The power of peer recognition shouldn't be underestimated. 15Five's High Fives feature allows people to show their teammates appreciation whenever they do something awesome. 🖐 And since recognition should flow freely, we offer multiple ways to give someone a high five.
In this article, you will learn:
Access and availability
⛔️ Required access to High Fives.
👥 This article is relevant to all roles.
📦 This feature is available in the Perform, Total Platform, and Focus (legacy) pricing packages.
Tip
If you're looking for steps on how to manage settings for the High Fives feature, check out our "Manage High Fives settings" Help Center article.
Give a High Five
The option to give either public or private high fives is included in the last section of your Check-in.
- Click on Check-ins in 15Five's main, left-hand navigation.
- Scroll to the "Give a High Five" section, located near the bottom of your Check-in.
- @mention the person, group, or external email address you want to high five, then type out your High Five.
- If you'd like for your high five to be private between you and the recipient, click the box that says "Public" to the right of the high five and select the "Private High Five" option from the dropdown.
- When you're done filling out your Check-in, click Submit.
- Your high fives will be sent once the Check-in is submitted. At this time, recipients will be notified and the high fives appear in the High Fives Feed (with the expectation of private high fives, which do not appear in the High Fives Feed).
- Click High Fives in 15Five's main, left-hand navigation to open the High Fives Feed.
- Find the text box at the top of the screen under "Give a High Five." @mention the appropriate person, group, or external email address, then type your high five.
- Click the High Five! button.
- The recipient(s) will be notified and the high five will appear in the High Fives feed.
You can give a High Five while you are in Slack— without ever leaving your flow of work!
- From within any Slack channel, type the command /highfive.
- @mention the person or group you want to give a high five to (e.g. @sophiafresch), followed by the content of your High Five. Please note that this person must have a Slack account under the same email address that they use for 15Five for the high five to post to 15Five.
- Once you submit the high five, the recipient(s) will be notified and the high five will be posted on the High Fives Feed (in-app link).
Additional Manager Options
According to research conducted by Nectar, 40% of employees say that recognition received from managers has the biggest impact. This said it's vital for executives and managers to lead the charge in providing recognition.
- Click on Check-ins in 15Five's main, left-hand navigation.
- Click to open the 'Team's' Check-ins tab.
- You'll land on your 'Team's current Check-ins' page. Click the '...' next to the person's name whose current Check-in you want to review, then select 'View Check-in' from the dropdown menu.
If the Check-in you want to review is from a previous Check-in period, click View to the right of 'Unreviewed Check-ins' at the bottom of the page. Once on the 'Unreviewed Check-ins' page, you can open the Check-in that you'd like to review by clicking the '...' next to the Check-in and selecting 'View Check-in' from the dropdown menu.
- After opening the appropriate Check-in, scroll down to the 'High Fives' section. Here you'll see the option to High Five your direct report. You can also choose whether you would like to make the High Five public or private.
Managers who are Transform seat holders in companies on the Total Platform pricing package have access to Manager Copilot— an assistant powered by 15Five's Spark AI that helps managers be more effective and makes their lives easier. You can use Manager Copilot to draft high fives from within your Check-in or from the High Fives Feed.
- Click on Check-ins in 15Five's main, left-hand navigation.
- Scroll to the "Give a High Five" section, located near the bottom of your Check-in.
- Click Draft High Five to open the Manager Copilot Assistant on the left-hand side of your screen. From here, provide answers to the prompted questions.
- Spark AI will generate a high five based on your responses. Copy the response.
- Go back to your Check-in. @mention the appropriate person, group, or external email address, then paste the generated high five in the text field and make any necessary edits.
- When you're done filling out your Check-in, click Submit.
- Your high fives will be sent once the Check-in is submitted. At this time, recipients will be notified and the high fives appear in the High Fives Feed (with the expectation of private high fives, which do not appear in the High Fives Feed).
- Click High Fives in 15Five's main, left-hand navigation to open the High Fives Feed.
- Find the text box at the top of the screen under "Give a High Five."
- Click Draft High Five to open the Manager Copilot Assistant on the left-hand side of your screen. From here, provide answers to the prompted questions.
- Spark AI will generate a high five based on your responses. Copy the response.
- Go back to the High Five Feed. @mention the appropriate person, group, or external email address, then paste the generated high five in the text field and make any necessary edits. When you're done, click the High Five! button.
- The recipient(s) will be notified and the high five will appear in the High Fives feed.
Options for high fives
You can give either public or private high fives in 15Five. Public high fives are visible to everyone in your company, whereas private high fives are visible to only the giver and receiver of the high fives.
Currently, it's only possible to give private high fives from within Check-ins. You can give public high fives via any of the methods covered in this article.
Note
Research from Harvard professor Francesca Gino and Stanford professor Frank Flynn shows effective recognition isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach and needs to be customized to the preferences of the receiver. You can always check a person's profile to see if they prefer being recognized privately or publicly.
By default, people can give high fives to individuals. But account admins can also manage whether or not they'd like to enable the option for individuals to give high fives to groups or the entire company by @mentioning them. If you don't see the option to @mention when giving a Hive Five, have one of your account admins (in-app link) check out our "Enable @mentions for your company" Help Center article.
Account admins can add your company's values to 15Five. Once values are added, an account admin (in-app link) can turn on the "Enable hashtags in High Fives" option in High Five feature settings, which allows employees to use company values as #hashtags when giving high fives. Enabling this ability helps make sure your company values stay top-of-mind.
If you enable the High Five "Trending Values" Leaderboard in your High Five feature settings, your team can also see which company values are trending at any given time on the High Fives Feed (in-app link).
You can high five people who aren't part of your company's 15Five account from within your Check-in or from the High Fives Feed. The High Five recipient will receive an email informing them of the high five from notifications@15five.com.
📖 Related articles
- How to enable @mentions for your company
- Understand the High Fives Feed
- How to add company values
- Push high fives from 15Five to Slack using our Slack integration
🕺 Read more on our blog
- Courtney Bigony, Strategic Science Advisor at 15Five and inventor of Positive Product Design™, talks using high fives to motivate employees (8 min read)
- 15Five's David Mizne explores how your org can celebrate National High Five Day (7 min read)
- CEO David Hassell discusses how employee feedback loops, not perks, increase staff retention (7 min read)