What to expect: I'm an HR Admin

The HR Outcomes Flywheel 🔁

Before we dive into specific tools and tasks, let’s take a step back. Because the work you’re about to do as an HR Admin in 15Five—whether it’s launching a survey, configuring a review cycle, or managing Action Plans—isn’t just operational. It’s strategic. You’re not just driving activity; you’re enabling insight, alignment, and meaningful change across your organization.

That’s why it’s helpful to start with the bigger picture: the HR Outcomes Flywheel.

At 15Five, we believe great HR isn’t just reactive—it’s strategic, proactive, and outcomes-driven. The HR Outcomes Flywheel is our guiding framework for connecting your daily work to the business results that matter most.

The HR Outcomes Flywheel works in three phases: Diagnose, Plan, and Act.

• In the Diagnose phase, you create a shared understanding of what’s working, what’s not, and where to focus.
  
• In the Plan phase, you implement strategic action plans that are clear, accountable, and trackable.
  
• In the Act phase, you scale your strategy by activating and enabling your people managers.

Because it’s continuous, the Flywheel helps you build momentum over time. Every time you Diagnose, Plan, and Act, you strengthen your people strategy—and your ability to drive measurable outcomes.

As an HR Admin, you play a key role in bringing this strategy to life. The tools you’ll use in 15Five aren’t just features—they’re part of a connected system designed to help your organization thrive.

Navigating 15Five as an HR Admin 🗺️

15Five’s left-hand navigation menu adapts based on your role in the platform. As an Admin, you have the most comprehensive view of 15Five. Your navigation is built to help you set strategy, manage the platform, and empower your managers and teams to succeed. Learn more about how the navigation appears for people in different roles →

HR Outcomes Dashboard

The HR Outcomes Dashboard is a centralized hub for the vital metrics that HR leaders aim to enhance through 15Five—Performance, Engagement, Retention, and Manager Effectiveness. With this tool, HR leaders can easily identify the opportunities to make the biggest impact on the outcomes that matter.

As an HR Admin, you have the following permissions:

• Populate the dashboard with data
• View and interact with the dashboard
• Configure settings
• Assign visibiility
• Create Action Plans

🌟 Featured Article: HR Outcomes Dashboard Quicklaunch Guide

Engagement

15Five Engagement is a tool that allows leaders to survey employees about how engaged they are. Data-rich insights with built-in AI makes it easy for leaders to quickly identify trends in results and spot opportunities for improvement, identify areas of celebration, and inform Action Plans to drive engagement.

As an HR Admin, you have the following permissions:

• Create engagement campaigns
• Create custom surveys
• Manage active campaigns (including changing settings and monitoring participation rates)
• View all company-wide and group results
• Create Action Plans to drive engagement

🌟 Featured Article: Quicklaunch Guide for Engagement Campaigns

Best-Self Review®

15Five's Best-Self Review® is a modern performance review that helps companies achieve high performance while bringing out the best in their people. Using research-backed question templates and the ability to aggregate an individual's wins, challenges, and progress on key objectives, Best-Self Review® eliminates bias and steers the conversion toward growth and forward-looking performance.

As an HR Admin, you have the following permissions:

• Create review cycles
• Create custom question templates
• Create Performance Ratings+ templates and formulas
• Manage active review cycles (settings, participants, and peers)
• Create and hold calibration sessions
• End, extend, and delete review cycles
• View all company-wide and group results

🌟 Featured Article: Role-Based Guide: Review Admins

Demographic and High Potential Attributes

Demographic Attributes are used to bring in more sensitive employee data that doesn't exist in 15Five by default: Birth date, Ethnicity, Gender, Race, & Salary. This information helps HR admins and people leaders analyze key employee trends through a demographic lens, making it easier to uncover disparities, track equity, and proactively address issues before they grow into larger challenges.

The High Potential attribute allows you to flag employees who have the potential to make a significant impact on the organization. This makes it easier to focus your attention on the people who may benefit most from development opportunities—and ensure you're retaining key talent.

As an HR Admin, you have the following permissions:

• Enable and populate demographic attributes
• Mark an employee as high potential
• View a user's assigned attributes (in their account settings)
• Filter reports by demographic attributes
  • HR Outcomes Dashboard
  • Engagement (Summary, Engagement, Statements, and eNPS reports)
  • Best-Self Review® (Talent Matrix and Private Manager Assessment)
  • Checkins (Submitted Check-ins Report and Reviewed Check-ins Report)

A Week in the Life 📅

As an HR Admin, your week in 15Five may look a little different depending on your company’s rollout plan and what phase you’re in—whether that’s launching a new survey, analyzing performance data, or preparing for an upcoming review cycle. But over time, a rhythm will emerge. Here’s a sample weekly flow to help you understand how 15Five becomes your command center for strategic HR work.

🗓️ Monday: Review & Reflect

• Check your HR Outcomes Dashboard (in-app link) to spot early trends in engagement, performance, or retention.
  Help Center article 💡: Use the HR Outcomes Dashboard
• Scan open Action Plans (in-app link) to see how they're progressing and nudge your team to complete oustanding actions.

📊 Tuesday: Diagnose

• Dive into Engagement or Lifecycle survey results to identify emerging themes.
  Help Center article 💡: Analyze Engagement Campaign Results
  Academy Lesson 🎓: Highlight Key Findings from Engagement Results
  Help Center article 💡: Analyze Lifecycle Survey Results
• Filter survey or performance data by demographic or high-potential attributes to uncover key insights and equity gaps.
• Share early findings with key partners (e.g., People Ops, DEI, or Execs).

🛠️ Wednesday: Plan

• Use insights to adjust or launch new Action Plans that support department- or org-wide initiatives.
  Help Center article 💡: Create an Action Plan
• Align with managers or team leads on areas of focus from survey feedback.
  Academy Lesson 🎓: Partner with People Leaders to Create Team-Level Action Plans

🤝 Thursday: Enable

• Assign Actions to managers or leaders based on survey insights, review follow-ups, or development goals.
• Enroll managers in targeted Coaching Journeys or enablement paths.

🔁 Friday: Communicate & Prepare

• Draft a quick summary or Slack update of top wins, insights, or progress for your leadership team.
• Identify priorities for the week ahead based on what surfaced to keep Action Plans on track.

🌟 The Big Picture

No two weeks are exactly the same. But as you continue using 15Five to move through the Diagnose–Plan–Act cycle, you’ll build momentum. The more regularly you engage with the platform, the more strategic value you’ll generate—both for your employees and your executive stakeholders.

Additional Resources For Support 📚

As a new HR Admin, you may be wondering where to begin. The resources below will help you get up to speed on 15Five and your new role.