Performance Reviews in Small Improvements are as easy as 1, 2, 3.
Before you launch your performance review cycle, consider:
How often do you want performance reviews done?
What questions do you want to ask?
Which departments and employees should participate?
If your subscription includes custom templates, we recommend creating your questionnaire template before creating a Review cycle. You can learn how to create a questionnaire template here.
Create your cycle
Performance reviews are organized into cycles. Think of a cycle as a container for a specific set of reviewees, a specific set of questions, and a specific set of dates and deadlines.
If you'd prefer unique questionnaires for each team/department, each team/department will need its own cycle. Maybe you'd like to review different locations at different times. If that's the case, each location needs its own cycle.
To create a new review cycle or modify an existing one, toggle to your Admin view, then click Reviews in the navigation menu. Once you're on the Review page, you'll be able to click Create Cycle in the upper right corner to start creating your new Review cycle.
Select your Cycle Type
Depending on your subscription level, you'll be able to choose between a Standard Review or a Calibration Review.
Calibration Reviews are a bit more complex than Standard Reviews. For that reason, please refer to our complete walkthrough of Calibration cycles here.
Standard reviews allow managers to select overall ratings for their teams without any further approval. Ratings are shared with employees immediately when shared by their managers.
Calibrated reviews allow managers to select a preliminary rating, but gives HR Admins the opportunity to make adjustments before ratings are shared with employees.
Decide who will be reviewed
In this step, you'll select the employees who are being reviewed in this cycle ("reviewees"). You can filter for reviewees by department, location, employment type, and more or select participants manually.
If you don’t know exactly who should be reviewed yet, just click “Choose later” to skip this step. You'll have more opportunities to add reviewees later.
Name your cycle
Next, you'll give the cycle a name and introduction message. Both the reviewees (typically employees) and reviewers (typically direct managers) will see this introduction at the top of the page when writing their assessments.
The time period under review tells both parties the time period they are reflecting on. This setting does not impact the timeline for the review cycle itself; that comes later.
Toggle your Sharing Process
Next, you have some choices to make regarding the writing and sharing process.
Indirect manager contribution: Indirect managers (also known as skip-level managers) will always be able to read the performance reviews of their reporting line, but enabling this option also allows them to contribute to reviews.
Indirect managers will contribute to the same form as the direct manager. If you'd like each reviewer to submit separate evaluations, consider using our 360 Feedback module instead.
Finished writing indicator: Enabling this option allows managers to mark reviews as Written before they have been shared with the employee. This is primarily recommended in calibrated cycles so that HR Admins know when reviews are ready for their final approval.
Sharing Assessments: You can toggle Hide Reviewer Assessments from Reviewees until both have shared if you don't want employees to see the manager assessment until they have submitted the self-assessment. You can also toggle Hide Self-Assessment from Reviewer until both have shared, if you don't want managers to see the self-assessment until they have submitted the manager assessment.
We generally recommend hiding the reviewer assessment from the reviewee, but allowing the reviewer to see the self-assessment as soon as it is ready. This gives managers the opportunity to anticipate potential misalignments and tailor their feedback accordingly.
Choose your questionnaire
If you created a Review questionnaire template ahead of time, you should see it here. You are also welcome to use Small Improvements' built-in templates or create your own questionnaire entirely from scratch here.
Note: Creating a Custom Questionnaire here will not save it as a template. That's why we typically recommend creating a template before creating a Review Cycle.
You'll always be able to go back and change the questionnaire even after the cycle has been created, so if you'd like to create your questionnaire later, you can select any template for now.
Set the cycle’s timeline
Please see here for an overview of the cycle timeline settings.
Self-assessments and manager assessments open on the Cycle Start date. You can enable an automatic launch email, or leave this option unchecked to send them manually later on. If you'd like the cycle to start immediately, simply set Cycle Starts to a date in the past.
The Deadline for Reviewees is the date by which reviewees (typically direct reports) are required to share their self-assessments. The Deadline for Reviewers is the date by which reviewers (typically direct managers) are required to share their assessments. After these dates, assessments are no longer editable. Assessments saved as drafts are not automatically shared, so those users will need an extension from an HR Admin to finalize and share. (See here for instructions on granting extensions.)
If you choose to enable a Grace Period, the deadlines are no longer binding, and employees will be allowed to run late until the end of the grace period. Grace periods are not publicized; employees will only see the soft deadline in notifications and throughout our system.
After both parties have shared, Reviewees and reviewers are both asked to sign the review. Everyone Should Sign By is the date on which signing is no longer possible and the cycle locks down.
Signing the Review typically happens after a Reviewee and Reviewer have been able to meet and discuss the feedback that was shared. Signing should be an indication that the feedback has been received and is understood by both parties.
Calibration cycles include a few extra timeline settings. Please see here for more details.
Automate reminders
Enabling "get started" nudges will send reviewees and reviewers weekly reminders about any assessments they have not yet started writing.
Enabling "start sharing" nudges will send reviewers weekly reminders about any assessments they have not yet shared with the reviewee.
Customize your emails
Depending on your subscription level, you may be able to customize your email notifications. Emails can be disabled on any of our subscription levels.
Email notifications can also be edited at the account level if you want your changes to apply to all current and future cycles. Learn more here.
Finish and launch
Once you're ready to save your cycle, click the yellow Create Cycle button at the bottom of the screen.
If your cycle is starting immediately, you’ll have the option to notify participants immediately, or you can uncheck the boxes to create the cycle without informing.
Once you are ready to send your notifications, simply use the options in the Notify menu in the upper right corner of the cycle overview page.
Use the Admin dropdown menu to make any changes to the cycle such as changing the questionnaire or updating the timeline.
Congratulations on launching your Review cycle!
Check out our article on Performance Review Analytics for guidance on tracking participation and analyzing results.