Demographic Attributes are used to bring in more sensitive employee data that doesn't exist in 15Five by default: Birth date, Ethnicity, Gender, Race, & Salary. Enabling and populating Demographic Attributes allows HR admins to report on key employee trends through the lens of their workforce’s demographics, which is critical to helping people leaders uncover and address problems within their company before they become too big to solve.
In this article, you will learn...
- How to enable Demographic Attributes
- How to populate Demographic Attributes for employees
- How Demographic Attributes are used in 15Five features
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Access and availability
⛔️ Required access to Feature Settings.
👥 This article is relevant to HR Admins and Account Admins.
👀 Only HR Admins and the employee themselves can view an employee's demographic attributes.
📦 This feature is available in all pricing packages.
Enable Demographic Attributes
HR Admins can follow the steps below to enable Demographic Attributes in their company account. Turning this toggle on causes Demographic Attributes (Birth date, Ethnicity, Gender, Race, & Salary) to appear on users' account settings pages.
- Click on the Settings gear in the top right-hand corner of 15Five.
- Select 'Features' from the dropdown menu.
- Open the 'Features overview' section.
- Scroll to the 'People Attributes' section at the bottom of the page and toggle on the "Demographic Attributes" option.
- A popup will appear asking you to confirm that you have read, understand, and consent to 15Five's Master Subscription Agreement, Privacy Policy, and Data Policy Processing Agreement, amongst other things. If you agree, check the boxes and click Enable demographic data.
- Demographic Attributes are now enabled for your company.
Populate Demographic Attributes for employees
Demographic attributes can be populated in employee profiles via bulk import or your HRIS. Both HR admins and account admins can import demographic attributes.
- Follow steps 1-4 in the previous section of this article and click Configure to the right of the "Demographic Attributes" option to open the Bulk Importer.
You can also access the Bulk Importer by clicking Settings > People > Import. - Download your company's current employment structure by clicking the Download current structure button at the top of the page.
Tip
We suggest downloading one copy of your current structure to keep in a safe place for re-upload in case any unintended changes are made when you upload your CSV, and downloading a second copy to make edits to. You can then upload the edited CSV.
- Open the current structure CSV you just downloaded. To populate employee Demographic Attributes, remove all columns except 'email' and any of the following columns that you want to use:
- demographic_salary
- demographic_gender
- demographic_race
- demographic_ethnicity
- demographic_birth_date
- When you're done inputting demographic information into the CSV, save the file in UTF-8 CSV format.
- Click Choose file at the bottom of the screen and find the CSV from your computer that you would like to import.
- Upon file selection, a 'Preview import' screen will appear. Review the changes to be made. If the changes aren't what you want, click the Start over button in the bottom, left-hand corner of the page to stop the import and be redirected back to the bulk import page.
- Click Finish import.
- Depending on the size of your CSV, it may take up to 15 minutes for the import to complete. Once the import is complete, updates will be reflected in 15Five.
Note
Suppose you want to have the ability to filter engagement survey results by Demographic Attributes and don't have auto-sync enabled between 15Five and Engage. In that case, you can perform a sync from 15Five to Engage. Demographic Attributes will appear in the "Custom Groups Types" tab.
- Make sure Demographic Attributes are enabled in 15Five and demographic data is populated in your HRIS.
Tip
Integrating with your HRIS using 15Five's HRIS Connector is the easiest way to ensure accurate, up-to-date employee data in 15Five. Learn more.
- Run a sync between your HRIS and 15Five. For more information about how to run a sync, please refer to your specific HRIS Help Center article.
- Once the sync completes, demographic information will appear in user account settings.
Note
Suppose you want to have the ability to filter engagement survey results by Demographic Attributes and don't have auto-sync enabled between 15Five and Engage. In that case, you can perform a sync from 15Five to Engage. Demographic Attributes will appear in the "Custom Groups Types" tab.
Demographic Attributes in 15Five features
HR Admins can filter the HR Outcomes Dashboard by demographic data. They can also assign individuals who a specific demographic attribute applies to as the Target Group when creating an Action Plan.
HR Admins can filter the "Submitted Check-ins" and "Reviewed Check-ins" reporting dashboards by demographic attribute using the steps below.
- Click Outcomes Dashboard or Dashboard in 15Five's main, left-hand navigation. The option you see in your navigation will differ based on your 15Five pricing plan.
- Open the "Platform Reports" tab using the top navigation.
- Click 🔍 Explore in the "Check-ins" block.
- Open either the 'Submitted Check-ins' or 'Reviewed Check-ins' tab using the top navigation bar.
- In the Individuals table, find the 'View by' filter. Here, you'll see the ability to filter by demographic attributes.
- If desired, you can download the report in CSV or XLSX formats after filtering by a demographic attribute, and people will be organized by the selected Demographic Attribute in the report.
Following the conclusion of a performance review cycle, HR admins can filter company review results by demographic attribute.
After your organization runs an engagement campaign, Engagement Admins can filter results by demographic attributes (Birth date, Ethnicity, Gender, Race, & Salary). This is only the case if results are enabled for Demographic Attribute group types and groups meet confidentiality requirements for engagement survey results.
Note
The "Salary" Demographic Attribute is not pulled into Engagement due to its variability.
Employee birthdates are also used to separate employees into Generation System Groups. Engagement Admins, Organization Admins, and Leaders with results access can filter engagement results by generation.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
You can migrate custom attributes into demographic attributes by downloading your current company structure from the bulk import page, changing the column name for the custom attribute to that of the demographic attribute (for example, demographic_salary), and importing the file. This will populate data in demographic attributes, and you can then delete the custom attribute safely.
No— demographic attributes are not included in company exports. If you want to ensure all demographic attributes are correct, we recommend re-importing all demographic values via bulk import.
Related articles 📖
- How to make someone an HR admin so they can view and manage demographic attributes
- How to create a custom attribute
- How to filter Best-Self Review® results by demographic attributes
- How to mark an employee as high potential