Creating and managing performance review cycles

With 360 reviews, Workable redefines how performance conversations happen. By integrating peer and upward feedback directly into the Performance module, you can now capture every voice, delivering transparency, recognition, and actionable insight in one seamless flow.

Creating a performance review cycle is essential for assessing employee performance, aligning goals, and promoting a culture of communication, development, and accountability. As an HR Admin, you can set up performance review cycles tailored to your organization's needs. This allows for distinct processes for different employment types (full-time, contractors, etc), entities, locations, or departments.

Performance Reviews is an HR add-on, meaning that it’s available only to customers with an active Workable HR subscription. More specifically, Performance Reviews are:

• Included for free with the Workable HR Premier plan.

• Available for self-service purchase via the Plan page for Standard plans (with Workable HR purchased), with the price calculated based on your company size. 

To get started, navigate to the Employees tab of the main menu and select Performance to view, manage, and create performance cycles for the organization.

Creating a performance review cycle

Performance review cycles can include feedback from multiple perspectives - self, manager, peer, and upward -offering a complete view of employee performance. To start crafting a new review cycle, click Create review cycle on the upper right of the Performance tab and follow the five-step wizard:

Step 1: Details

Fill out the review cycle details:

• Review cycle name: This name will be shown to employees when asked to complete their reviews.
• Period under review: Select the range of dates that employees should focus on when writing their reviews. This date range will be visible to employees. For an annual review, this period would run from January 1 to December 31 of the review year. 
• Description (coming soon): Add a description to help employees understand the purpose, timeline, or focus of this review cycle. It will appear in the cycle details and be visible to everyone involved.
• Review type: Select which review types to include: Self, Manager, Peer, and/or Upward. Combining all four creates a 360-degree feedback cycle.

Step 2: Templates

In this step, select what templates should be used in this review and how answers should be rated.

For each review type, select the template you would like to use. You can also configure the settings below separately for each review type.

For the self-review and manager review:

• Allow managers to customize review forms for each employee
• Allow reviewees to edit shared reviews

For the upward review:

• Allow managers to customize review forms for each employee
• Allow employees to edit submitted reviews
• Make reviews anonymous

For the peer review:

• Limit peers per review
• Allow managers to customize review forms for each employee
• Allow peers to edit submitted reviews.
• Make reviews anonymous

Step 3: Employees

In this step, choose which employees to include in this review cycle.

• All employees: All your active employees will participate in this review cycle.
• Individual employees: Add any individual employees who will participate in this review cycle.
• Custom: Select which types of employees (Full-Time, Part-Time, Contractor) and/or which entities, locations, and departments of employees to include in this review cycle.

When viewing the list of employees in a cycle, you can use advanced filtering options to get the employees needed. You can filter by: Manager to see their full reporting line and your Direct reports, or your reporting line. This makes it easier to focus on the right group of employees when managing larger cycles.

You can also exclude employees who should not be included in this review cycle. You can exclude specific employees manually or based on their start date. In the example below, employees who started their roles after September 30 are not required to participate in this review cycle.

Step 4: Timeline

Choose the timelines for when your employees should prepare, write, submit, share, and sign their reviews based on the review types you have selected.

Prepare reviews (only for Managers)

This option will appear only if you allow managers to customize self-review and/or manager review templates in step 2.

The preparation start date is when managers will be notified to customize the review template for each direct report with questions and sections specific to each individual’s role and responsibilities. If necessary, you can manually start the preparation period. The preparation deadline is the date by which all managers are expected to complete customizing the templates.

Write reviews

While the review cycle is active, employees can write, submit, share and sign their reviews. Choose the start date and deadline (both date and time) for when each of these actions should be completed.

In the example below, the timeline will look like this:

• The performance reviews will begin on Nov 10. Employees and managers will receive notifications to start their reviews at that time.

• Self-reviews are due by Nov 14. Employees will receive a reminder 3 days before this deadline.
• Upward reviews are due by Nov 18. Employees will be notified 3 days before this deadline.
• Peer reviews are due by Nov 20. Peer reviewers will be notified 3 days before this deadline.
• Manager reviews are due by Nov 28. Managers will receive a reminder 3 days before this deadline.

Note: Allowing late submissions gives employees extra time to complete their reviews, accommodating unexpected delays (e.g., scheduling conflicts, workload demands). This option is not displayed to employees, enabling them to stick to original deadlines and maintain consistency in the review timeline, thus preventing potential delays.

Review sharing

You can set a sharing start date during the cycle setup. When managers submit their reviews, they won’t be able to immediately share them with their direct reports. Instead, they’ll need to wait until the sharing period officially begins.

The sharing period can be set up to be "after the submission" or "on a set day". Once the sharing period starts, the system will automatically notify all managers, prompting them to start sharing reviews with their teams.

Sign review

If this setting is enabled, employees and reviewers will be asked to sign reviews after they've been shared to confirm they've discussed and agreed on the results. Employees and managers will receive a reminder 3 days before this deadline.

Timezone

Choose the timezone that will apply to the review cycle’s start and end dates, as well as all related deadlines. Everyone will share the same deadlines, but each employee will see them automatically adjusted to their own timezone, based on what’s set in their profile.

Step 5: Summary

See a summary of your performance review cycle based on what you've selected in the previous steps, along with a visual timeline representation. Click 'Done' to save your settings.

Managing performance review cycles

Once a review cycle is created, it will appear as scheduled until the review start date. HR Admins have full control over performance review cycles, and they can view, edit, start, end, duplicate, archive, or delete them as needed (under the three dots menu ).

FAQs

Is it possible to edit a review cycle once it has started?

When a review cycle is active, you can only edit the details, assigned employees, and timeline.

Settings such as templates will be shown as greyed out, and you won't be able to edit them.

Can I save a review cycle as draft?

Yes, a review cycle can be saved as a draft and revisited later to complete the edits anytime.

Who receives email notifications during the performance review cycle?

You can view all email notifications sent during a performance review cycle and see who receives them here.

Can I configure ratings per section or question?

Yes! Once you add your sections and questions, you can configure whether you need a rating for them and which particular rating format to use.

How does reviewer anonymity work?

If reviews are set to be anonymous, the reviewer names are hidden for everyone and the anonymity is preserved globally: HR admins, managers, and employees cannot infer who wrote which feedback.