15Five helps HR leaders drive the outcomes that matter most to your business and your people: maximizing employee performance, increasing employee engagement, and decreasing regrettable turnover. While each of these outcomes impacts each other, it's helpful to select a primary outcome you want to focus your efforts and attention on driving at any given time.
In this article, we'll dive deeper into the three outcomes 15Five helps drive, recommend best practices for determining which outcome you want to focus your attention on, and share resources for using 15Five to drive outcomes and measure progress on outcome-specific initiatives.
This article contains the following sections:
- Outcomes in 15Five: Overview
- Determine your desired outcome
- Use 15Five to drive outcomes
- Use 15Five to measure progress
15Five's HR Outcomes: Overview
Over the past several years, 15Five has had the privilege of working with thousands of HR leaders to uncover the things that have the biggest impact on organizational success. At this point in our journey, we've honed in on three key outcomes that consistently do this: maximizing employee performance, increasing employee engagement, and decreasing regrettable turnover.
By focusing on these outcomes under the guidance of HR and People Ops leaders, organizations can achieve the highest level of impact, maximize their organization’s potential, and drive success in today’s highly competitive business environment. 15Five's features and offerings are strategically designed to help leaders measure and deliver on these outcomes.
Read more about the outcomes that 15Five drives:
Employee performance is "an employee's consistent and effective contribution to their role and responsibilities within the organization, demonstrated by their ability to meet or exceed performance expectations, contribute to the achievement of the company's objectives, and consistently deliver high-quality work that positively impacts the organization's overall success."
Employee engagement is "an employee’s intellectual and emotional connection with their employer, demonstrated by their motivation and commitment to positively impact the business’s vision and goals."
Regrettable turnover occurs when somebody’s departure from the company negatively impacts the organization, or when a high-performing employee that the company would have liked to keep decides to leave of their own accord.
Determine your desired outcome
Now that you're familiar with the outcomes that 15Five helps organizations drive, it's time to determine a top-priority outcome to focus on. This outcome will guide the features you'll launch with, the expectations you'll set around 15Five usage, the initiatives you'll launch to drive the outcome within your organization, and the metrics you'll use to determine impact.
Use the recommendations below to guide you in choosing which outcome to focus on. We recommend re-evaluating your top-priority outcome periodically (e.g. every 3, 6, 12 months) based on what's top-of-mind for your organization at that time.
1️⃣ Hold an engagement survey
Engagement surveys are a helpful tool to see where your organization stands in engagement drivers that are correlated with specific outcomes.
The following drivers are directly related to enhancing individual and team performance by ensuring that employees have the necessary resources, support, and clarity to excel in their roles.
- Capacity
- Feedback
- Goal Support
- Professional Development
- Role Clarity
- Utilization
The following drivers focus on fostering a positive work environment where employees feel valued, connected, and aligned with the company's mission and values. Engaged employees are more likely to be productive, innovative, and committed to their work.
- Autonomy
- Coworker Relationships
- Fairness
- Leader Availability
- Psychological Safety
- Purpose
- Shared Values
The following drivers address factors that contribute to employee satisfaction and retention. Building strong relationships, providing fair treatment, demonstrating integrity in leadership, and offering opportunities for growth and development can help reduce turnover and retain valuable talent within the organization. Additionally, promoting work-life balance through adequate rest is essential for preventing burnout and dissatisfaction.
- Coworker Relationships
- Fairness
- Leader Integrity
- Manager
- Meaning
- Rest
2️⃣ Consider the HR Calendar
The time of year is an important thing to consider as you determine what your HR Team wants to focus their time and energy on. With that in mind, we created a strategic HR calendar, based on interviews with experienced HR leaders, that can help guide you as you decide which outcome to focus on.
3️⃣ Look at organizational symptoms
Below, you can read through the symptoms or "red flags" that may indicate you should focus on a specific outcome.
Low employee performance can manifest in various ways depending on the individual, the nature of their job, and the organizational culture. Here are some common symptoms:
- Falling ratings in reviews: More employees are being ranked as low-performing in performance reviews.
- Unknown or stalled goal progress: Leaders are either unaware of employees' goal progress, or employees are consistently failing to meet set targets or objectives.
- Uneven accountability or "fairness issues": Employees are complaining about inconsistent task allocations and perceived favoritism, or are surprised when they're put on performance improvement plans.
- Lack of goal achievement: Consistently failing to meet set targets or objectives.
- Missed deadlines: Regularly failing to complete tasks on time.
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Decreased output: A noticeable decline in the quantity or quality of work produced.
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Lack of initiative: Not taking proactive steps or showing reluctance to take on new tasks.
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Avoidance behavior and isolation: Avoiding meetings, skipping team events, or not being available for discussions. Withdrawal from team dynamics, reduced collaboration, or not participating in group discussions.
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Decline in work quality: Errors become more frequent, and attention to detail is lacking.
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Resistance to feedback: Defensive behavior when given constructive feedback or unwillingness to adapt.
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Negative attitude: Displaying a pessimistic outlook, complaining frequently, or expressing dissatisfaction regularly.
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Increased dependence: Constantly seeking help for tasks they should be capable of handling or over-relying on colleagues.
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Avoidance of responsibility: Shifting blame, not taking ownership of mistakes, or avoiding accountability.
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Decreased motivation: No improvement in skills or knowledge over time, even with training and opportunities. Lack of interest in professional development, promotions, or additional training.
Low employee engagement can manifest in various ways. Some of the most common ones we see are listed below.
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High employee turnover: When employees are disengaged, they are more likely to leave the organization, resulting in a high turnover rate.
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Decreased productivity: Disengaged employees tend to be less motivated, which can lead to a decline in overall productivity and output.
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Increased absenteeism: Disengaged employees may frequently miss work or take more unplanned absences, indicating a lack of commitment or interest in their roles.
- Complaints about leadership or direction: Low employee engagement often leads to complaints about leadership or direction as disengaged employees perceive a lack of effective guidance, clear communication, and support from their leaders, resulting in frustration, confusion, and a breakdown of trust.
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Lack of initiative or innovation: Employees who are not engaged often lack enthusiasm for suggesting new ideas or taking initiative to improve processes.
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Low morale: Disengaged employees may exhibit low morale, leading to a negative work atmosphere and reduced collaboration among team members.
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Poor communication: Disengagement can contribute to breakdowns in communication, resulting in misunderstandings, conflicts, or a lack of clarity regarding goals and expectations.
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Reduced customer satisfaction: When employees are disengaged, it can affect their interactions with customers, leading to lower levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty.
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Increased errors or quality issues: Lack of focus and motivation can result in more mistakes, quality control problems, or a decline in the quality of products or services.
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Lack of employee development: Disengaged employees may not actively seek growth opportunities or take advantage of training programs, which can hinder their professional development and overall performance.
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Negative impact on team dynamics: Poor employee engagement can create a negative ripple effect on team dynamics, with disengaged individuals potentially affecting the morale and performance of their colleagues.
The following symptoms might signal the onset of regrettable turnover in your organization:
- Quiet quitting/morale issues: Employees have mentally or emotionally checked out of their jobs but haven't formally resigned. They might be doing the bare minimum to get by and often display a lack of enthusiasm or drive.
- Surprise 2-week notices: These are unexpected resignation notices from employees who showed no overt signs of dissatisfaction.
- Repeated low engagement scores: Your organization or specific teams are receiving consistently low scores on engagement surveys. Employees are consistently reporting low Pulse scores in their Check-ins.
- Anonymous feedback to HR: When employees choose to provide feedback anonymously, it often indicates they're uncomfortable or fear repercussions for voicing concerns openly. A culture where employees feel the need to remain anonymous to voice concerns is indicative of trust issues. Without trust in management or HR to handle issues appropriately, employees may opt to leave instead of dealing with persistent problems.
- Confusion around expectations/Lack of role clarity: Employees are unsure about their responsibilities, what's expected of them, or how their performance is measured.
- Complaints about leadership or direction: Employees express concerns about the decision-making, communication style, vision, or actions of their leaders.
How can I use 15Five to achieve these outcomes?
HR Outcomes Flywheel
15Five's HR Outcomes Flywheel connects all the things you're doing in HR in a continuous, accelerating flywheel to improve outcomes. The Flywheel is HR's go-to resource for bringing strategic HR initiatives to life to demonstrate and drive real impact. Learn more about each step in the HR Outcomes Flywheel.
As an HR Leader, you can use our HR Outcomes Flywheel worksheet to bring the flywheel to life in your own organization. Simply open a blank document, answer worksheet questions, and use gained insights to inform initiatives that your HR Team will focus on to take action on your desired outcome.
Action recipes
Action recipes are combinations of 15Five features that, when combined, can pave the way for increased outcome performance within your organization. Use the "Drive [outcome] with 15Five" sections of the articles below to view suggested action recipes to drive performance, engagement, and retention in your organization.
- Use 15Five to maximize employee performance
- Use 15Five to increase employee engagement
- Use 15Five to decrease regrettable turnover
How can I use 15Five to measure progress?
You've determined your desired outcome and launched strategic initiatives to drive the outcome in your organization...now what? In this section, we'll walk through how to use 15Five to measure progress on your initiatives so you can prove your impact.
Customers on our Total Platform pricing plan have access to 15Five's revolutionary HR Outcomes Dashboard, which allows leaders to track outcomes across their organization and measure how initiatives impact engagement, performance, and turnover.
Use our Quick-launch Guide to start measuring impact using the HR Outcomes Dashboard.
Customers on our Total Platform pricing plan also have access to the Manager Effectiveness Indicator (MEI), which provides a holistic view of how effective your managers are, how they are impacting bottom-line metrics, and what you can do to help them improve. Check out our "Use the Manager Effectiveness Indicator" article for steps on how to use the MEI.
In addition to our HR Outcomes Dashboard and Manager Effectiveness Indicator, 15Five offers feature-specific reporting options that you can use to measure impact. Check out our "Measure success and impact in 15Five" article for recommendations on key 15Five metrics to track based on your desired outcome.