Before you launch your Performance Review cycle, it helps to think through a few things:
How often do you want reviews to take place?
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. A Cycle is a container for a specific set of reviewees, a set of questions, and a set of dates and deadlines.
If you want unique questionnaires for different teams or departments, each will need its own Cycle. The same applies if you're reviewing different locations at different times.
To create a new Cycle or modify an existing one, switch to your Admin view and click Reviews in the navigation menu. On the Reviews page, click Create Cycle in the upper-right corner.
Select your Cycle Type
Depending on your subscription level, you can choose between a Standard Review and a Calibration Review.
Standard Reviews allow managers to select overall ratings for their teams without further approval. Ratings are shared with employees as soon as managers share them.
Calibration Reviews allow managers to select a preliminary rating, giving HR Admins the opportunity to make adjustments before ratings are shared with employees. For a full walkthrough of Calibration Cycles, see here.
Decide who will be reviewed
Select the employees being reviewed in this Cycle (the "reviewees"). You can filter by department, location, employment type, and more, or select participants manually.
If you're not ready to finalize the list, click Choose Later. You can add reviewees at any point before the Cycle closes.
Name your cycle
Give the Cycle a name and an introduction message. Both reviewees and reviewers will see this introduction at the top of the page when writing their assessments.
The time period under review tells both parties the timeframe they are reflecting on. This setting does not affect the Cycle's own timeline – that comes in a later step.
Configure the sharing process
Next, you have some choices to make regarding the writing and sharing process.
Indirect manager contribution: Indirect managers can always read their reporting line's Performance Reviews. Enabling this option also allows them to contribute to reviews.
Note: Indirect managers contribute in the same form as the direct manager. If you want each reviewer to submit a separate evaluation, consider using 360 Feedback instead.
Finished writing indicator: This allows managers to mark reviews as Written before sharing them with the employee. It's most useful in Calibration Cycles, so HR Admins can see when reviews are ready for final approval.
Sharing Assessments: You can hide the reviewer's assessment from the reviewee until both parties have shared, and you can hide the Self-Assessment from the reviewer until both parties have shared.
Tip: Most teams hide the reviewer assessment from the reviewee until both sides have submitted.
This gives managers access to the Self-Assessment as soon as it’s completed, allowing them to anticipate misalignments and tailor their feedback accordingly.
Choose your questionnaire
If you created a Review questionnaire template in advance, you'll see it here. You can also use one of Small Improvements' built-in templates or build a questionnaire from scratch.
Note: Creating a custom questionnaire here will not save it as a template. That's why we recommend creating a template before setting up a Review Cycle. You can update the questionnaire after the Cycle has been created, so feel free to select any template for now if you're not ready.
Set the cycle’s timeline
For a full overview of timeline settings, see here.
Self-Assessments and manager assessments open on the Cycle Start date. You can enable an automatic launch email, or leave this unchecked to send notifications manually. To start the Cycle immediately, set the start date to a date in the past.
The Deadline for Reviewees is the date by which reviewees must share their Self-Assessments. The Deadline for Reviewers is the date by which reviewers must 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. See here for instructions on granting extensions.
If you enable a Grace Period, deadlines become soft, and employees can submit until the grace period ends. Grace periods are not visible to employees; they will only see the original deadline in notifications and throughout the platform.
Once both parties have shared, reviewees and reviewers are asked to sign the review. The Everyone Should Sign By date is when signing closes and the Cycle locks.
Tip: Signing typically happens after the reviewee and reviewer have met to discuss the Feedback. It indicates that the Feedback has been received and understood by both parties.
Calibration cycles include a few extra timeline settings. Please have a look here for more details.
Set up reminders
Enabling "get started" nudges sends reviewees and reviewers weekly reminders about assessments they have not yet started.
Enabling "start sharing" nudges sends reviewers weekly reminders about 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 subscription level.
Email notifications can also be edited at the account level if you want changes to apply to all current and future Cycles. Learn more here.
Launch your Cycle
When you're ready, click the Create Cycle button at the bottom of the screen.
If your Cycle is starting immediately, you'll have the option to notify participants right away, or you can uncheck the boxes to create the Cycle without sending notifications.
When you're ready to notify participants, use the Notify menu in the upper right corner of the Cycle overview page.
Use the Admin dropdown to make any changes, such as updating the questionnaire or adjusting the timeline.
For guidance on tracking participation and analyzing results, see our article on Performance Review Analytics.