Measure success and impact in 15Five

The manager-employee relationship influences nearly every aspect of the work experience and has a significant impact on engagement, performance, and retention. The Manager Effectiveness Indicator on the HR Outcomes Dashboard helps HR Leaders measure how effective their managers are based on a combination of objective behaviors and feedback.

The Manager Effectiveness Dashboard takes things a step further by providing data and visuals that help leaders understand who the top managers are, who needs to be developed, and how managers are impacting engagement, retention, and performance on their teams.

Tips & Recommendations

• Customize your MEI configuration to reflect your company's use of 15Five. We recognize that manager effectiveness is both objective and subjective, so we give organizations the flexibility to customize the weight and calculation of the MEI using both subjective feedback and data from objective behaviors in 15Five. We also provide the flexibility to include or exclude feature behaviors depending on which of 15Five's features your organization is using. Learn how to configure the MEI.
  
• Use Factors Insights to see what factors are positively and negatively impacting MEI. The Factors Insights section of the Manager Effectiveness dashboard surfaces the highest and lowest factors included in your organization's MEI configuration that are impacting MEI. You can use this information to target efforts on the areas of manager effectiveness that have the most opportunity for your organization. Learn more about how to use the Manager Effectiveness Dashboard.
  
• Compare the MEI of individual managers to see who is leading the charge and who might benefit from additional training and support. Use the 'Compare' tab of the Manager Effectiveness Dashboard to see how the MEI of managers in your organization compare to one another and identify top and bottom performers. Consider interviewing your top managers to see what's going right and have them share best practices, or utilize them as mentors. If managers need additional training, launch initiatives to drive them up to higher levels. Learn more about how to use the Manager Effectiveness Dashboard.
  
• Utilize Transform Microlearning to upskill managers. Transform Microlearning is a skill development resource for managers that's designed to enhance employee engagement, performance, and retention through bite-sized training content. Learn more.
  

The Engagement scorecard on the HR Outcomes Dashboard displays your organization's current level of engagement, measured by the Engagement Score from your organization's most recent engagement survey. Below your Engagement Score, you'll find your organization's average Pulse score over the last 31 days, which is collected from employee Check-ins.

Tips & Recommendations

• If you haven't already launched an engagement campaign (or haven't done so in a while), add it to your priorities! Running engagement campaigns is critical to understanding your employees and having the information needed to inform impactful, targeted HR initiatives to drive engagament. We recommend sending out engagement surveys every 3-6 months. Check out the video below to learn more, or use our Quick-launch Guide to begin planning your next engagement survey.
  

• Dig into Pulse reporting. The Pulse question in Check-ins asks employees, "How did you feel at work since your last Check-in?" Using the Pulse Dashboard in Check-ins reporting, you can see how Pulse is trending, view contextual text responses given to the Pulse question, and dig into the distribution of Pulse answers across individuals and groups. Use the 'Answers' tab to see which employees are having a hard time and read through any text comments to see where there may be opportunities to support team members.
  
• Use Outcomes Insights to find actions you can take to drive engagement in your organization. The Insights tab of the HR Outcomes Dashboard contains recommended themes, customized based on your organization's 15Five data, that you can focus on to improve outcomes. Click Download recommended theme in any insight card to access a playbook with recommended actions to drive outcomes. Learn more about how to use Outcomes Insights.
  

The Performance scorecard on the HR Outcomes Dashboard displays the level of performance in your organization, measured using the percentage of Top Performers in Best-Self Review® cycles or the percentage of objectives with an "On track" status.

Tips & Recommendations

• Configure the Performance metric. 15Five gives you the option to select how you want to measure performance in your organization: either by top performers in Best-Self Review® (measured by either Talent Matrix or Performance Ratings) or by objectives performance. Paint an accurate picture of performance by configuring the performance metric to reflect your organization's use of 15Five.
  
• If you haven't already held a Best-Self Review® cycle (or haven't done so in a while), add it to your priorities! Performance reviews are pivotal to measuring employee effectiveness and providing feedback to help employees grow. We recommend holding reviews every 3-6 months and including Performance Ratings so your organization and employees have a clear understanding of performance. Learn how to create a Best-Self Review® cycle.
• Use Outcomes Insights to find actions you can take to drive performance in your organization. The Insights tab of the HR Outcomes Dashboard contains recommended themes, customized based on your organization's 15Five data, that you can focus on to improve outcomes. Click Download recommended theme in any insight card to access a playbook with recommended actions to drive outcomes. Learn more about how to use Outcomes Insights.
  

Insights are recommended themes that you can focus on to improve outcomes in your organization. To provide Insights, we look at Signals (specific data points from throughout the 15Five platform that impact HR outcomes in meaningful ways) and identify themes proven to positively impact outcomes.

Tips & Recommendations

• Drill into turnover data. Click the employees turned over link at the bottom of the Turnover scorecard to see outcomes data for employees who turned over, like their performance designations and their average pulse score. This data can help you understand regrettability and, along with data points like tenure and job title, empower you to identify patterns and trends in employees who are turning over.
• Integrate with the HRIS Connector to automatically pull turnover data into 15Five! 15Five's HRIS Connector allows you to quickly and easily connect your company's HRIS to 15Five, ensuring accurate, up-to-date employee data across your platforms. When 15Five captures a termination date from your HRIS, it will automatically populate in the user's profile and be recorded in the Turnover scorecard of the HR Outcomes Dashboard. Don't use an HRIS? You can also add turnover data manually.

The Response Rate is the percentage of employees who submitted their engagement surveys out of those who were asked to complete an engagement survey. Response rate is an indicator of employee engagement.

Tips & Recommendations

• Focus on response rate. For your first Engagement survey, we recommend focusing your attention on maximizing the response rate. While other metrics can be acted upon after establishing a baseline in your first survey, the response rate is something that's within your control and that you can take immediate action to influence.
• Aim for a high response rate. Strive for a response rate of 80% or above so results are representative of your organization and your leadership team can make informed decisions about how to act on them.
• Recognize the causes of low response rates. A low response rate may indicate the following things:
  
  • A need for more intentional communication. If employees don't understand the importance of completing surveys or if they don't receive regular reminders, they may not prioritize completing their surveys or forget to do so altogether. Check out our "Monitor response rate for an active campaign" article for tips around how to improve response rate through effective communication.
  • Employees don't feel comfortable sharing their thoughts. In this case, it's important to communicate that employee anonymity is protected by confidentiality standards and to work on building up psychological safety within your organization. You can refer to the "Psychological Safety" Driver score in Driver reporting to see whether or not those who did respond feel that they can show and employ their true selves at work without fear of negative consequences.
  • Employees are disengaged. Disengaged employees may lack motivation to submit their engagement surveys because they're checked out. This could be because they don't think results will be acted on, they don't see the point, or they're simply burnt out and have competing demands. In these cases, it's important to explain the "why" behind your organization's use of engagement surveys, share that you're looking for honest feedback, good or bad, and emphasize there's a plan in place for leaders to act on results in a way that will improve employees' work experiences. It may also be helpful to have managers to carve out 6 minutes during a regular team meeting for their team members to fill out their surveys so they don't have to schedule it on their own time.

The Engagement Score can be thought of as a "pulse" on employees’ current emotional and psychological state. This score reflects employees' personal and emotional psychological motivations for their work (i.e. their day-to-day experience with work). You can view the Engagement Score for your entire organization or specific groups.

Tips & Recommendations

• Set a baseline. If this is your organization's first engagement survey, use it to set a baseline for the Engagement Score and other metrics. Once you've set a baseline, HR leaders can take targeted action to increase scores over time.
• Organizational data > Industry data. While it can be helpful to know where your company stands compared to other companies, the most important thing is to focus on how your organization's own Engagement Score changes over time. Take note of the Engagement Score, implement targeted initiatives to drive Engagement, and then use trend reporting to see the impact that your actions had as you continue holding engagement surveys.
  

  

• Get granular. Use the "View Scores by" table in the Engagement tab of results to see the distribution of Engagement Scores across different subsets of your organization. Compare scores to your organization's overall Engagement Score to see which groups are leading the charge or falling behind.
  
• ⭐️ Use 15Five's recommended actions to drive outcomes. The Insights tab of the HR Outcomes Dashboard recommends themes that leaders can focus on to improve outcomes in your organization. Insights are generated using data from engagement surveys and other features in the 15Five platform that impact HR outcomes in meaningful ways.
  
  Help Center article 💡: Use the HR Outcomes Dashboard
  In-app link 🖥️: Insights tab

Engagement Drivers are predictive areas of employees' work environment and experience. 15Five's engagement model includes 17 Drivers that employee engagement research identifies as influencers or "levers" of engagement, each of which is measured based on 2-3 specific statements in the core EngageSurvey. Drivers represent areas that the company has control over— in other words, the mechanisms leadership manipulates to influence work experience and ultimately impact engagement.

Tips & Recommendations

• Set a baseline. If this is your organization's first engagement survey, use it to set a baseline for Driver scores and other metrics. Once you've set a baseline, HR leaders can take targeted action to increase scores over time.
• Organizational data > Industry data. While it can be helpful to know where your company stands compared to other companies, the most important thing is to focus on how your organization's own Driver scores change over time. Drivers whose scores decrease from one survey to the next, as noted in the trendline, are areas to keep an eye on. These may be areas in which employees are experiencing aspects of engagement differently than before.
  
• Focus your attention.The Focus Areas section of reporting intelligently picks the drivers that have the most impact on your organization's engagement. Strengths and Struggles are selected based on a Driver's score and how important the Driver is for your employees to feel engaged with their work. These areas can be used to target issues and guide action efforts to improve engagement. Check out our "Engagement Drivers" article for actionable steps on how to positively impact Drivers.
  

  

• Get granular. Use the Heatmap tab of Engagement results to see the distribution of Driver scores across different subsets of your organization. Compare scores to your organization's overall Driver scores to see which groups are leading the charge or falling behind.
  
• Pay attention to outliers. While scores typically range between -4 and +4, extreme cases can occasionally fall outside this spectrum. If you notice that one of your Drivers is scored outside of this typical range, it's important to pay special attention to that Driver and reflect on why it's an outlier. Check out our "Engagement Drivers" article for actionable steps on how to positively impact Drivers.

Review cycles are intended to provide employees with a comprehensive assessment of their performance. For this to happen, it's vital for review writers to submit reviews and for review results to be shared with participants. 15Five makes it easy to track whether or not these things are happening with the Progress tracker.

The Progress tracker, located on the review cycle's Overview page, contains:

• Completed review rate: The percentage of reviews that were submitted, shared, and finalized.
• Milestone completion rate: The completion rate of various milestones in the review cycle, including peer selection and approval, review submission for each review type (e.g. self, peer, upward, and manager), and sharing and finalizing review results.

Aim for reaching 100% completion for every milestone in the Progress tracker to ensure that employees receive proper feedback in the review cycle.

Tips & Recommendations

• Send nudges to people who haven't completed tasks. Remind individuals to complete milestones by sending them a nudge from within the Progress tracker. Clicking the three dots to the right of any milestone and selecting 'Nudge' from the dropdown will allow you send a custom message to all individuals who haven't completed that task. Read more in our "See who hasn't submitted reviews and send nudges" article.
  
• Enable managers. Managers are the driving force behind their direct reports' review cycle experiences. In addition to submitting manager reviews, they are responsible for nominating and approving peers, holding final meetings with their team to discuss results, and sharing and finalizing results with them — tasks that are included in the Progress tracker. Make sure managers are aware of their responsibilities by sharing the "What to expect: I'm a review manager" guide with them, ideally prior to launching your review cycle.
• Utilize review admins and cycle collaborators to assist managers. Review admins and cycle collaborators can manage peers for participants and share/finalize review results with participants alongside managers. If you notice that deadlines are approaching and completion rates aren't at 100%, appoint specific review admins or cycle collaborators to assist managers in completing these tasks.

The Private Manager Assessment (PMA) is a set of questions included in manager reviews in which managers answer five future-focused questions to help make career decisions about their direct reports:

• [Name] is ready for a promotion today. (Strongly disagree - Strongly agree)
• [Name] is at risk for low performance. (Strongly disagree - Strongly agree)
• Given what I know of [Name]’s current performance, and if it were my money, I would award them the highest possible increase and bonus. (Strongly disagree - Strongly agree)
• Given how well I know [Name] works with others, I would always want them on my team. (Strongly disagree - Strongly agree)
• Given what I know of [Name]’s performance, if [Name] got a job offer somewhere else, I would feel: (Relieved, Accepting, Neutral, Anxious, Distressed)

Once manager reviews are submitted, you can use Private Manager Assessment reporting to view the distribution of answers given to these questions across your organization. These answers can help leaders identify top and at-risk performers and inform talent and compensation decisions.

Tips & Recommendations

• Analyze Private Manager Assessment results using Talent Matrix (9-box). 15Five's Talent Matrix provides a visual representation of how managers answered Private Manager Assessment questions. HR Leaders can use this tool to easily identify top and at-risk performers and make fairer talent and compensation-based decisions at scale.
  

  

• Promote a more objective review cycle using calibrations. Calibrations enable People Ops and HR leaders to visualize the distribution of review ratings across different managers and easily adjust those ratings— ensuring that reviews are being done in a fair and unbiased way across teams. Check out our Calibrations best practices one-pager for advice on how to effectively use this tool to make reviews more fair and objective.
  
• ⭐️ Use PMA results to measure performance in the HR Outcomes Dashboard. When configuring the HR Outcomes Dashboard, you have the option to measure performance using the percentage of employees who are Top Performers in the Talent Matrix.
  
  When selecting this option, you'll select the two review cycle questions (including PMA questions) that you want to use to create a talent matrix and identify top performers.

15Five's Performance Ratings+ feature allows you to create a custom formula that incorporates answers provided in self and/or manager reviews to generate ratings for review cycle participants.

Tips & Recommendations

• Use Performance Ratings to inform the decisions you make during review season. Since all ratings are generated using the same formula, Performance Ratings provide an unbiased view of individual performance. Use the 'Score distribution' tab of Performance Ratings+ reporting to see which individuals are placed in each rating level to inform talent, compensation, and coaching decisions at scale.
  
• Get granular. Use the 'Compare groups' tab to see the distribution of Performance Ratings across different subsets of your organization. Compare group ratings to your organization's overall average to see which groups are leading the charge or falling behind.
  
• ⭐️ Use Performance Ratings to measure performance in the HR Outcomes Dashboard. When configuring the HR Outcomes Dashboard, you have the option to measure performance using the percent of employees who are Top Performers in Performance Ratings +. Due the to unbiased nature of performance ratings, this is a great option for measuring performance in your organization.
  

Objective owners are asked to set a status — either on track, behind, or at risk — for their objectives. Reporting on these statuses can help you identify whether your organization is set up to hit your goals or if objective owners need additional support.

Tips & Recommendations

• Offer support to individuals who own objectives that are at risk. From within Objectives reporting you can click View to the right of any status to see a list of objectives that fall within that label. Ensure that the owners of objectives that are at risk have the support they need by opening the objective and posting a comment in the activity feed. If your organization sets quarterly OKRs, a good practice is to offer support towards the middle of the quarter to ensure that objective owners have the necessary time to get back on track before quarter end.
  

  

• If your organization uses Check-ins, pay attention to objectives that don't have a status. As objective owners fill out their Check-ins, they're required to set a status for each of their objectives. That said, if you notice that there is a large number of objectives that don't have a status, it likely means that people are not submitting their Check-ins. Use this as an opportunity to remind your team about the importance of submitting Check-ins and organizational expectations around Check-in usage. You can send reminders to employees who haven't submitted their Check-ins from the Submitted Check-ins report.
  
• ⭐️ Use on-track objectives to measure performance in the HR Outcomes Dashboard. When configuring the HR Outcomes Dashboard, you have the option to measure performance using the percentage of objectives with an On Track status.
  

When an individual creates an objective, they have the option to align their objective with a parent objective to indicate that it is important to the parent objective's progress. A higher percentage of aligned objectives can indicate that department, team, and individual goals are rooted in high-level organizational goals— in other words, that everyone is working together to accomplish your organization's top priorities.

Tips & Recommendations

• When setting goals, start from the top down. Gallup research shows employees who strongly agree that they can link their goals to the organization’s goals are 3.5 times more likely to be engaged. That said, we recommend that top leadership set company Objectives first, followed by departments, teams, and individuals. Encourage managers and employees to align their objectives with company-wide objectives to foster direction setting and alignment across all levels. Use the alignment report to see how objectives are aligned in your organization.
  

  

• Make company-wide objectives public. As your leadership creates company-wide objectives, make sure that their privacy settings are set to "Public." Making company-wide objectives public allows everyone in the organization to keep them top-of-mind and rally around top priorities. It's also not possible for a person to align an objective with a parent objective they can't see. 
  

  

The Pulse question in Check-ins asks employees, "How did you feel at work since your last Check-in?" Using the Pulse Dashboard in Check-ins reporting, you can see how Pulse is trending, view contextual text responses given to the Pulse question, and dig into the distribution of Pulse answers across individuals and groups.

Tips & Recommendations

• Use Pulse reporting to see how your team feels about big events or shifts. Pulse reporting can help you identify how organizational sentiment is trending when events like end-of-quarter, layoffs, leadership changes, mergers and acquisitions, etc. occur. This can be beneficial for proactive decision-making, employee engagement, and addressing any potential concerns promptly. 
  
• Offer support to leaders whose teams are struggling. Use the Group metrics > Lowest table in the bottom, right-hand corner of the Pulse Dashboard to see which groups have low Pulse scores and reach out to leaders whose teams are outliers. These leaders may need additional support with capacity, morale, or training so they can better support their teams.
  

  

• Dig into written comments. Use the 'Answers' tab to see which employees are having a hard time and read through any text comments to see where there may be opportunities to support team members. On the same note, filter results by high responses to see what's going well and celebrate those things!
  

The Submitted Check-ins report allows you to measure how employees are doing with submitting their Check-ins. The Submitted Check-ins metric is calculated by dividing the total number of Check-ins generated for a period of time by the number of Check-ins that were actually submitted.

Tips & Recommendations

• Make sure you're sticking to the 15-minute rule in Check-ins. Check-ins should be kept lightweight and only take up to 15 minutes to fill out and five minutes to review (hence the name of our company, 15Five!). If you notice a person's submission rates are low, check what questions they're being asked in Check-ins. As a best practice, employees should only be asked 3-5 questions in each Check-in.
  

  

• Keep questions fresh. To drive submission rates, Check-in questions should be fresh, specific, and rotating. No one wants to fill out the same survey every week! Consider using a rotating question queue and utilize our Question Bank for ideas of questions to add to Check-ins.
  

  

• Reward streaks. The "Current streak" column of the report shows the number of Check-ins that individuals have submitted in a row. Drive adoption by recognizing or offering rewards to employees with long streaks.
  

  

• Contact individuals from inside the report. Send reminders to individuals with low or inconsistent submission rates from within the Submitted Check-ins report to remind them of expectations and help remove any roadblocks they may be facing.
  

  

• Dig into low submission rates with drawers. Drawers in the Submitted Check-ins report allow you to see how managers' participation impacts and influences team Check-in submissions. We've found that when managers don't review their team's Check-ins, submission rates drop.
  

  

The Reviewed Check-ins report allows you to measure what number and percentage of submitted Check-ins have been reviewed by managers.

Tips & Recommendations

• Pay attention to how managers are interacting with Check-ins. The reviewed Check-ins rate only looks at the percentage of submitted Check-ins managers mark as reviewed. To see whether or not managers are actively interacting with their team's Check-ins, refer to the "Check-ins with comments" and "Check-ins with reactions" columns of the report.
• Make sure managers aren't stretched too thin. While the ideal number of direct reports a manager should have varies based on the nature of their roles, it can be helpful to keep an eye manager's span of control to ensure they have the time and space needed to effectively manage their teams. Refer to the "# of direct reports" column to see how many direct reports each manager has and compare it to their review rate. If you notice that managers with larger teams aren't reviewing Check-ins, this could be an indicator that they have too much on their plates.
• Contact individuals from inside the report. Send reminders to managers with low or inconsistent review rates from within the Reviewed Check-ins report to remind them of expectations and help remove any roadblocks they may be facing.
  

  

• ⭐️ Include Check-ins data in your Manager Effectiveness calculation. Did you know that organizations that effectively practice performance management are 1.3x more likely to have higher employee productivity? Thus, when configuring the Manager Effectiveness Indicator (MEI), you have the option to include Check-ins usage data in the calculation of managers' MEI scores. The Check-ins usage component includes data from the Check-ins feature that reflects how managers and their direct reports consistently submit, review, and provide feedback on work priorities.
  

  

The "1-on-1s with reviewers" metric, accessible on the 1-on-1s dashboard, shows the % of people who participated in at least one 1-on-1 with their direct manager during a selected time frame. This is an important data point to measure, as it has a direct impact on employee engagement: employees are 3 times more likely to be engaged at work if they have managers who hold regular meetings with them.

Tips & Recommendations

• Have managers add recurring 1-on-1 meetings with their direct reports to their calendars. Having a repeating weekly 1-on-1 on the calendar shows that 1-on-1s are a priority and can drive 1-on-1s adoption by ensuring that managers and employees don't have to constantly deal with the hassle of finding a meeting time that works. Once managers create the recurring 1-on-1 event in their calendars, they can add a static link to the meeting details that either participant can use to easily access their current 1-on-1 agenda in 15Five.
  

  

• Get granular. Use the "Avg time between 1-on-1s with reviewer" column of the 1-on-1s Metrics report to see how much time is passing between 1-on-1s. For maximum impact, managers should hold 30-minute 1-on-1s with their direct reports every 7 days.
  

  

• Equip managers to hold meaningful 1-on-1s. 15Five's "Meaningful 1-on-1s: Goals, Growth, and Feedback" Microlearning course helps managers discover what makes 1-on-1s the most powerful conversational practice for any team leader. Managers can access this course, along with other powerful microlearnings, by following these steps.
  
• ⭐️ Include 1-on-1s data in your Manager Effectiveness calculation. Did you know that employees who have regular communication with their managers report higher levels of job satisfaction and are less likely to leave their jobs? Thus, when configuring the Manager Effectiveness Indicator (MEI), you have the option to include 1-on-1 data in the calculation of managers' MEI scores. The 1-on-1s usage component includes data from the 1-on-1s feature that reflect how managers consistently meet with the direct reports to provide feedback, remove blockers, and guide career growth.
  

  

If Leaderboards are enabled in High Fives feature settings, you can see your organization's top high-fivers on the High Fives Feed. Reporting on top high-fivers allows you to identify and celebrate individuals who play a crucial role in fostering a positive and appreciative workplace culture.

15Five's Recommendations

• Encourage recognition by rewarding top high-fivers. Use this data to reward and acknowledge employees who actively contribute to recognizing their colleagues. Recognition can take various forms, including public acknowledgment, awards, or other incentives, which can serve as motivation for others to participate in recognition efforts.
• Create a culture of recognition. Ideally, you want to see the names on the top high-fivers list change week after week. Embed recognition into your company culture by encouraging team members to give at least one high five in each Check-in and making the celebration of top high-fivers a company norm. According to Gallup, individuals who receive recognition and praise are more productive, more engaged, more likely to stay with their organization and receive higher loyalty and satisfaction scores from customers. It's a win-win!
• ⭐️ Include High Fives data in your Manager Effectiveness calculation. 81% of employees said that they are more motivated to work hard when their boss shows appreciation for them. Thus, when configuring the Manager Effectiveness Indicator (MEI), you have the option to include High Fives usage data in the calculation of managers' MEI scores. The High Fives usage component includes data from the High Fives feature that reflect how managers consistently encourage their direct reports through recognition.