15Five Foundation and Features

The HR Outcomes flywheel starts by deciding: Which HR outcome should we focus on first to support our business goals? 15Five gives you the tools to consistently improve performance, retention, and engagement— not just track them retroactively.

The following tools in 15Five help leaders measure Outcomes:

• HR Outcomes Dashboard and Manager Effectiveness Indicator: 15Five’s HR Outcomes Dashboard provides a reliable way for HR executives to consistently capture, synthesize, and present outcomes. The Manager Effectiveness Indicator gives your leaders a holistic view of how managers are impacting HR outcomes across your business. These tools are easy to reference within 15Five, providing a birdseye view of the organization, all the way down to departments, cohorts, and individual insight by each manager.
• HRIS Data: Connecting your HRIS with 15Five enables you to bring important employee data— such as demographic information, hire and termination dates, and reporting structure— over to 15Five. Your HRIS is great at storing data, but you need that data in 15Five to take action. When you connect your HRIS, you can use the rich data to help inform actions that will impact outcomes faster. Learn about options for managing your people data.
  
  ✏️

  Note

  15Five’s HRIS connector allows you to connect your company’s HRIS to 15Five with a simple setup and configuration, visibility around what data is coming over, and automatic sync every 24 hours. It’s never been easier to sync accurate, up-to-date employee data!

Signals are the specific data points taken from across 15Five that point to patterns that impact HR outcomes in meaningful ways. In other words, they're how we measure the things that drive outcomes. Signals help you identify where your organization is strong and where there are opportunities to move things forward so you can identify the areas you need to focus on.

The following tools in 15Five help leaders collect Signals:

• Engagement Surveys (Engagement): Most companies begin collecting signals by sending out a quick, 6-minute engagement survey. Engagement surveys are a helpful tool to see where your organization stands in engagement drivers correlated with specific outcomes so you know where to focus attention. The results from the survey are used to identify organizational strengths and opportunities— uncovering what’s going well and what can be improved on each team and collectively across the organization. As you hold quarterly or bi-annual engagement surveys, leaders can compare changes in driver performance to understand the current state and trends over time.
• 360° Performance Review (Best-Self Review®): Performance Reviews in 15Five are a powerful way to collect data about how individuals are performing in competencies critical to their success. In 360° reviews, feedback is collected from participants and their peers, manager, and direct reports— providing a full picture of performance.
• Manager Effectiveness Assessments: 15Five makes it easy to gauge the effectiveness of your managers with manager effectiveness review cycles and engagement surveys. These assessments, which can be launched one-off or as part of a larger review cycle or engagement survey, allow you to formally evaluate the effectiveness of your managers by gathering feedback about how they're performing in key competencies, so you know where to focus attention to improve manager effectiveness— the #1 driver of employee performance, engagement, and retention.
  Help Center article 💡: Run a manager effectiveness review cycle
  Help Center article 💡: Run a manager effectiveness engagement survey
• Pulse Scores (Check-ins): The Pulse question in Check-ins asks employees, "How did you feel at work since your last Check-in?" This question is incredibly powerful, giving managers and leaders an at-a-glance view of employee morale.
• Objectives + Priorities Status: Sometimes goals are created from a “set it and forget it” mentality, but not in 15Five! 15Five makes it easy to track your progress on a regular basis so you can actually reach the finish line. In 15Five, we call shorter-term goals "priorities" and longer-term goals "objectives." Priorities are set regularly from within your Check-in, whereas Objectives are usually set quarterly, bi-annually, or yearly and are updated either in Check-ins or the Objectives tab. By regularly assessing the completion of objectives and priorities, you can identify which teams or individuals may need additional training or assistance to complete their goals.

Insights in 15Five help you identify and hone in on the highest impact areas you can focus on to impact outcomes so you can stop guessing what to do and start focusing your energy. Insights turn signals into actionable themes that create a cohesive narrative about what can be improved upon.

The following tools in 15Five help leaders see Insights:

• Outcome Insights (HR Outcomes Dashboard): The 'Insights' tab of the HR Outcomes Dashbaord uses AI to generate curated insights, based on your organization's 15Five data, that help you identify which areas you should focus attention on to drive outcomes. With this tool, HR leaders can spend less time trying to decipher their data and more time taking action to improve outcomes.
• MEI Heatmap (Manager Effectiveness Indicator): The Manager Effectiveness Indicator (MEI) Heatmap allows you to see how managers across your organization are performing in manager effectiveness competencies. This allows you to understand areas of focus across the organization or within specific cohorts of managers.
• Talent Matrix and Calibrations (Best-Self Review®): 15Five's Talent Matrix is a visualization tool within Best-Self Review® reporting that's used alongside the Private Manager Assessment to help HR teams and managers easily identify high and low performers. Talent Matrix can also be used when assessing review ratings in calibration sessions, making it easy to see the distribution of talent within your organization or team.
• Engagement Driver Heatmap (Engagement): The Heatmap tab in Engagement survey results allows you to view and compare engagement driver scores for groups within your organization so you know what's going well and where areas of celebration lie.
• AI-synthesized Engagement Insights (Engagement): Engagement insights allow leaders to automatically categorize and summarize open-text feedback into themes based on engagement drivers — saving hours and enabling you to quickly spot where your organization needs to take action.

There are likely dozens, even hundreds, of different activities and tactics that your team could take to take action on insights. 15Five uses your data and insights to recommend a plan of action proven to drive improvements in the areas that matter most to your business. You can quickly and easily deploy an outcomes-centered plan of action, tailored directly to the areas of highest impact, right to each manager.

The following tools in 15Five help leaders see Recommendations:

• AI Manager Copilot: 15Five's Manager Copilot is a chat assistant powered by AI that helps managers be more effective...and makes their lives easier! Copilot helps managers with their day-to-day work by providing recommendations they can use to support their teams and become more effective, human-centered leaders.
• Outcome Insights: Themes (HR Outcomes Dashboard): The 'Insights' tab of the HR Outcomes Dashbaord uses AI to generate curated insights, based on your organization's 15Five data, that help you identify which areas you should focus attention on to drive outcomes. Themes are generated by clustering data from 15Five (signals) into a recognizable pattern— things like like Enabling Productivity or Building Strong Teams— that will have the biggest impact on driving outcomes.
• Bulk Actions (Homepage): Actions in 15Five help your team stay on top of important tasks they need to complete and discussions they need to have. From the “Manage actions” page, leaders can create, manage, and track actions for their teams— streamlining task management and providing organization-wide clarity on priorities.

The final step is to put recommendations into practice through prescriptive actions in 15Five that help you accomplish your outcomes at scale across your organization, which is primarily done through your managers. This step of the flywheel takes you from measuring outcomes to delivering outcomes in a way that's systematic and scaleable. Getting people to take action can be challenging, but, using the flywheel approach, you can connect the dots to understand and explain why these actions are important.

The following tools in 15Five help leaders take Action:

• Outcome Insights: Recommended Actions (HR Outcomes Dashboard): Recommended actions in Outcome Insights guide HR leaders and managers through steps to improve in the areas that have the biggest impact on their team’s needs. As an HR leader, you can choose a plan built from your organization's own 15Five data and deploy recommendations for managers to follow in the flow of their weekly 1-on-1s and priorities lists.
• Manager Homepage: The Manager Homepage serves as a single place for managers to stay on top of the actions they need to take to be effective by listing their priorities, providing real-time insights into how their team is doing, and providing a space for facilitating asynchronous discussions with their team. Leaders can assign actions to managers in bulk and track their progress to ensure accountability. Actions can also easily be added to current 1-on-1 agendas, keeping them top-of-mind. By deploying recommended actions, you harness the power of your managers to take the right actions, at scale.
• Objectives/OKRs: Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are a business practice in which company leaders create quarterly goals, implement metrics to measure them, communicate along the way, and then discuss success and missed opportunities. Using 15Five's Objectives feature, you can ensure that managers and their teams prioritize goals that align with organizational objectives, fostering alignment and maximizing performance.
• Core Platform: 15Five's Core Platform is made up of continuous performance management features within the 15Five platform: Check-ins, 1-on-1s, High Fives, Career Hub, and Feedback. These core features enable managers to take actions that strengthen manager-employee relationships and drive outcomes.
• Microlearning (Transform): Microlearning is research-backed trainings that help managers learn the skills they need to be effective from experts in 5-9 minute increments, then practice those skills by applying them to their existing priorities. Microlearning is available to managers in organizations on our Total Platform pricing plan.
• Transform Learning Journeys (Transform): We believe learning is most effective when it is done in a group. Learning Journeys allow Admins to assign a cohort of managers catered learning tracks to teach them the skills they need to be effective. This enables Admins to align course content with strategic initiatives in their organization (i.e. quarterly planning, an upcoming review cycle, etc.) as well as your organization's outcomes.
  
• 1:1 & Cohort Coaching (Transform): Live coaching is a series of private, 60-minute group coaching sessions with our certified in-house Transform coaches, delivered to individuals or cohorts of managers. Each session is focused on empowering leaders at all levels to bridge the gap between knowledge and practical application in their roles.

Spark AI is the connective tissue that helps HR Leaders and Managers navigate the HR Outcomes Flywheel even faster, at scale.

Managers all have different starting points and needs, and, in an ideal world, managers would have an expert available to them 24/7. To ensure that every manager is effective at scale, we created Spark AI to amplify manager impact and remove friction.

• AI-synthesized Engagement insights (Engagement): Engagement insights allow leaders to automatically categorize and summarize open-text feedback into themes based on Engagement Drivers — saving hours and enabling you to quickly spot where your organization needs to take action.
• AI Assisted Manager Reviews (Best-Self Review®):15Five's AI Assisted Reviews tool is a review-writing AI assistant that helps Managers write performance reviews for their direct reports. This tool uses data from across the 15Five platform to provide managers with AI-powered starting points for writing reviews— making review season easier, faster, and more fair for everyone.
• Manager Co-Pilot (Transform):15Five's Manager Copilot is a chat assistant powered by AI that helps managers be more effective...and makes their lives easier! Copilot helps managers with their day-to-day work by providing recommendations they can use to support their teams and become more effective, human-centered leaders.

15Five's 1-on-1s feature facilitates structured meetings that prioritize alignment and engagement by guiding discussions on priorities, challenges, and progress.

Help Center article 💡: 1-on-1s Feature Overview
Feature spotlight 📄: 1-on-1s
In-app link 💻: 1-on-1s

15Five's Best-Self Review® facilitates a guided performance review process that focuses on performance, goals, and feedback to nurture professional growth.

Help Center article 💡: Best-Self Review® Feature Overview
In-app link 💻: Best-Self Review® Dashboard

15Five's Career Hub is a simple, powerful way for managers and their team members to co-create a strengths-driven career vision that keeps employees motivated and energized.

Help Center article 💡: Career Hub: Feature Overview
In-app link 💻: My Career Hub

15Five Check-ins replace status reports with quick employee feedback through a few questions, taking 15 minutes to fill and 5 minutes for managers to review.

Help Center article 💡: Check-ins Feature Overview
Feature spotlight 📄: Check-ins
In-app link 💻: My Check-ins

15Five's Engagement feature enables organizations to create anonymous employee surveys to measure, evaluate, and enhance employee engagement.

Help Center article 💡: Engagement Feature Overview

15Five's Feedback feature allows employees to provide ad-hoc feedback to foster open communication, collaboration, and growth.

Help Center article 💡: Feedback Feature Overview
In-app link 💻: Feedback Dashboard

High Fives in 15Five enable employees to recognize each other's achievements and contributions through a simple and positive feedback system.

Help Center article 💡: High Fives Feature Overview
Feature spotlight 📄: High Fives
In-app link 💻: High Fives Dashboard

Your homepage in 15Five is your one-stop destination for a people-centric and action-oriented approach to managing your team and driving business outcomes. It serves as a single place for the actions you need to take to be an effective manager or employee by listing all your priorities, providing real-time insights into how your team is doing, and providing a space for facilitating asynchronous discussions with your team.

Profiles allow you to add your strengths, preferred working and feedback styles, and more so that your team knows how to best work with you (and you, them!). Within your profile, you can access 15Five's Best-Self Kickoff: a strategic meeting that aims to help employees and managers understand each other and their work needs, building a stronger working relationship. The questions discussed in the Best-Self Kickoff are science-backed and help create psychological safety in employees, as well as increase manager effectiveness: the biggest driver of employee performance, engagement, and retention.

Help Center article 💡: Homepage for managers
Help Center article 💡: Homepage for employees
Help Center article 💡: My Profile: Feature Overview
Help Center article 💡: Hold a Best-Self Kickoff
In-app link 💻: My Homepage
In-app link 💻: My Profile

15Five’s HR Outcomes Dashboard and Manager Effectiveness Indicator (MEI) provide a reliable way for HR executives to consistently capture, synthesize, and present the outcomes they are measuring and working to improve: manager effectiveness, employee engagement, employee performance, and regrettable turnover. This allows HR leaders to show clear and concise data that directly links programs like employee learning and development to outcomes like employee retention, which can, in turn, be connected to business outcomes like customer satisfaction and revenue.

Help Center article 💡: HR Outcomes Dashboard Feature Overview
Help Center article 💡: Manager Effectiveness Indicator Feature Overview
Feature spotlight 📄: HR Outcomes Dashboard
eBook 📖: HR Outcomes Playbook: Unlocking the True Business Value of HR
In-app link 💻: HR Outcomes Dashboard
In-app link 💻: Manager Effectiveness Indicator (MEI)

15Five's Objectives feature provides a framework for setting, tracking, and aligning goals, enhancing clarity and focus towards achieving desired outcomes.

Help Center article 💡: Objectives Feature Overview
Feature spotlight 📄: Objectives
In-app link 💻: Objectives Dashboard

Transform Microlearning is a powerful tool in 15Five that's designed to enhance manager effectiveness within the flow of work with bite-sized learning and continuous development. Microlearnings are video courses with interactive content that follow the Transform Learning Model, which is built on the fundamentals of adult learning. Microlearnings may be suggested as actions for managers to take in the HR Outcomes Flywheel.

Help Center article 💡: Learn with Transform Microlearning

On-demand training is manager skill training from our curated course curriculum, led by 15Five's certified in-house coaches. We also offer on-demand Luminary Content: curated learning tracks from world-renowned academics and thought leaders whose seminal works have defined their industries. Within the HR Outcomes Flywheel, Insights will recommend courses that are relevant to your specific managers.

Help Center article 💡: Access on-demand Transform training courses

We also offer live group and 1-on-1 coaching sessions with our certified in-house coaches to help managers learn or hone management skills and apply them in their everyday work.