15Five’s Competency Assessment gives you insight into how employees are performing across key skills based on self, manager, and peer reviews. Use it to uncover strengths, identify development areas, and spot perception gaps that may signal misalignment or coaching opportunities. This article shows you how to explore results, switch views, apply filters, and download data for deeper analysis.
In this article, you will learn...
- Competency Assessment Visibility 👀
- How to Use the Competency Assessment 📊
- Available Downloads 📥
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) ❓
Access and availability
⛔️ Required access to Best-Self Review® Reporting.
👥 This article is relevant to Review admins, Cycle collaborators, and Managers.
📦 This feature is available in the Perform and Total Platform pricing packages.
Competency Assessment Visibility 👀
- Review Admins and Cycle Collaborators can view competencies for all participants in the review cycle.
- Managers can view competencies for their direct reports.
- If hierarchy visibility is enabled in feature settings, skip-level managers can view competencies for employees within their reporting hierarchy.
How to Use the Competency Assessment 📊
- Click Performance in 15Five's main, left-hand navigation and select Best-Self Review® from the dropdown menu.
- Open the relevant review cycle.
- Open the Company's results or Team's results tab. The tab you see will depend on whether or not you have an administrative role in the review cycle.
- You'll land on the Summary tab of review results. Open the "Competency Assessment" tab using the top navigation.
-
Apply filters to narrow your view and assess competencies for specific employee cohorts.
- Use the People filter to view results for your direct reports, your hierarchy, or specific individuals, groups, or manager groups.
-
Use the Career Path Role filter to view results for people with specific role titles.
Note
The dropdown only shows roles you’ve added to 15Five. Learn how to manage job information →
-
View top strengths and opportunities across your team based on average ratings from manager, self, and peer reviews. The Top competencies section highlights the three highest-scoring skills, while Top opportunities shows the three with the most room for growth. Results reflect the people selected in the filter at the top of the page.
-
Now, it's time to dive into the Competency Results table. In addition to the standard filters, you can further tailor your view:
-
Filter by review type: Include or exclude Self, Manager, or Peer reviews by toggling the checkboxes at the top of the table.
-
Filter by competency group: Use the dropdown to sort or narrow the list of competencies shown. Options include: All competency behaviors, Top competencies (highest-scoring), Top opportunities (lowest-scoring), Most aligned (smallest perception gap between review sources), and Least aligned (largest perception gap).
Tip
A perception gap is the difference between how employees rate themselves on a competency and how their manager or peers rate them. Identifying large gaps can reveal blind spots, alignment issues, or coaching opportunities—especially when someone consistently rates themselves higher or lower than others do.
-
-
You can explore results in two ways: Grid View (default) and Graph View. Switch views using the icon in the top right corner of the Competency Results table.
Grid View (Default)
Displays how competencies are distributed across employees using a color-coded tableBy default, the Competency results table is shown in grid view. Use this view to get a high-level overview of how your team scored overall on specific competencies based on self, manager, and/or peer reviews.
This format makes it easy to spot patterns in strengths and opportunities across your team—especially when comparing ratings across a larger population. It's ideal for surfacing high- and low-scoring competencies at scale.
- The left-hand column of the table lists the competencies participants were assessed on in the review cycle. These may include company-wide, group, role-specific, and manager effectiveness competencies. Learn more about competency types →
- The columns to the right show the distribution of competency ratings from lowest to highest.
-
Each cell shows the percentage of participants whose average rating falls into that scale point. Hover over a cell to see what rating it represents and the number of participants who received that rating.
Note
Blue cells show ratings that participants received, white cells represent available ratings that no participants received, and gray cells indicate rating options that weren’t included in the scale for that specific competency.
Graph View
Plots self, manager, and peer ratings on a radar chart to highlight differences in perception.Graph view offers a visual breakdown of how different reviewer groups—self, manager, and peer—rated employees across up to 12 competencies. Use this view to spot alignment or misalignment between perspectives and identify potential perception gaps.
This format is ideal when you want to compare how employees view themselves vs. how others perceive them. It’s especially helpful for exploring competencies where alignment is crucial, like communication, leadership, or strategic thinking.
-
Each line on the graph represents a different review source: gold for self reviews, purple for manager reviews, and red for peer reviews.
-
Each point on the line represents the average score for that competency from that reviewer group. Hover over a point to see the exact rating and reviewer type.
Tip
Graph view only supports up to 12 competencies at a time. If your review cycle includes more than 12, try applying filters to reduce the number.
Available downloads 📥
Includes how each participant was rated in all competency questions across all review types (self, manager, additional manager, peer, and/or upward).
To download this report, click the Download button at the top of the 'Competency results' table. Filters on the page will not impact the download file.
Columns included in this download: Employee email, First name, Last name, Job title, Active groups, Employee ID, Manager first name, Manager last name, Manager email, Review type, Respondent first name, Respondent last name, qualitative competency rating (for each competency), quantitive competency rating (for each competency), Normalized average competency score
Note
The Normalized average competency score reflects the average of all submitted ratings for a given competency and participant. If you see a “–” in this column, it means only one review was submitted—so an average score cannot be calculated.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) ❓
The Competency Assessment helps HR teams and managers gain insight into how employees are performing against key skills and behaviors. Common use cases include:
- Identifying team strengths and development gaps across roles, departments, or demographics to inform training, development, or coaching programs.
- Comparing self, manager, and peer perceptions to uncover alignment—or misalignment—that may point to blind spots or growth opportunities.
- Supporting performance and promotion conversations with concrete data on how employees are demonstrating core competencies.
- Monitoring manager effectiveness by evaluating how consistently managers assess direct reports on manager effectiveness competencies.
This reporting is especially helpful when your review cycle includes company-wide, role-specific, and/or manager effectiveness competencies. Learn how to manage competencies →
A perception gap is the difference between how an employee rates themselves on a competency and how their manager or peers rate them. Large gaps may signal overconfidence, lack of awareness, or potential misalignment. These insights can inform coaching, development conversations, or role fit assessments.
Yes. You can check or uncheck the Self, Manager, or Peer review filters at the top of the Competency Results table to isolate or compare reviewer perspectives.
Graph view is limited to 12 competencies to ensure the radar chart remains readable. If your review cycle includes more than 12, use the filter dropdown to narrow your view.