People Science guidance for using display rules in Manager Reviews

Display rules show a follow-up question in a manager review when the manager selects a particular answer to an earlier question. For how to set them up, see Show follow-up questions in a manager review with display rules. For more details on review design principles, see The Science Behind Culture Amp's Performance Review Templates.

Display rules work with two connected questions:

You set up the rules before the cycle launches. Every manager who selects a trigger answer then sees the same follow-up.

Display rules help you:

Display rules change what a manager sees based on how they answer. They can't change the questions based on who the employee is, such as their department, level or role.

A display rule also isn't needed when a follow-up applies to everyone. Add it as a standard question instead.

If an answer would be nice to have but you don't need it, we'd generally leave the follow-up out. Every follow-up adds to the review workload for the managers who see it.

Start by deciding which questions and answers need a follow-up, and how many follow-ups one manager could end up answering.

Add a follow-up when you need the manager to explain some answers but not others. Promotion readiness and the performance rating are good examples. Both inform later decisions like promotions, and those decisions are easier to stand behind when the manager's reasoning is written down.

A follow-up on the performance rating can also help when you've noticed a pattern, such as some managers rating more leniently or strictly than others in calibration. The follow-up gathers the information you need to look into it.

When you do add follow-ups to the performance rating, we recommend adding them at both ends of the scale, because of how the process is perceived. People judge whether a review process is fair partly by whether it treats everyone the same way (Cropanzano, Bowen and Gilliland, 2007). If managers are only asked to explain low ratings, or only high ones, it can look as though some ratings get more scrutiny than others. Managers are reviewed in the same process, so they'll see it from both sides.

Promotion readiness works differently. A promotion recommendation is a business case that only applies to some people, so asking for more detail on some answers is less likely to feel unfair.

Example: The question This person is ready for promotion today has four options: Strong no, No, Yes and Strong yes. It has two follow-up questions:

An answer of No doesn't show either follow-up.

Once you've chosen your trigger answers, check how much work they add to the review. We recommend three to four open-ended questions in a manager review, and no more than five in total. Each one adds time and effort for the manager. Follow-ups count toward that total, so count the most follow-ups any one manager could see, not the number of rules you've set up.

Example: Your manager review has four open-ended questions. You add three follow-ups:

A manager who rates someone Sets a new standard and answers Strong yes on promotion readiness sees all three follow-ups. That takes their review from four open-ended questions to seven.

Once you know where the follow-ups go, consider the design principles below when writing the questions.

We recommend open-ended follow-ups instead of rating scale questions, so that each person's average rating stays comparable with everyone else's.

Culture Amp averages each person's answers to the rating questions in a manager review, leaving out the overall performance rating. You'll see that average in two places:

A rating scale follow-up only appears for some people, so only their averages would include it. When you compare people in a calibration view or in the export, their averages would then be based on different sets of questions.

The performance rating question isn't affected. It can't be a follow-up, so every manager answers it for everyone they review.

The more a question leaves open to interpretation, the more room there is for bias to creep in. We recommend asking managers for objective data (such as goals met or specific examples of behavior), instead of their impressions. In a follow-up, that means asking what the manager observed and what should happen next. Avoid asking why they chose their particular answer.

Capturing a manager's observations after a low rating is particularly important. What a manager writes in a low-rating follow-up becomes the record of why they gave that rating, and decisions such as pay, promotion and continued employment can rest in part on it.

Asking why they gave the rating invites the manager to defend it. Asking about the path forward keeps them focused on what they've seen and what happens next.

The evidence for the rating should already be in the review's other questions, and in any existing record such as a performance improvement plan (PIP). The follow-up summarizes that evidence. It isn't the first place it appears.

A strong answer sums up the specific gaps and any pattern behind them, points to where the evidence sits, and says what support is already in place and what the next period should look like.

Example: This manager review uses the performance rating question as a source question, with a follow-up at each end of the scale.

With the questions written, decide where each follow-up sits in the review and whether the employee can see it.

We recommend keeping each follow-up directly under its source question, so the manager explains their answer while they're making it.

The performance rating question should still come after the other questions that ask for evidence. That way, the manager has thought through everything else before they rate.

We generally recommend making follow-ups required. If an answer is worth a follow-up, you'll want a response every time the follow-up appears. A promotion recommendation with no reasoning, for example, gives the people deciding on promotions nothing to go on. Because a follow-up only appears after its trigger answer, making it required doesn't add anything for other managers.

Each question has its own sharing setting. That means you could share a follow-up with the employee but not the answer that triggered it, and the employee would read the reasoning behind an answer they can't see.

Some follow-ups also reveal their trigger answer. If you share a follow-up that only appears for Needs development, the employee can tell which rating they were given, whatever the question says. We recommend deciding sharing for each source question and its follow-ups together.

Next, check that every rule works the way you intended. Display rules lock when the cycle goes live. If a rule is wrong at launch, it stays wrong for the whole cycle, and some managers will see different questions than you intended.

Before you add any rules, finalize the answer options on each source question. If you change or remove a trigger answer later, its follow-up turns into a standard question that every manager sees. A follow-up written for a low rating would then appear for everyone.

Once your rules are set, open Preview. Select each trigger answer in turn, plus one answer that shouldn't show anything, and check that:

Then run a test cycle. Complete the manager review yourself using the answers that show the most follow-ups, and time how long it takes.

Show follow-up questions in a manager review with display rules explains how to use Preview, and the Performance Review Cycle Testing Guide covers setting up a test cycle.

The last step is preparing managers for a review that changes as they answer it. Before the cycle opens, let managers know that some questions only appear based on their answers. That way, a manager whose review is longer or shorter than a colleague's knows that's expected, not an error.

Encourage managers to be specific in their follow-up answers. They should describe what they observed and what should happen next, instead of restating the rating. For promotion readiness, a strong answer describes what the person already does, not what they might do, and names any reservations.

Managers should also check their follow-ups against their final answers before they submit. If a manager changes a source answer so a follow-up no longer appears, whatever they wrote in it is lost when they submit.

Here's some sample wording you can adapt:

Some questions in this cycle's manager review only appear when you select certain answers. For example, if you mark someone as ready for promotion, you'll be asked about the role they could move into. Base each follow-up answer on what you've observed, and check your answers before you submit.

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