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Guide
Run a review cycle
Create a performance review cycle, launch it, have people and their reviewers write, calibrate the ratings if you use that, and get each review shared with its person.
Before you start
- A role with the permission to manage employee reviews. It shows HR & TalentReview Cycles in your menu, and a “Manage review cycles” button on My WorkReviews. The built-in HR manager role has it.
- Each person’s manager set on their file. At launch, a person’s manager becomes their reviewer.
- Email set up, so people are told when the cycle launches. See Set up email.
- Optional: goals recorded in My WorkMy Goals. They are shown beside each review.
Create the cycle
Step 1: Start a new cycle
Go to HR & TalentReview Cycles and click “New review cycle”. Enter a “Name” and a “Period”, and set “Self reviews due” and “Reviewers due”. The reviewers’ date cannot be before the self-review date.
To review one department only, pick it under “Only this department (leave empty for everyone)”.
Your instance also starts with draft review cycles you can edit instead of starting from nothing.
Step 2: Write the questions
Under “Questions”, edit the wording and optional hint of each question, or click “Add a question”. You can have up to 12. The same questions are asked of both the person and their reviewer.
Step 3: Choose the options
- “Reviewers give an overall rating (1 to 5)”.
- “HR calibrates ratings before reviewers can share”: available when ratings are on. You can then set a “Target spread of ratings” to “Show as a guide”; the five shares must add up to 100%. It is a guide and nothing is blocked by it.
- “The person and the reviewer also rate each goal”.
- “Feedback from colleagues”: “Not used”, “For the reviewer only”, or “Also shown to the person, without names”.
Click “Save”. The cycle is a “Draft”. Nobody is told until you launch it.
Step 4: Launch it
On the cycle’s row, click “Launch” and confirm. Every active person in the audience gets a self review and is told by email. Their manager becomes their reviewer.
After launch the questions, the rating switch and who is reviewed cannot change. Only the name and the dates can. A draft that was never launched can be removed with “Delete”.Step 5: Assign missing reviewers
The launch message tells you how many people have no manager and need a reviewer. Click “Progress” on the cycle, find the rows marked “No reviewer”, click “Assign” and pick the reviewer.
For people who join later, click “Add new people” on the open cycle. Anyone active without a review in this cycle gets one; nobody else is affected.
People and reviewers write
Step 6: The self review
Each person opens My WorkReviews and, under “My reviews”, clicks “Write self review”. “Save draft” keeps it private. “Submit” lets their reviewer read it and locks it.
The steps for the person and the reviewer are in Complete a performance review.
Step 7: The reviewer's review
The reviewer finds the person under “Reviews to write” and clicks “Write”. They see the self review once it is submitted, answer the same questions, choose an “Overall rating” if the cycle uses one, and click “Submit”. The person still cannot see it.
Step 8: Ask colleagues, if the cycle uses feedback
In the same dialog, under “Feedback from colleagues”, the reviewer picks people in “Ask colleagues” and clicks “Ask”, up to 8 per review. Each colleague finds the request under “Feedback to give”, and can “Submit” or “Decline”. Declining needs no reason.
The reviewer reads submitted feedback with names. The person is never told who was asked.
Calibrate and release (calibrated cycles only)
Step 9: Compare the ratings
Click “Calibrate” on the cycle. You see the “Spread of ratings”, the average “By reviewer”, the ratings “Against the target spread” if you set one, and every person’s rating. Your own review, if you have one in the cycle, is not listed.
Step 10: Change a rating, with a reason
Click “Change” on a row, pick the “New rating” and write the “Reason (the reviewer reads this)”. The reviewer sees your change and the reason. The person sees the final rating only.
Step 11: Run the fairness check
Back on the cycle’s row, click “Fairness check” to see how groups of people came out. To keep it as a record, add a note and click “Save this check”. A saved check cannot be changed or deleted.
Step 12: Release the ratings
In the calibration view, click “Release ratings” and confirm with “Release”. Reviewers are told by email and can now share.
A release cannot be taken back. Reviews not yet submitted at that point will not have been calibrated; the confirmation tells you how many.
Share and close
Step 13: Reviewers share
The reviewer opens the review again (the button now reads “Share”) and clicks “Share with …”. The person can then read the reviewer’s answers and the rating under “My reviews”.
In a cycle without calibration, a reviewer can share as soon as they have submitted.
Step 14: Send something back, if needed
In “Progress”, “Reopen self” returns a submitted self review to the person and “Reopen review” returns a submitted review to the reviewer. “Reassign” changes the reviewer on a review that has not been shared; a half-written review by the previous reviewer is discarded.
“Read” opens a review in full. Each read is recorded in the audit log.
Step 15: Close the cycle
Click “Close” on the cycle and confirm with “Close cycle”. Nobody can write or share any more. Reviews already shared stay visible to the people they belong to.
What you should see
The cycle’s row counts self reviews in, reviews written and reviews shared. In “Progress”, each person moves from “Self review not in” to “With the reviewer”, “Ready to share” and “Shared”.
Each person sees “Shared with you” on their review once their reviewer has shared it.
If something goes wrong
- A reviewer has submitted but has no way to share.
- The cycle is calibrated and the ratings are not released yet. The reviewer sees "Submitted. HR is calibrating ratings across the cycle; you can share once they release them." Release the ratings from Calibrate.
- A person has "no reviewer yet".
- They had no manager when the cycle launched. Open Progress and click Assign on their row.
- The Submit button is greyed out.
- Every question needs an answer, and a reviewer must choose an overall rating if the cycle uses one.
- Someone submitted too early and wants to change it.
- Submitting locks it. In Progress, click Reopen self or Reopen review. Reopening a reviewer’s half starts it over, and a calibration change made on the old rating goes with it.
- The person sees no colleague feedback after the review was shared.
- It is shown to the person only when the cycle is set to "Also shown to the person, without names" and at least 3 colleagues wrote something.
- The questions cannot be edited.
- The cycle is launched. After launch the questions, the rating switch and who is reviewed are fixed; only the name and dates can change.
- There is no Fairness check or Calibrate button on the cycle.
- Fairness check appears on a launched cycle that uses ratings. Calibrate appears on a launched cycle with calibration switched on.
Still stuck? See When something goes wrong, or Contact Zonitix support.