Performance for managers
What you are responsible for in a review cycle, and the small number of decisions that determine whether the resulting data is worth anything.
Where: Performance › Team You need: the manager right, covering your team
What you own
| Your job | |
|---|---|
| Goals | Agree them at the start, track them through, rate them at the end |
| Assessments | Complete your part after the employee completes theirs |
| Feedback | Request it about your people from those who work with them |
| Score cards | Understand how your ratings combine into someone's overall rating |
The one number that matters most
Your ratings do not stand alone. Each person's overall rating is a weighted blend of their self-assessment, your assessment, their goal ratings, and feedback about them. Your company sets the weights.
Find out what those weights are before your first cycle. If goals are weighted heavily, sloppy goal-setting in January is the problem, not generous rating in December. See Score cards.
Rate consciously, not kindly
Ratings run 1 to 5 and map straight onto bands:
| Rating | Band |
|---|---|
| 1–2 | Below |
| 3 | Meets — the bottom of it |
| 4–5 | Exceeds |
⚠️ A 4 puts someone in Exceeds. Reviewers who use 4 to mean "good, no complaints" move their whole team into the top band. That is unfair to the people genuinely exceeding, and it makes the company's data useless for any decision it might inform.
The most common problem in performance data is not harshness — it is that reviewers use the scale differently from each other. One generous manager shifts their whole team relative to their peers, invisibly.
Through the cycle, not at the end
Set goals at the start. A goal agreed in the final month is a description of what happened.
Use priority deliberately. Critical counts four times Minor. Two or three Critical goals per person is usually right; making everything Critical switches weighting off.
Check progress monthly. The entire value of a goal is that it can change what someone does, and that needs looking at while there is still time.
Request feedback close to the event. Feedback on a project three months later is memory, not observation.
Reviewing
- Filter your team by state — pending on reviewer is your queue.
- Read the employee's own answers first.
- Complete your part and submit.
- Check your team's distribution before you finish. If everyone is a 4, ask whether that is true.
Clearing the reviewer queue first is the fastest goodwill available to you — those are people who have done their part and are waiting.
Tips
- Calibrate with other managers before the cycle closes. A short conversation about what 3 and 4 mean does more for data quality than anything in the configuration.
- Write comments for the employee, not the file. They will read it.
- Do not rate everyone identically to avoid difficult conversations. A flat distribution removes your ability to recognise anyone.
- Do all your reviews in one sitting. Reviews written across three weeks are inconsistent with each other.
- Know what the cycle is for — development or pay. It changes what you should write.
Troubleshooting / FAQ
Q: I cannot see a team member. Check your rights cover them and they are in the cycle.
Q: A cycle is stuck pending on the employee. They have not completed their part. The state names who is holding it.
Q: My whole team scored highly. Is that a problem? Possibly the assessment design — multi-select questions award maximum to everyone. Check before concluding anything about your team.
Q: Can I change a rating after submitting? Scores recompute from current data, so a change moves the result. Treat submission as final except for genuine errors.
Q: An employee disagrees with their rating. That is a conversation. The record holds both their answers and yours.