What can I learn from this page? | How to launch and manage a Performance Review cycle |
Who is this guide for? | Performance Admins, HRBPs |
Create and launch a performance cycle for your organization to include Peer & Upward Feedback, Peer Nominations, and Manager Reviews.
Quick Links:
TIP: Want to include self-reflections? Learn how to launch a self-reflection cycle alongside your Performance Review Cycle
Performance Review Cycle
As an admin, you can create and launch a single performance review cycle with peer feedback - with the option for peer nominations to allow employees to nominate who will give them feedback when peer feedback is selected - upward feedback, and manager reviews, with the option to have review acknowledgements enabled for manager reviews within the cycle.
Peer & upward feedback
Peers and direct reports give feedback on how an employee is doing and how they can improve.
How it works - both peer and upward feedback:
Admins create 2 question sets - one for peer feedback, and another for upward feedback. When the manager selects employees to provide feedback on their direct report, the relevant question set is automatically delivered to the reviewer based on where they sit in the organizational hierarchy.
Admins set the launch and communicated closure dates for managers to select reviewers and for employees to complete requests.
How it works - only peer feedback:
Admins create 1 question set for peer feedback. When the manager selects employees to provide feedback on their direct report, the question set is delivered to the reviewer. If only peer feedback is selected, only the peer feedback question set will be delivered to all reviewers.
Admins set the launch and communicated closure dates for managers to select reviewers and for employees to complete requests.
When only peer feedback is included in the cycle (and not upward feedback), only peers of the subject can be selected to provide peer feedback.
How it works - only upward feedback:
Admins create 1 question set for upward feedback. When the manager selects employees to provide feedback on their direct report, the question set is delivered to the reviewer. If only upward feedback is selected, only the upward feedback question set will be delivered to all reviewers.
Admins set the launch and communicated closure dates for managers to select reviewers and for employees to complete requests.
When only upward feedback is included in the cycle (and not peer feedback), only direct reports of the subject can be selected to provide upward feedback.
A few things to note:
The communicated closure date is not a hard deadline. Managers can continue to request feedback, and employees can continue to complete feedback after this date.
When step 2 of the peer and upward feedback part of the cycle opens (Managers select people to ask for feedback) both managers and performance administrators will have the ability to send the peer and upward feedback requests.
When both peer and upward feedback is included in the cycle, the upward feedback question sets are delivered to the direct reports or any indirect reports of the employee feedback is about.
Peer and upward feedback can be shared along with the review, directly with the subject, but only questions selected to be shared before the cycle launch can be included.
Users providing peer or upward feedback will see a notification for the questions that have been marked as shareable within the feedback forms.
To share any collected peer and upward feedback with the subject, a performance administrator must also enable the allow sharing feature in this portion of the cycle. This action does not automatically share the feedback with the employee, but at this point, managers can choose to share the peer and upward feedback with the subject.
Peer nominations
Optional when peer feedback is selected, or when both peer and upward feedback are included in the cycle, you can allow employees to nominate who will give them feedback.
How it works:
Admins set the launch and communicated closure dates for peer nominations.
Employees submit peer nominations that can be a combination of peers and direct reports
When peer and upward feedback opens, managers can choose to request feedback from the peer nominees selected, other colleagues, or a combination
A few things to note:
After an employee submits nominations, the selections cannot be edited by the employee.
We recommend scheduling the nominations to take place before kicking off the next steps of requesting feedback.
Employees can nominate after the communicated closure date.
There is no limit to the number of nominations that an employee can make. It’s up to the manager to either send the feedback requests to these nominated reviewers or edit the requests and add new reviewers of their choice.
Automating upward feedback requests
Optional when upward feedback is selected, or when both peer and upward feedback are included in the cycle. Upward feedback requests will be scheduled and sent to direct reports of the subject automatically.
How it works:
Admins select the optional setting when setting up a cycle
When the cycle is launched, the feedback requests will be in a ‘Scheduled’ state
If they are not withdrawn by the ‘Provide feedback’ phase, they will be sent
A few things to note:
Either yourself as the administrator or the manager of the subject can withdraw a feedback request when it is in a scheduled or sent state
Yourself as the administrator or the manager of the subject can also choose to re-select manually a direct report of the subject to provide feedback after they have been withdrawn
Peer feedback requests are not automated, and will still need to be sent manually if included in the cycle
Manager reviews
Managers assess their direct reports, reviewing past performance, and providing suggested areas for future growth.
How it works:
Admins create a set of questions for the manager review.
Admins decide which questions can be shared back with direct reports once sharing is enabled.
Admins set the launch and communicated closure dates for manager reviews. Similar to peer nominations and peer & upward feedback, the communicated closure date is not a hard deadline. Manager reviews can still continue after the communicated closure date.
Review acknowledgements
Optional when manager reviews is selected, you can enable employees the ability to mark a review as acknowledged once they’ve had their final review conversation with their manager.
How it works:
When creating a cycle, Admins can select ‘Review Acknowledgement’ as a performance unit alongside Manager Reviews
Later in the performance review cycle, once finalised performance reviews are shared out to employees, the ability for an employee to acknowledge their review will be made available
Following the 1:1 conversation between manager and employee to discuss the performance review, employees will have the ability to mark their review as acknowledged and add any additional notes as required
A few things to note:
Manager Review must be included as a performance unit in the cycle in order to include Review Acknowledgements within the cycle.
The ability for an employee to acknowledge their review is only available once performance reviews have been shared with employees.
Cycle administrators will be able to view and track reviews that have been acknowledged
How to launch a cycle
Step 1: Choose your performance units
Name the cycle and select what performance units to include, choosing from:
peer feedback (with the option for peer nominations to allow employees to nominate who will give them feedback when peer feedback is selected)
upward feedback (with the option for automatic requests for direct reports of the subject)
manager reviews (with the option of review acknowledgments enabled for the cycle)
Step 2: Add questions
What questions do you want to be included in the performance units you selected for your cycle? You'll add all question sets during this step. A few things to note:
Peer & upward feedback should have different question sets, one for peer feedback and another for upward feedback.
The peer feedback template is used if the manager wants to get feedback on how their direct reports are doing as an individual contributor outside of managing people. The upward feedback template is used if the manager wants to get feedback on how their direct reports are doing as a manager.
Admins can always edit the questions, but only while the cycle is in draft state or scheduled. Questions can no longer be edited once the unit goes live.
Only admins can edit the questions, managers cannot edit questions during any part of the review cycle.
TIP: When adding text links (hyperlinks) to SHAREPOINT articles/documents/files,
be sure to check/test the link in Preview mode. We've been made aware that due to the unique way Sharepoint (and potentially other similar web-based platforms) generate their links, some of their characters/symbols may be interpreted as codes or emojis. This will likely render the link invalid and may result in an error when accessed.
Step 3: Select which questions will be shareable
What answers and feedback responses do you want managers to be able to share with their direct reports once they have completed their reviews? Select those questions during this step that will be shared. Not sure which questions to share? Check out our guide. A few things to note:
You will still need to enable sharing, which you can do in the Admin settings once the cycle is in session or has closed.
Share settings are configurable for manager reviews, for peer, and for upward feedback individually.
Only the admin can select which questions can be shared and enable share settings for the cycle.
Step 4: Add employees
Choose which users to include in the cycle.
Step 5: Schedule the cycle
In this final step, select a launch date and a communicated closure date for each of the performance units.
Employee nominations
Managers select people to ask for peer feedback and upward feedback
If automatic requests are included for upward feedback, managers can review requests at this point
Completion of feedback
Manager reviews
We recommend scheduling these events in a sequence, where the previous step ends one day before the next step starts, to create a streamlined and intuitive process for participants, as visualized above. Sequenced scheduling reduces process anxiety and creates clear timeline expectations. Nominations have been submitted when managers go to request feedback, and all requests have been submitted when reviewers are first requested to provide feedback.
Step 6: Review the cycle
The final step before you select “Create” is to review the Cycle Summary. This step includes all the information you provided during the previous steps in a simple and visual summary. You have the ability to view, preview and edit each step if you find something that needs tweaking after review.
TIP: Send your managers and employees to this article that covers their performance review experience.
How to manage a cycle
As an admin or HR business partner, you have access to in-app dashboards for peer & upward feedback and manager reviews, as well as exports of all nominations, feedback, and manager review data.
From the in-app dashboards you're able to:
Track progress of feedback requested by managers and feedback completed by reviewers
Easily sort columns to understand how nominations and feedback requests are distributed across your employee population
Identify who hasn't yet submitted nominations, requested or completed feedback in order to follow up with them or their manager as the cycle progresses
Nominations submitted: view how many users the employee has nominated to provide peer/upward feedback.
Nominations received: view how many times the employee has been nominated by other users to provide peer/upward feedback.
Feedback requested: view the total number of peer/upward requests sent to other users to collect feedback on the employee. This number includes any feedback requests triggered by both a Manager and Performance Admin.
Search for individual employees to dig into their feedback requests, withdraw any pending requests, or request feedback on behalf of their manager. When you request peer or upward feedback on behalf of the manager, the Requested by field as seen by the reviewer will display the current manager’s name.
Add collaborators
Both administrators and managers can add a collaborator to a review once the scheduled Manager Review component has launched to help the manager with completing the review.
To add a collaborator:
From the admin > performance review dashboard > click into the cycle > manager review tab > find the individual and select three dots icon > manage collaborators
See current collaborators and search for users to add new collaborators.
After adding collaborators:
New collaborators will receive notifications via email and in their Inbox.
Once given access, new collaborators can see the employees manager review and comment on each question. Those comments can only be viewed by the employee’s manager.
In the dossier view, they can also view sections of the employees profile according to their permissions. E.g. they will see any goals made visible to them by the goal owner and any feedback gathered inside and outside a performance review cycle (continuous and peer) that they have written about that employee.
What they can’t do:
View or comment on the employees self-reflections directly.
Collaborators do not have any additional access to view the full dossier of the employee if they are not the person’s manager.
NOTE:
Both Managers and Performance Administrators can add or remove collaborators at any time before the cycle is closed. When collaborators are removed, their comments will persist but they no longer have access to the review.
Collaborator notes are only visible to the collaborator, the manager, skip-level managers (if applicable), and performance administrators. The employee will not see these comments if the managers decides to share their review with their direct report.
Collaborators Feedback dossier view:
Collaborators Goal Dossier view:
In order for collaborator notes to be visible to the manager and admin, the collaborator must select "share comments" at the bottom of the review form
How to enable sharing
In order for feedback to be shareable once it's been completed, you'll need to enable sharing in the Admin settings. You can enable sharing once the cycle is in session or closed. Click into the Sharing tab and the toggle(s) will be made available.
The questions you selected as shareable during the launch design can now be shared by managers, Admins, and HRBPs. To view the questions enabled for sharing, click the Edit Cycle > View Sharing drop down that is available in the top right hand corner of your screen. Not sure which questions to share? Check out our FAQs.
Once enabled, feedback and reviews can be shared from the Sharing tab in the cycle by clicking the Share drop down (if you're a manager) or the ellipsis (3 dots) (if you're an Admin/HRBP) and selecting what content to share from the options.
If Review Acknowledgements are included in the cycle and sharing has been enabled, once a manager review has been shared, the ability for employees to acknowledge their reviews will also be made available.
There's also a 'Share all' option in the top right hand corner to share in bulk.
Manager view:
Admin/HRBP view:
How to close a cycle
Your communicated closure date does not automatically close the self-reflection or review cycle. After the due date has passed, employees will still have the ability to submit until you manually close the cycles.
Close both the self-reflection and performance cycles by visiting each and clicking Edit Cycle > Close Cycle. Once closed, all of the content will become read only and employees will no longer be able to submit or update their self-reflections or reviews.
Admin Settings
Admins have the ability to create and manage the configurable details of the performance review cycle at all stages of the cycle. The following configurations are possible when cycles are in draft, scheduled, live, and closed states:
Draft
Edit cycle
Duplicate cycle
Delete cycle
Scheduled
Download CSV
Edit name
Edit questions
Edit sharing
Manage users
Edit schedule
Duplicate cycle
Delete cycle
Live (in session)
Download CSV
Edit name
View questions
Manage sharing
Manage users
Edit schedule (communicated closure dates)
Duplicate cycle
Close cycle
Delete cycle
Closed Cycles
Download CSV
Edit name
View questions
Manage sharing
Duplicate cycle
Reopen cycle
Delete cycle
Notifications
What's the notification? | Who receives it? | When | Task List | |
Participants nominate peers | employees included in cycle | launch date + time scheduled in cycle | 🔔 | 📨 |
Managers select peer reviewers | managers of employees in cycle | launch date + time scheduled in cycle | 🔔 | 📨 |
Reviewers complete feedback requested of them | selected reviewers | launch date + time scheduled in cycle | 🔔 | 📨 |
Reminder for reviewers to complete feedback requested of them | selected reviewers | 7 and 1 day prior to close date |
| 📨 |
Managers review direct reports | managers of employees in cycle | launch date + time scheduled in cycle | 🔔 | 📨 |
Reminder for manager to review direct reports | managers of employees in cycle | 7, 3, 2, 1 day prior to close date |
| 📨 |
Reviewers have completed feedback requested of them | managers of employees in cycle | batched email delivered following morning, real-time app notification |
| 📨 |
Nominate Peers
Employees receive a notification to nominate peers for feedback.
Request Feedback
Managers receive a notification to select reviewers for their direct reports.
Review requests
Notification is received by managers of employees in a cycle that includes automated upward feedback requests.
Complete Feedback
Reviewers receive a notification to complete feedback.
Reviewers receive a reminder to complete feedback.
Managers receive a notification that feedback was provided about their direct reports.
Complete Manager Review
Managers receive a notification to complete the manager review for their direct reports.
Managers receive a reminder to complete the manager review for their direct reports.
FAQ's
I created a test draft and had my direct report submit peer nominations. Where do I see these?
A manager can see the submitted peer nominations from a direct report when they go to review that employee. This can be done once the peer & upward feedback process launches. There is no notification or approval process before then.
A manager change has taken place mid cycle, will the review data carry over to the new manager?
If the previous Manager has entered data into a user's Manager Review, the new Manager responsible for the user's Manager Review will see any save or submitted data that was entered in by the previous Manager
Performance Review Cycle Insights
Insights are available for individual cycles to see the distribution of employees by each performance group. To view insights, navigate to Reviews > Insights and then select the cycle you would like to view from the dropdown menu in the top right of the main page. Please note: For a review cycle to be valid within Performance insights, the cycle will have to contain an performance group question (Your performance group question sits within the Manager Review unit).
Company Overview visualisation
When you select a review cycle, the first graph you see will be your Company overview for that specific cycle.
To Filter by your demographics
Use the filter option at the top to review your performance group data by your available demographics (eg. Manager, Department etc).
Note: Insights uses your Account Demographics verbatim (not the mapped performance demographics).
Resources
Send your managers and employees to our Performance Review Cycle Guide for Managers and Employees article.
Learn about the rationale behind each component of the performance review process (self-reflection, peer and upward feedback) in our Science behind the performance review templates article.