Getting started guide for employees

15Five's 1-on-1s feature provides 1-on-1 agendas that you and your manager (or coworkers!) can use to hold structured meetings about priorities, challenges, and progress.

How it works

1. Create a meaningful agenda: Add talking points and action items from your 1-on-1 page or from your 15Five homepage.
   Help Center article 💡: Use the 1-on-1 agenda
2. Schedule a 1-on-1 meeting: Meet weekly for about 30 minutes to review progress, priorities, and challenges.
   Help Center article 💡: Create, schedule, and end a 1-on-1
3. Meet to discuss what really matters: Discuss your agenda, take shared notes, and assign follow-up actions.
4. Repeat the process: Continue weekly or biweekly to stay connected and remove roadblocks together.

What's in it for you?

• Remove blockers: Add anything getting in your way to your agenda so your manager can help.

• Stay aligned: Co-create and track action items that ensure you’re focused on the right work.

• Foster collaboration: Use 1-on-1s with peers to stay synced and drive projects forward.

• Build trust: Consistent 1-on-1s strengthen communication and engagement.

Resources to learn more

• Help Center article 💡: 1-on-1s Feature Overview
• Video 🎥: 1-on-1 Deep Dive (22 min)
• Blog post 🕺: 7 Tips For Making Every One-On-One Meeting Count (8 min read)
• Feature spotlight 📄: 1-on-1s
• In-app link 💻: 1-on-1s

15Five's Best-Self Review® is a performance review tool that enables you, your peers, your manager, and your direct reports to provide feedback about your work. It's designed to provide a full picture of performance that is fair and equitable and leads to conversations about how to nurture professional growth.

How it works

1. Complete your review(s): Fill out your self, manager, peer, or upward reviews as assigned.
   Help Center article 💡: Write a review

2. Meet with your manager: Review your results together, discuss highlights and growth areas, and co-create development objectives.

3. Acknowledge results: Confirm that you’ve reviewed and discussed your feedback.
   Help Center article 💡: Acknowledge my review results

What's in it for you?

• Get holistic feedback: Hear from multiple perspectives for a full picture of performance.

• Ensure fairness: Reviews include real data from your 15Five activity to reduce bias.

• Own your growth: Use review feedback to identify focus areas and create actionable objectives.

Resources to learn more

• Help Center article 💡: Best-Self Review® Feature Overview
• Help Center article 💡: What to expect: I'm a review participant
• Video 🎥: Complete a Best-Self Review as a participant (6 min)
• Blog post 🕺: The Science of 15Five: Best-Self Review (11 min)
• In-app link 💻: Best-Self Review® Dashboard
  

15Five's Career Hub is a simple, powerful way for you to reflect on your career ambitions and work with your manager to co-create a strengths-driven career vision that keeps you motivated and energized.

How it works

1. Complete your Career Hub: Fill out your Career Hub which consists of four sections:
   • Role clarity: Clarify your current role and identify the type of work that’s most energizing to you. This will help you find and define what you want in a career.
     
   • Strengths: Do more of what you do best by discovering your top strengths, values, interests, and passions so you can leverage them in your role.
     
   • Career vision: Ideate your dream career by aligning your top strengths, values, and passions with your role.
     
   • Growth plan: Create career goals and break them down into trackable actions to help you work towards your ideal career.

2. Meet with your manager: Discuss your results, clarify expectations, and align on goals.

3. Create development objectives: Turn insights into actionable steps to support your growth.

4. Review regularly: Keep your goals top-of-mind by revisiting and updating your Career Hub together.

What's in it for you?

• Gain clarity: Understand your role and expectations.

• Know your strengths: Identify what energizes you and how to use it at work.

• Shape your career vision: Define what you want and how to get there.

• Take ownership: Set meaningful growth goals and track your progress over time.

Resources to learn more

• Help Center article 💡: Career Hub: Feature Overview
• Help Center article 💡: Career Hub for employees
• Blog post 🕺: 15Five’s Career Hub Empowers Employees to Design a Strengths-Based Development Path (9 min)
• In-app link 💻: My Career Hub
  

Check-ins replace status reports with quick, reflective updates. They take about 15 minutes to fill out and 5 minutes for your manager to review.

How it works

1. Fill out your Check-in: Share how work is going, update objectives, and celebrate wins.
   Help Center article 💡: Fill out a Check-in
   Help Center article 💡: Who can see my Check-ins?

2. Submit for review: Your manager reviews your answers, comments, and carries discussion points into your next 1-on-1.

3. Repeat weekly: Consistent Check-ins create visibility, feedback, and focus.

What’s in it for you?

• Stay aligned: Keep your priorities visible to your manager and team.

• Remove blockers: Flag challenges early so they can be addressed.

• Track progress: Document wins and updates for performance reviews.

• Boost connection: Build a regular rhythm of feedback and recognition.

Resources to learn more

• Help Center article 💡: Check-ins Feature Overview
• Help Center article 💡: Fill out a Check-in
• Video 🎥: Submit a Check-in (5 min)
• 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.

How it works

1. Receive a survey invite: You’ll get an email or in-app prompt when it’s time to participate.

2. Take 6 minutes to respond: Share your honest answers and optional written feedback.

3. Submit anonymously: Your input contributes to overall engagement insights.

What’s in it for you?

• Make your voice heard: Safely share feedback about your experience.

• Drive change: Your responses help shape company initiatives.

• Support transparency: Results encourage open discussion and action.

Resources to learn more

• Help Center article💡: Engagement Feature Overview

Feedback

 The Feedback feature lets you request or share feedback at any time—no need to wait for review cycles.

How it works

1. Request or give feedback: Ask for input or recognize great work.

2. Choose visibility: Share feedback privately or publicly, depending on context.

3. Reflect and grow: Use feedback in 1-on-1s or reviews to track your progress.

What’s in it for you?

• Receive input quickly: Get actionable feedback when you need it.

• Encourage collaboration: Build a culture of open communication.

• Track development: Keep feedback organized for ongoing growth.

Resources to learn more

• • Help Center Article💡: Feedback Feature Overview

  • In-app link 💻 : Feedback Dashboard

High Fives are a fun and meaningful way to recognize teammates who demonstrate great work, live company values, or help others succeed.

How it works

1. Send a High Five: Share one from your Check-in or the High Fives feed.

2. Recipients are notified: They’ll see your message and can react or comment.

3. Repeat: Keep recognition flowing to build positivity and engagement.

What’s in it for you?

• Celebrate wins: Acknowledge great work in real time.

• Build connections: Strengthen relationships across teams.

• Promote positivity: Recognition encourages repeat great behaviors.

Resources to learn more

• Help Center Article💡: High Fives Feature Overview

• Help Center Article💡: Give a High Five

• Feature Spotlight 📄: High Fives Feature Spotlight

• In-app link 💻 : High Fives Dashboard
  

Your Home page is your personal dashboard—showing your open actions, updates, and insights.

How it works

• View upcoming Check-ins, 1-on-1s, and objectives all in one place.

• Take quick actions like completing a Check-in, reviewing updates, or starting a High Five.

• Track your engagement and activity at a glance.

What’s in it for you?

• Stay organized: Everything you need in one place.

• Save time: Access your tasks directly from your Home page.

• Increase visibility: See your progress and next steps clearly.

Resources to learn more:

• Help Center article 💡: Homepage for employees
• In-app link 💻: My Homepage

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

Our Objectives feature follows the OKR Methodology. OKRs stands for Objectives and Key Results, and is a framework for defining and tracking business objectives and outcomes.

• Objectives are what the organization, a group, or an individual wants to accomplish, and are typically quantitative or subjective, ambitious, and time-bound.
• Key results are concrete, specific, and measurable, and should describe how you will accomplish the objective and what you're measuring along the way.

Objectives can be summed up in a simple phrase: “I will accomplish [objective], as measured by [key results].”

How it works

1. Create an Objective: Define what you want to accomplish (qualitative).
   Help Center article 💡: Create an objective
2. Update progress regularly. As you make progress on the objectives or key results you own, you can update their status from the Objectives tab or as you fill out your Check-ins.
3. Close and assess the objective, then begin the process again! Once objectives are completed, close them out and reflect on how they went. Then, it's time to start the cycle again for the next quarter. Evaluate the outcomes, learn from the process, and use these insights to refine future objectives and drive ongoing improvement.

What’s in it for you?

• Clarify focus: Know exactly what you’re working toward.

• Track outcomes: Measure success with clear, visible metrics.

• Grow continuously: Reflect and reset each quarter to keep improving.

Resources to learn more:

• Help Center article 💡: Objectives Feature Overview
  
• Video 🎥:Create an OKR
• Blog post 🕺: OKR Examples: How to Write OKRs that Drive Impact (6 min read)
• Feature spotlight 📄: Objectives
  
• In-app link 💻: Objectives Dashboard
  

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

• Single Sign-On (SSO): Single Sign-On is a method of authentication (logging in) that adds security to the login process and makes onboarding new employees and software easy. Instead of employees keep track of multiple logins, they can log in to any number of service providers (such as 15Five) through a single login profile.
• Email/password: If your company doesn't use SSO, the other login option is for employees to log into 15Five using their work email address and a password. Employees can follow the link included in their invite email to set up their password and begin using 15Five. For added security, employees can also choose to set up Google sign-in and/or two-factor authentication (2FA).

Notifications help you stay informed about key activities in 15Five—like when it’s time to submit your Check-in, when your manager comments on something, or when a new review cycle begins. Taking a moment to personalize these settings ensures you get the right updates, at the right time, and through the channels you prefer.
Help Center article 💡: Manage my notifications

Stay connected with your team and complete key 15Five actions on the go. The mobile app allows you to fill out Check-ins, give and view High Fives, and access your 1-on-1 agendas—anytime, anywhere.
Help Center article💡: Download the 15Five iOS app
Help Center article💡: Download the 15Five Android app