In the modern workforce, we are inundated with tools— and here we are about to roll out another tool. Feel confident knowing you want employees to use 15Five for a good reason. This reason is what needs to be communicated with employees prior to launch to ensure good adoption.
This article will help you with that communication. It contains messaging other companies have used to successfully launch 15Five.
- Feel free to copy the examples below and customize them to fit your needs
- Share your announcement in an all-hands meeting, a team meeting, or via email
- It’s best for your announcement to come from an executive team member who is invested in 15Five
The above steps will contribute to the healthy adoption of 15Five from the start.
Email templates
Hi team,
I'm very excited to announce that we'll be launching 15Five on [launch date]! This initiative requires a bit of an introduction, so allow me to do so:
What is 15Five?
15Five is a continuous feedback platform designed to help managers better support their people.
- It is a place to bring your voices, share wins & ideas, appreciate each other and collaboratively work through challenges
- Support the 1-on-1's you're already having with your manager and colleagues
What does '15Five' mean?
- Employees take 15 minutes a week to candidly answer a few questions related to your accomplishments, challenges, and morale
- Managers spend 5 minutes reading, commenting on responses, and providing feedback
- It’s a continuous practice that helps form the backbone of 1-on-1’s and performance development at [COMPANY NAME].
- Here’s an introduction to 15Five
Supporting you
Knowing how your individual work activity contributes to the results that we're trying to achieve is critical to our success and your professional development.
To that end, we strongly believe in providing a means for our people to:
- Feel connected
- Give and receive input and advice from each other
- Feel recognized and valued
- Get a sense of how we're doing as individuals and team
To support this initiative, we're very excited to launch this new software tool, 15Five!
What's in it for me?
Adding a new tool to your weekly routine takes some time getting used to but the expectation is that each team will use this tool weekly.
We are confident that using 15Five will help you:
- Learn more about each other's work
- Make more productive use of 1-on-1 meetings
We require 100% participation and expect that managers review and engage with their staff weekly and during 1-on-1s.
What do I do next?
Keep an eye out for a welcome email from notifications@15five.com to set up a password. For any log-in-related issues, please direct your email to [point of contact’s email address] with a description and screenshots.
Bookmark the 15Five login page for easy access.
Your first Check-in will be due [first due date]. We're expecting everyone to complete their Check-ins by 5 pm each Friday.
Also, 15Five offers platform training. We encourage you to attend. Register for the next one here.
On behalf of the Leadership Team, thank you for your participation. We're excited to help our teams become more meaningfully focused and connected to the things that matter.
Regards,
[Name of executive team member]
We are excited about launching a new tool called 15Five! The goal in using this tool is to nurture our healthy feedback systems at [COMPANY NAME], and to give everyone a consistent voice in the organization.
15Five is a "continuous feedback" platform designed to help managers better support their staff. Described most simply, each week you will be asked to spend 15 minutes candidly answering a few questions. You will reflect on how the week went, and plan for the week ahead. Then, at the beginning of the following week, your manager will spend 5 minutes reviewing and providing feedback. The goal of this tool is to more easily communicate with you, celebrate your accomplishments, and hear your concerns and ideas.
In addition to enhancing the quality and frequency of feedback, 15Five provides a place where you can capture your achievements, suggestions, and challenges so that you can receive the proper support from your manager. It's also a great place to log self-development goals for career progression, shout out others on their achievements, and build agendas for 1-on-1 meetings. This tool does not replace 1-on-1 meetings; it is designed to strengthen them and make them more productive.
Organizations that use 15Five say that staff feel heard and are more engaged. Supervisors receive a weekly snapshot of their team and identify challenges and solutions faster. Everyone stays in the loop on what feels most important, and conversations are consolidated in a place where the topics can become the building blocks for 1-on-1 meetings.
Over the next three months, incorporate this tool into your weekly workflow. 15Five is a tool that is dedicated to supporting you! Also, 15Five offers platform training. We encourage you to attend. Register for the next one here.
Sincerely,
[Name of executive team member]
Hi Team- If you missed the weekly DEPARTMENT meeting yesterday. I'm excited to announce that we'll be kicking off 15Five today!
What is 15Five? 15Five is a weekly feedback platform that is designed to help managers better support their people. While many teams across the business raised their hand, we are fortunate to have been selected to be early adopters of this tool over the next 60 days to see if it would be useful for COMPANY.
How will this work? Each Friday you will fill out your Check-in. With a few poignant questions, the tool prompts you to reflect on how the week went & plan for the week ahead. Refrain from authoring the Great American Novel; as this is intended to take less than 15 minutes each week. At the beginning of the following week, your manager will review and provide feedback.
Visibility settings are aligned with the org hierarchy (i.e. an employee’s 15Five will be viewable by their manager, and all higher levers within their direct leadership chain). However, if you mark a comment as private it will *only* be viewable by your direct manager.
I ask that we all consistently leverage 15Five during this time as it’s been found to be most valuable if adopted into a weekly practice; forming the backbone of 1-on-1’s and empowering richer, more meaningful employee development conversations.
Also, 15Five offers platform training. We encourage you to attend. Register for the next one here.
I am personally very excited to help our teams be more meaningfully connected.
Best,
[Name of executive team member]
Hi,
You are receiving this email because next week, you will be invited to participate as early adopters of a tool we are considering using at [company name] called 15Five.
15Five refers to an approach of the tool being designed for supervisors and team members to be able to quickly provide feedback or updates within 15 minutes each week and the supervisor or team leaders able to take 5 minutes at the beginning of each week to review all of the feedback.
I have shared with some of you that we need to continue to look for ways to make communication more efficient and targeted. How do we get the information we need or share the information we want in an efficient way? How do we get feedback and input from others on the work we are doing? How do we have a sense of how our various teams are doing?
Through 15Five, that is how!
We will be launching the tool on [launch date]. You will receive an email asking you to log in.
Moving forward, we want to be more mindful and conscientious about which tools we use for what purposes. For example:
- Email – formal communication and documentation of discussions and transactions
- 15Five – Project updates, feedback, project planning, & goal setting
- Slack – Quick questions, clarifications, and quick updates
- Text – immediate communication
- Meetings – solicit feedback and build towards authentic agreement and decision-making
If you have any questions at all, please email [point of contact email address]. We are pumped to get this new tool in your hands and see what you think. Thanks for participating as an early adopter!
To our success,
[Name of executive team member]
All,
Tomorrow morning, we are kicking off a new performance management solution called 15Five. Be on the lookout for an email with an invitation from 15Five.
In my experience, performance management too often feels like a chore that we begrudgingly do once a quarter or once a year. We have to log into some clunky piece of software (that we have likely forgotten the password to), fill out a justification for why we are valuable to the company, and sit through a non-helpful discussion about past performance. Instead, I wish performance management happened in the moment, in context, and provided actionable guidance (reinforcement of good behavior and criticism of things to improve) for better performance.
One on one meetings are good venues for these kinds of discussions, and my sense is that many of you use your one on one time to hold these discussions. But when it comes time to check-in once a quarter, you have to draw from your notes or your memory on the bigger themes that emerge. If only there were a better tool to help organize these on-going conversations so that our one on ones could be more productive and that our quarterly check-ins could be richer, deeper, and more focused on growth targets than on past performance assessments.
We’ve been on the search for such a tool and believe that 15Five could be that solution. It is a performance management tool, but unlike a sea of competitive products, it focuses around facilitating weekly employee and manager communication in the form of written check-ins and one on ones. The tool allows for the creation of one on one agendas, tracks notes, allows for issues to be bubbled up to your manager’s manager, and supports flagging wins and setbacks for discussion in quarterly reviews. By consolidating all of this on-going performance discussion in your weekly workflow, it is my hope that this will deliver richer, more productive performance discussions, both at the one on one level and at the quarterly check-in.
But the proof is in the pudding. The tool needs to work for us and the way we work with our direct reports. I ask you to give this tool your best efforts and to incorporate it in your weekly workflow. I really want to understand from all of you if this tool can be a benefit to our performance management practices and your feedback is absolutely vital.
Thank you,
[Name of executive sponsor]
Team,
We have grown tremendously as an organization in the last 6 - 12 months. We have added hundreds of employees, multiple business units, and major shared service areas. It is now impossible for me to spend the time that I like with each department to have a good pulse on our organization.
We have a proven business model that can scale to billions in sales. Our success will be entirely dependent on execution and remaining a fast moving, healthy, entrepreneurial organization. I strongly believe that 15five is a tool that will help us achieve that success. For me personally, it is the only way I can hear great ideas and problems from the entire organization. I strongly believe you will be better executives when your teams start using this tool.
Here is what I believe to be the main benefits of 15five.com (it is also straight from their website):
- Employees Feel Heard - Employees feel heard and are more engaged. They have the opportunity to contribute based on their unique skills, abilities and perspectives.
- You Stay Informed - You get a weekly snapshot of your team with zero effort.
- Managers Save Time - Managers save an enormous amount of time gathering and escalating feedback from their team.
- Entire Company Stays In The Loop - Everyone stays in the loop with what's most important. Conversations about important issues are kept out of email where they might otherwise be lost.
Today, about half of my direct reports (and their organization) are using 15five.com on a regular basis. There is significantly better communication with those departments and those teams are more effective at solving problems quickly and effectively, small problems rarely become big problems.
For the next 12 weeks, I want to make it a top priority (and company requirement) to use 15five. It typically takes 2-3 weeks for employees to get "used to 15five", after that period employees generally love the tool/feedback. I will also be setting up a brief town hall meeting next week with the entire company to stress the importance of 15Five and why we are rolling it out.
When we make something a priority, this team is capable of doing ANYTHING. Let's give this a real shot and make it a priority for the next 12 weeks!
Best,
[Name of executive team member]
Team! I am excited to launch a new employee feedback and communication tool, 15Five!
For the past few months, members of the executive team have been engaged as early adopters of the tool. Feedback has been very positive on the ease of using the tool and the opportunity for more consistent feedback.
Key features of the tool include weekly pulse checks on how employees are feeling, a section for creating priorities for the upcoming week (optionally linked to long-term objective), as well as checking off priorities from your current week as complete, and opportunities to share ongoing feedback with your supervisor. It also includes a recognition feature called “high five” which is an important element of two-way feedback and communication and incorporates recognition into everything we do.
Look for more specific instructions on when training will occur and next steps in the next couple of weeks.
[ADMIN NAME HERE] will be leading this initiative and are excited about the opportunities for increased communication and feedback this tool will provide.
Thank you,
[Name of executive team member]
Hi Team,
As we enter into the new financial year, we have been investigating ways that we can continue to invest in the growth of our people.
Those of you at the last [TOWN HALL / ALL HANDS MEETING] will recall that we touched on a new people and communication platform called 15Five. We’re excited to announce that moving forward to utilize 15five company-wide as a tool to assist in the dialog between managers & employees and across-teams, giving you all a consistent voice in the organization. 15Five provides a place where you can capture your achievements, roadblocks or challenges, and get the most support from your manager.
The 15Five tool will also provide all of us with complete visibility and transparency over Company objectives from myself, across all our brands and functions and allow you to see how these objectives align with your own role. We believe this will continue to provide transparency on where we are heading and increase ownership across the business. It’s also a fantastic platform to recognize others for achievements, loop people into projects you are working on, or log self-development objectives for career progression within the business.
The Senior Leadership Team as well as a few employees across the business were early adopters in the system. Their feedback has been fantastic. I have found it really easy to use, and a great way to keep on top of what is going on for my direct reports, where they need more support or input from me as well as an ongoing pulse check of our business. We reviewed a number of different options for this system and 15Five was felt to be the most user-friendly, agile and not a time suck – it seriously takes 15 minutes a week!! And, it has a free app for those of you with an iPhone so you can do it on the fly (android access is really easy too!).
On [DATE] you will all receive an email from 15Five inviting you to join & I strongly encourage you all to have a look around the platform, download the app to your iPhone or Android, and start to experience what it is all about.
The HR team will be catching up with teams over the coming weeks to guide you towards successful utilization of the platform. Also, 15Five offers platform training. We encourage you to attend. Register for the next one here.
Sometimes getting into a new habit can be hard, so to help you get into the rhythm, we will be reporting back regularly on our top users and top High Fivers who will receive some great prizes!
We are all really excited for what this will bring to the business moving forward, and if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask!
Kind regards,
[Name of executive team member]
15Five is a platform designed to help managers better support their teams. Without a tool, it can be challenging to connect, give and receive feedback, and stay focused on OKRs as a distributed team. With 15Five, we can track weekly goals and priorities, allowing us to have more fruitful and productive discussions about our work, careers, and growth.
15Five stands for the 15 minutes, maximum, all employees will spend each week filling out their goals, and 5 minutes for your manager to review it. 15Five is a continuous feedback platform designed to help distributed teams stay focused and connected.
15Five will help you:
- Actively track your OKRs
- Support the 1-on-1s you're already having with your manager and colleagues
- Eventually reduce time spent on meetings by taking 15 minutes a week to candidly answer a few questions related to your accomplishments, challenges, and morale
How will this work?
- Once a week, each team member will fill out their Check-in.
- When creating your objectives be sure to align your goals (where applicable) to your team goals
- Your manager will take 5 minutes to review your Check-in and provide feedback each week
Helpful tips:
- Reflect on the past week and write your top priorities or goals for the next week (not your to-do list)
- Answer questions honestly; your manager will see your response
- Celebrate team members’ wins
15Five is set up with transparency and openness in mind. Your manager and anyone directly above your manager can view your 15Five. You can also make a comment private so that only your immediate manager will see it.
What’s next?
We require 100% participation and expect that managers review and engage with their teams to create OKRs in 15Five and begin using the tool for weekly 1-on-1s. Also, 15Five offers platform training. We encourage you to attend. Register for the next one here.
Questions?
If you have any questions, please send a message in [slack, teams, email, etc].
Hey [COMPANY NAME]!
Next [DATE], we will begin using a new piece of software called 15Five. At a glance, 15Five is a performance management tool that will help strengthen our communication throughout and reinforce our culture of putting people first.
I understand that it may seem daunting for the company to introduce yet another piece of software for you to use on a regular basis, however, this software is dedicated entirely to you! The goal of using this software is to more easily communicate with you, celebrate your accomplishments, and hear your concerns. As a benefit to the structure of 15Five, it will also enable everyone in the studio to find out what is happening company-wide, so you can consistently be in the know on high-level company developments.
The software has a ton of features, such as performance reviews and objective tracking, which we will introduce over time. However, the first focus will be on using 15Five’s Pulse Check-in and 1-on-1 features. These features go hand-in-hand and will support a company-wide push for every individual to have consistent 1-on-1’s with their managers.
If you have any questions before [launch date], please let me know! We are very excited to utilize 15Five in an effort to build a stronger company!
Thank You,
[Name of executive team member]
Dear all,
I wanted to take a moment to reach out and share some additional color on our recent launch of 15Five. Performance management and career development are important topics to me, [executive’s name], and the rest of the leadership team. It’s something that I’ve heard from our people time and time again since I’ve been with the company.
While there are several factors that impact your career at [company name], the role of your manager is arguably the most important one. With that in mind, we wanted to deploy a tool that enhanced the quality and frequency of this feedback loop, which is why we implemented 15Five.
Adding a new tool to your weekly routine takes some time to get used to. I’ve been using 15Five with my direct reports and it’s helped me streamline communication and feedback with the team while allowing me to make more productive use of our 1:1s. I also love the ability to give high fives and recognize the great work that our teams are doing, and share it with the rest of [company name].
My expectation is that all managers and employees will be using this tool weekly, but there is some flexibility in how they do this based on their needs. The tool automates reporting so we can collect data on our usage and engagement. We can see who has logged in, who hasn’t, which managers are engaging, and those that aren’t.
Since our full rollout NUMBER weeks ago, we are at an average of [#] people who have submitted and reviewed in 15Five, with [#] people active. This represents [X%] participation across [company name]. It’s a good start, but we want this number to continue to increase. For those who haven’t yet engaged on 15Five, I ask you to please make it a priority moving forward. It helps us better assess the effectiveness of our managers and ensure every member of the [company name] team is receiving feedback on their performance and development.
Even in this short time, we’ve already seen significant improvement from our older system of quarterly reviews. Last year, we had closer to NUMBER% participation with fewer employees than we do today. I am really pleased to see that we have [#] managers who are at [X%] reviewed – every report, every week. We’ll be celebrating that with a leaderboard at the next all-hands and look forward to seeing those numbers rise as well.
The People Team is working on the roll-out of some new tools over the coming months to improve access and visibility to information across teams, new and improved employee surveys, and additional ways to collect feedback for development purposes. If you have any questions or concerns on 15Five I’d encourage you to reach out to [15Five admin’s name] or any other member of the People team for assistance.
Thank you,
[Name of executive team member]