Growth Plan is part of 15Five's Career Hub feature where employees can create, track, and view their personal career growth goals and associated actions. Growth Plan enables employees to drive their own career growth, increasing meaning and purpose on an individual level and employee retention at an organizational level.
In this article, you will learn…
- What the 'Growth Plan' tab is, and how it works
- How Career Hub's 'Growth Plan' tab interacts with other 15Five features
- How different roles interact with Growth Plan
- Answers to FAQs
- Additional resources
Access and availability
⛔️ Required access to Career Hub.
👥 This article is relevant to all roles.
📦 This feature is available in the Perform and Total Platform pricing packages.
Why Growth Plan?
According to the Design Career Index Annual Report, the top three reasons people left their last role were due to poor leadership/management, lack of career path, and lack of meaning/purpose.
Enter: Growth Plan. This addition to 15Five's Career Hub feature allows your organization to implement an employee-driven career planning program to empower relevant, strengths-based career growth within your organization and support employee retention.
In the 'Growth Plan' tab of Career Hub, employees can create career goals and break them down into trackable actions. But it doesn't stop there. Growth Plan interacts with other main features within the 15Five platform, keeping goals and actions top-of-mind for employees and managers.
The Growth Plan feature is our answer to common issues that organizations and employees face today, including "What is my career plan?", "How do I get there?", and "How do I track progress?". With Career Hub and Growth Plan, employees can determine, plan, and track their career growth: all within 15Five.
So…what does this look like?
In the 'Growth Plan' tab of Career Hub, employees create goals (a simplified version of self-development objectives) and break them down into measurable actions. Employees can set deadlines for their goals, as well as opt-in for in-app reminder notifications to make sure they are making progress as planned.
Goals and progress can be accessed at any time in the 'Growth Plan' tab of Career Hub. Goals will appear with orange progress measurement bars next to them, whereas objectives will appear with blue progress measurement bars next to them. Progress is denoted by solid colors. You can hover over a goal or objective to see its completion percentage.
Goal progress can be updated from within employee Check-ins.
Or, from within the Objectives tab.
[Coming soon] Managers can view and download their direct reports' goals and progress in the 'My teams' section of Career Hub.
Account admins can run reports on goals and goal progress from 15Five's Reporting tab.
How does Growth Plan interact with other features in 15Five?
Career Hub
Growth Plan is the last tab in 15Five's Career Hub feature and is intrinsically tied to the rest of the Career Hub feature. It's difficult for employees who haven’t discovered what they want in their career to come up with their career plan and set career goals, and uncertainty and lack of clarity can lead to a lack of motivation to start working on the plan. That said, before using Growth Plan, it's important for employees and their managers to go through the initial Role clarity, Strengths, and Vision tabs of Career Hub, as well as the 'Career Paths' tab. All in all, Career Hub houses everything your organization needs to support employees in their career growth journeys from beginning to end.
Best-Self Review®
Employees can view the growth goals and create new ones from the Best-Self Review® Summary page.
Objectives
Goals and actions created in the Growth Plan are shown as self-development objectives across the 15Five app and vice versa.
Blog post 📝: Why 15Five Objectives Are Unique and Effective, According To Research
1-on-1s
Employees and managers can collaborate on the growth plan using comments and adding to 1-on-1s.
Employee experience
As an employee, you've already used Career Hub to set the stage for developing your Growth Plan. You've gotten clear on responsibilities and expectations using the 'Role Clarity' tab, identified your unique strengths in the 'Strengths' tab, and ideated what an ideal role would look like in the 'Career Vision' tab. You've seen what roles and career ladders exist for your organization in the 'Career Paths' tab of Career Hub. Now, it's time to set goals and take action using Growth Plan.
Visibility
The 'Growth Plan' tab of Career Hub is visible to you and your manager. While account admins can't view your 'Growth Plan' page, they do have the ability to run a report containing all company goals and progress.
Access Growth Plan
1. Click Career Hub in the main, lefthand navigation of 15Five.
2. In the top navigation bar, click to open the 'Growth plan' tab.
3. You'll be led to 'My growth' page. Here, you can create goals and actions by following the steps in the next section of this article.
'My growth' page
The 'My growth' page is your spot to create growth goals based on specific skills you'd like to develop. Here, you can access all goals you've created, as well as all objectives you are currently working on— both enabling you to easily to track and assess your pace, as well as align your personal transformation with larger company goals.
While you can view progress on objectives you're assigned in 15Five on the 'My growth' page, you cannot manage those objectives from within Career Hub. If you'd like to edit an objective, open that objective by clicking on it, then push View full details. You'll be directed to the objective overview page.
Goals will appear with orange progress measurement bars next to them, whereas objectives will appear with blue progress measurement bars next to them. Progress is denoted by solid colors. You can hover over or click on a goal or objective to see its completion percentage. You can also use the "Business" and "Self-Development" filters at the bottom of the page to view only self-development goals or business objectives.
Create a goal
Note
Functionally, "goals" in Growth Plan are the same as self-development objectives— only with less detail and effort in the setup process. If this is your first time creating an objective or goal in 15Five, a walkthrough will appear to guide you through the process. Need additional help coming up with a goal? Click I'm not sure where to start at the bottom of the box. On the next page, you will have the option to add a talking point to your 1-on-1 with your manager that says, “I’m working on a growth plan and would like input and ideas on growth opportunities and goals.” To add this talking point to your 1-on-1, click Add to 1-on-1.
1. Choose the skill that you'd like to develop. Then, click Next.
2. Set small, measurable actions that will help you achieve your goal.
3. Set time targets to keep yourself accountable, and decide how often you'd like to be reminded of your goal via in-app notifications (optional).
4. Click Create goal.
Edit a goal
If at any point you need to edit a goal you created, simply click on that goal from the 'My growth' page. Editable goal options will appear, including name, due date, and actions.
Add additional action items by clicking +add an action.
Update a goal
Goals can be updated from within your Check-in or from the Objectives tab.
In your Check-in, any goals you create will appear in the 'Objectives' section. Choose whether you're On track, Behind, or At risk, and mark actions as "Complete" as progress is made.
In the Objectives tab, you can filter by Self-Development objectives to pull up all of your goals. Mark your actions as "Complete" as progress is made.
Manager experience
Access my direct report's Growth Plan
1. Click on Career Hub in the main, lefthand navigation of Career Hub.
2. Click on the name of the direct report whose Growth Plan you'd like to view.
3. In the top navigation bar, click to open the 'Growth Plan' tab.
Admin experience
Growth plan report is available for admins in 15Five's Reporting feature.
Access Career Hub reporting
1. Open the Reporting tab from 15Five's main, left-hand navigation bar, then select 'Career Hub' from the dropdown.
2. Click to download the desired report. The two possible reports are:
- The Growth Plan Data report contains the following columns: Objective Title, Owner First Name, Owner Last Name, Owner Email, Owner Employee ID, Owner Active Groups, Manager First Name, Manager Last Name, Manager Email, Start Date, End Date, Parent Objective Title, Impacts Parent Progress, Privacy Settings, Viewable by Groups, Viewable by User Emails, Status, Objective Completion Percentage, Type and Group.
Visibility-wise, this report contains all goals created via Growth Plan. Objectives will only be visible in this report if the admin downloading it has visibility into the objective. - The Growth Plan Statistics - Objectives and Key Results report contains the following columns: Owner Total objectives, Private objectives, Current objectives, Past due objectives, Closed objectives, Key Results, and Last seen.
FAQs
- Q: Can I report on growth plans?
Yes! Admins and managers can export the growth plans data. - Q: What’s the difference between career goals and self-development objectives?
A: Career goals are made in growth plan, and will always be visible in growth plan even if objectives are turned off. Self-development objectives can also be career goals, and they can also encompass more personal goals. Right now, neither of your career goals or self development goals are used for evaluation in your Best Self Review. - Q: How are objectives and the growth plan connected?
A: Goals created in your growth plan will also show up in your objectives, if objectives are turned on. They’ll show up as self-development objectives, and they have similar components like actions and statuses. - Q: What if I create personal goals in my growth plan?
A: Feel free to! It’s your space to visualize and keep track of your growth. You can always hide those goals individually if you don’t want to see a personal goal along with some of your more career or role oriented goals. And if you want to unhide it, you can click on the unhide all button at the bottom left of the chart.
Check out these additional resources ⬇️
- Blog post 📝: 15Five’s Career Hub Empowers Employees to Design a Strengths-Based Development Path
- Help Center article 💡: Career Hub: 101
- Help Center article 💡: Career Paths: 101