How to Create and Manage Review Cycles
Learn how to create Review Cycles that assign an Assessment Template to employees, teams or your organisation and control the timing and deadlines for the review process.
Understanding Review Cycles
Review Cycles turn an Assessment Template into an actual performance review process.
The Assessment Template defines what will be assessed and discussed.
The Review Cycle defines who will complete the assessment and when.
A Review Cycle brings these together by selecting the people involved, the Assessment Template they'll use, the timeframe for the process and the deadlines for employees and managers.
Before creating a Review Cycle
You need an Assessment Template before you can create and launch a Review Cycle.
If you haven't created one yet, go to Settings > Assessment Templates first.
The Assessment Templates help guide explains how to create and customise a template. It's worth completing that step before returning to Review Cycles.
Review Cycles aren't just for annual reviews
Although Review Cycles can be used for your organisation's annual performance review, they can also support much shorter or more targeted processes.
For example, you could create a 30-Day Performance Improvement Review for an individual employee, a 90-Day Onboarding Review for a new employee, a quarterly review for a particular team, a six-month leadership review or a project-based assessment.
This allows you to use the same review process for different performance and development situations without treating every assessment as an annual review.
Viewing your Review Cycles
Open Settings and select Review Cycles.
Existing Review Cycles show key information about each process, including its name, status, type, dates and review deadlines.
This gives administrators a central place to see the review processes that have been created.
Creating a Review Cycle
Select Create Review Cycle to begin.
Start with a clear name that explains the purpose of the review.
For example:
90-Day Onboarding Review
A descriptive name makes the cycle easier to identify later, particularly when your organisation has several different review processes running throughout the year.
Choosing who will participate
Select who the Review Cycle should be assigned to.
A cycle can be targeted to particular individuals or teams, or assigned more broadly across your organisation.
For example, a 90-day onboarding review might be assigned to one new employee.
A Performance Improvement Review may also apply to a single employee.
A quarterly review could be assigned to a particular team.
An organisation-wide annual review can be assigned to All MyHub Users.
This gives you flexibility to use Review Cycles for both individual and organisation-wide performance processes.
Selecting the Assessment Template
Select the Assessment Template you want participants to complete.
This is a required part of creating the Review Cycle.
For example, a 90-day onboarding cycle should use the Assessment Template you've created for onboarding, while an individual performance improvement cycle might use a Performance Improvement Review template.
The selected template determines the competencies, questions and assessment structure employees and managers will complete.
Selecting the Review Cycle type
Choose the type that best describes the review process.
Available types include Annual, Semi-Annual, Quarterly, Probation and Project Based.
The type provides context for the cycle. It doesn't prevent you from creating a review with a timeframe that suits your particular process.
Understanding Review Cycle status
A Review Cycle can move through different statuses, including Draft, Active, In Review, Completed and Cancelled.
The Review Cycle status describes the overall process.
This is different from the status of an individual employee's review within that cycle.
For example, the overall cycle may be active while some employees have already submitted their self-assessments and others haven't yet started.
Setting the Review Cycle timeframe
Set the start and end dates for the Review Cycle.
These dates should reflect the process you're running.
For a 90-day onboarding review, the timeframe might correspond with the employee's first 90 days.
For a 30-day performance improvement process, the dates can reflect that shorter period.
For an annual review, the cycle may cover a much broader timeframe.
Setting the employee self-review deadline
Set the deadline for employees to complete their self-assessment.
This establishes when employees should have reflected on their performance, completed the required questions and submitted their assessment to their manager.
Allow enough time for employees to provide thoughtful responses rather than treating the self-assessment as an administrative exercise.
Setting the manager review deadline
Set a separate deadline for managers to complete their part of the review.
The manager deadline should normally be later than the employee self-review deadline.
This allows the employee to complete and submit their self-assessment before their manager completes the manager assessment.
For example, employees might have until Friday to complete their self-assessment, with managers given until the following Friday to complete their review.
Checking the Review Cycle before launch
Before launching the cycle, check that the right people have been selected, the correct Assessment Template is attached and the dates and deadlines are appropriate.
This is particularly important for larger Review Cycles where the assessment may be distributed across many employees.
For an individual process, such as a 30-day Performance Improvement Review, also check that the cycle has been assigned only to the intended employee.
Launching the Review Cycle
Once the Review Cycle is ready, it can be launched.
The required assessments are created for the employees included in the cycle.
Employees can then complete their self-assessment using the selected Assessment Template.
When an employee submits their self-assessment, it moves to the person they've selected as their manager for the manager stage of the review.
The manager can then complete their assessment, provide ratings and comments, and ultimately send the completed review back to the employee.
The Performance Reviews help guide explains this employee and manager process in more detail.
Monitoring an active Review Cycle
Once a Review Cycle is underway, administrators can monitor progress through Reports.
This is particularly useful when a cycle involves multiple employees.
You can see which employee self-assessments have been completed, which manager reviews remain outstanding and where deadlines have passed.
The Overdue Reviews report can also be used to identify outstanding reviews and send reminders.
Editing Review Cycles
Review Cycle information can be managed from the Review Cycles area.
Take particular care when changing a cycle that's already underway because employees may already have started or completed assessments based on the existing configuration.
Where possible, confirm the template, participants, dates and deadlines before launching the cycle.
Examples of Review Cycles
Review Cycles can support a wide range of performance processes.
A 30-Day Performance Improvement Review might be assigned to one employee using a template focused on specific expectations and progress.
A 90-Day Onboarding Review might assess how a new employee is settling into their role and identify where further support is needed.
A Quarterly Sales Review might be assigned to the sales team using a template focused on performance, goals and development.
An Annual Performance Review might be assigned across the entire organisation using your standard annual Assessment Template.
How the review process fits together
The complete process starts with Assessment Templates, where you define what employees and managers will assess.
Review Cycles determine who will complete that assessment and when.
Reviews is where employees and managers actually complete the assessment process.
Reports allows administrators to monitor progress, identify overdue reviews and review the results.
Together, these areas allow you to create anything from a short individual assessment through to an organisation-wide annual performance review.