is true.
Supporting edits after submission
Sometimes a submitted Foundation needs to change. The person may want to add detail, correct something, or update a reflection that no longer feels accurate.
In the product, that happens through the summary page. You unsubmit the Foundation, which makes it editable again, then the relevant sections can be updated and saved before the Foundation is submitted again.
That keeps the process deliberate. A submitted Foundation is not meant to become an untracked draft.
Deleting a Foundation
Deleting should be reserved for the stronger cases, such as when a Foundation was launched in error and should no longer exist as part of the record.
This action sits on the dashboard rather than in the summary flow, which matches its purpose: deletion is about removing the Foundation itself, not revising the reflection inside it.
How Foundation supports the wider WeMatter flow
Foundation matters most when it is read as part of the larger WeMatter system.
It gives later scorecards personal context. It helps make goal conversations more specific. And when WeMatter is generating goals using multiple sources together, Foundation can add detail about enablers, blockers, priorities, and what the person is genuinely working towards.
So although Foundation happens early, it continues to shape how the rest of the journey is interpreted.
A good operating mindset
The right way to manage Foundation for others is with light structure and close attention.
Launch it with a sensible deadline. Encourage candour rather than neat answers. Read the summary as a coherent picture, not a checklist. And when you act on what you learn, let the Foundation influence the conversations and development plans that follow.
Last updated on