Employees feel more engaged when they believe that their employer is invested in their growth and career development. With that in mind, 15Five created competencies and career paths, which can be utilized in both our Career Hub and Best-Self ReviewÂŽ features.
"Competencies" are demonstrable and measurable clusters of knowledge, skills, behaviors, and attitudes that an employee needs to perform their work functions successfully. "Career paths," also referred to as career ladders, show employees what roles exist within different departments within your organization, and explain the competencies, strengths, and key behaviors necessary to perform in these roles.
The 'Career Paths and roles' tab in 15Five gives employees visibility into possible directions of career growth within your organization, while the 'Competencies' tab allows admins to specify what skills and behaviors employees need to embody for success and growth in each role. Together, this information brings assessable career information into the platform and enables role clarity and career development conversations between leaders and employees.
In this article you will learn...
- How competencies and career paths interact with 15Five features
- Best practices for rolling out competencies and career paths
Context and terminology
Background and context
Career Hub is a main feature within 15Five that enables managers and employees to have productive career growth conversations through exercises in role clarity, strengths discovery, and career visioning.
'Career Paths' is a feature that allows account admins to upload their organizationâs career ladders to 15Five. Once Career Paths are uploaded, employees can see departmental career ladders and associated role competencies for all role in the company in the 'Career Paths' section of their Career Hub. This allows employees to explore career paths and associated expectations easily all within 15Five, promoting transparency, growth, and development within your organization.
After your team has Career Paths uploaded, members of your organization can work with their managers to utilize the 'Growth Plan' tab, in which they co-create career development goals and plans that align with their unique strengths and professional goals. Check out our "Growth Plan: 101" article for more information about Growth Plans.
Before we get started, there are some key terms you should be familiar with.
The Career Paths section of Career Hub is intended to be completed after employees get clear on their role, responsibilities, strengths, and career goals in the 'Role Clarity', 'Strengths', and 'Career Vision' tabs. After utilizing 'Career Paths' to become aware of role opportunities within your organization, employees can use 'Growth Plan' to take tangible steps towards their future.
Terminology
Career Paths promote professional development and growth by communicating what strong performance looks like at different levels, roles, and departments. Career Paths are visible in 15Fiveâs Career Hub feature.
Competencies are demonstrable and measurable clusters of knowledge, skills, behaviors, and attitudes that an employee needs to perform their work functions successfully. Competencies are visible in feature settings, Best-Self ReviewsÂŽ, and Career Hub. For more information about competencies, please refer to our âUpload and manage competenciesâ Help Center article.
Skills are abilities that are required for a specific job, and should be based on key behaviors. For example: âStrategic fluencyâ, "Javascript programming", or "Concise writing". In-app, skills are accessible in the Career Paths download (see the âExport Career Pathsâ section of this article for more information) and in the 'Skills' tab of Career Hub.
Key behaviors are expectations at the role level. For example: âYou are learning how to research, identify market trends, and analyze data and information so that they all can play roles in your development of a product strategy.â In-app, key behaviors are accessible in the Career Paths download (see the âExport Career Pathsâ section of this article for more information) and in Career Hub.
How does it work?
Account admins can upload department-specific CSVs containing the Career Paths within that department, as well as the competencies, skills, and key behavior associated with those roles. Once CSVs are uploaded for each department, employees will have visibility into all possible Career Paths within your organization. The fields available in Career Path CSVs are âPathâ (required), âJob titleâ (required), âCompetencyâ (optional), âSkillâ (optional), and âKey behaviorâ (required).
One competency can group multiple skills and key behaviors. Additionally, Career Paths can have different structures based on your organizationâs unique needs. For example:
- job title > competency > skill > key behaviors
- job title > competency > key behaviors
- job title > skill > key behaviors
- job title > key behaviors
Example:
NowâŚlet's get started!
Best practices and use cases
Best practices
- If your company wants to use competencies in Career Paths, we recommend uploading your competencies to 15Five prior to uploading your Career Paths CSV, so you can connect competencies to skills and key behaviors in the Career Paths CSV file. Please refer to our "Upload and manage competencies" Help Center article for more information about how to do so.
- We recommend using one CSV file for each of your organization's Career Paths to reduce mistakes and keep things simple.
- We recommend taking a look at the Competencies and Paths CSVs templates to understand the structure and format of the upload prior to starting work on Career Paths to avoid extra work for admins. Check out the 'Upload Career Paths' section of this article for steps on how to download that CSV template.
- To get the most value from Career Paths, we recommend using the exact same job titles that are shown in 15Five for all your employeesâ this way weâll be able to provide a better experience connecting the dots between 15Five features. Check out our "Upload and manage job information" Help Center article for steps on how to check and upload job titles.
Use cases
Career Hub offers two ways to share Career Paths info with the employees:
- Upload career paths in 15Five and turn on the 'Career Paths' tab for employees (refer to the 'Turn Career Paths on/off' of this article for steps on how to turn Career Paths on for your organization).
- Link to an external document that contains your company's which will be shown in the Career Vision section âCareer Pathsâ (refer to the 'Link out to career paths or resources' of this article for steps on how to link to an external document in Career Hub).
Providing these options allows your organization to start using Career Hub and implementing growth and development initiatives in your company faster, choosing the best option based on your current time and priorities.
Manage Career Paths
Export Career Paths
To export your team's current Career Paths, go to the 'Import' page for Competencies and Paths and look for the 'Paths and Skills' section. From here, click on Download latest paths content.
Edit a Career Path
1. Click on Career Hub in the main, left-hand navigation bar.
2. Open the 'Career Paths' tab in the top navigation bar.
3. Select the path you want to edit by clicking Browse paths.
4. Click Edit, and make all desired changes.
5. When you're done making edits, click Publish.
FAQs
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Q: Can I see how the paths are connected or the different ways the paths can branch at a certain level?
A: Right now, the system doesnât provide a way to connect or branch paths. But a way to still show both the starting path and the potential branch is by uploading the IC and Manager paths separately. For example, create an Engineering (Individual Contributor) Path and an Engineering (Management) Path. -
Q: What if we donât use competencies, skills and/or key behaviors as a way to measure success in a role?
A: The terms competencies, skills and key behaviors helps determine the hierarchy of the content, but they will not be labeled competencies, skills and key behaviors in app. You also donât have to have all three for any paths.
Your Sales path could have the overarching goal or competency of Relational Mastery with specific areas of growth and opportunity within the roles of Sales. While your Customer Support path may have skills that work better to connect the growth opportunities within that path. -
Q: Can I add a path manually?
A: Right now, paths can only be added through the CSV import, but you can manually edit existing paths content, such as which competencies are tied to a role, the content of the key behaviors, or even the path name itself by following the steps in the 'Manage Career Paths' section of this article. You can always download the latest path content as well if youâve made a few manual updates or done several imports.