Create review cycles in greytHR

Updated in November - 2024  | Subscribe to watch greytHR how-to video

A review cycle is an organization's evaluation period set up for employees. Review cycles are like regular check-ins to see how employees are performing. The cycle defines the review process by assigning assessors, timelines, and performance categories for specific employee groups. This helps managers give feedback, track progress, and set new goals. 

As an admin, you can manage and control the activities that the employees, assessors, and admins can perform for the Reviews feature from the User Roles page. The page allows you to control access to activities such as Review Configurations and Review Statistics.

Create review cycle

To create the review cycle from the greytHR Admin portal, go to Performance Management > Reviews > Create Cycle.

Let us now set up each stage of the review cycle.

Add cycle details

To start setting up the review cycle, as a first step add the cycle details and attach guidelines for employees, assessors, or reviewers.

Select employees

Under this section, you must select the employees who are enrolled for the selected goal plan. You can also add a new set of employees by clicking +.

Note:

1. The Until option allows you to select a date that includes all employees up to that selected date. 

2. The From and To option allows you to choose a date range to include employees within that specific period.

Add Assessors

You must add assessors to evaluate employees' performances. By default, three levels of assessors are set. You can also choose to add more.

Here are the key points to keep in mind while setting up the assessors section:

• The Self Assessor is always the employee, who can rate and comment. You cannot change this, but you can easily add the weightage you need to suit your process.

• For Assessor 1, you can choose the role, actions, and set the weightage as needed. 

• Use the + Add Assessor option to add more assessors based on your company policy.

• For each assessor, you can choose actions Can Rate and Comment or Can Override. When you choose the override option, it replaces the ratings and comments of the previous assessor. 

• For the Final Assessor, you can change the role but the Actions are set by default as Can Approve and Publish.

• You cannot add weightage for the final assessor.  

• You must ensure that the weightage values add up to a total of 100.

• Assessors with Can Rate and Comment can be assigned weightage. Assessors with Can Override cannot have weightage.

Set Timelines

After adding the assessors, set a time frame for them to complete the reviews.

For example, once the review window opens, each assessor takes their turn, one after the other, to complete their review.

Note:

• Assessors receive email notifications as reminders informing them about the opening of the assessment window and also alerting them about the closing date of the assessment window.

• If an assessor completes the assessment before the set time then the assessment window for the next level of assessor activates before the set time. 

Define Rating Scale

Here you must set up the score for the reviews.

Choose a scoring range, which can be 1 to 5 or 1 to 10.

Next, decide how you want the final score to show:

• A whole number

• With one decimal place (like 4.5)

• With two decimal places (like 4.55)

Finally, add a short description for each score to explain its meaning.

Create Performance Categories

You evaluate an employee's overall performance using the categories you set up here. For example, you might create categories like teamwork, productivity, and communication. The employee’s final performance will be based on how well they score in each of these areas.

By default, the system includes a Goals category and automatically tracks goal plans based on their timeline and type. You can further customize it as per your requirements.

Select Recommendations

This section allows you to set up recommendations for employee performance reviews. Here, you decide what kind of actions or outcomes can follow an employee’s self-assessment.

For example, after the self-assessor (the employee) completes their review, the system can recommend actions based on their performance. As an admin, you can set recommendations such as:

• Salary Increment for high performers

• Change in Designation or Position for those ready to take on new roles

• PDP (Performance Development Plan) for employees needing skill-building

• PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) for those who need closer guidance

Beyond recommendations, you also control the permissions of the assessors:

• Assessors can add recommendations but cannot override previous inputs.

• The Final Assessor cannot add new recommendations but can override those made by other assessors.

• You can also control the recommendations that can be shown for the employees in their ESS portal.

This setup ensures reviews are fair and lead to meaningful outcomes, with clear roles for each assessor in the process.

Performance Document Controls

Now you must set up what assessors can see in their performance documents.

Here is how it works:

• For the Self Assessor (the employee), the system automatically shows Ratings and Comments.

• For Assessor 1, you can choose what they can view Ratings, Comments, Ratings and Comments, or Not Visible.

• If you've added more assessors, you can set their visibility in the same way.

By default, the system sets the Final Assessor to Not Applicable, which means they do not see specific ratings or comments unless you make changes.

This way, you can choose what each assessor sees, so they only get the information they need for their part in the review.

Summary 

Once you have set up the review cycle, check its summary to ensure everything is correct.

You can click → to make changes to any of the review cycle stages.

When you Save the cycle, it moves to the Draft tab, where you can still make changes. But once you Activate it, you cannot edit the cycle.

The final step is to activate the review cycle to get it started.

Activate the review cycle

After creating the review cycle, you must activate it from the Draft tab.

Here’s what you can do after activating the review cycle:

• Pause/Resume/Cancel review cycle

• Clone the review cycle

• Notify employees/assessors/admins to perform assessments

• Notify/Pause employees’ review cycles

• Reopen employees’ review cycles

• Review and publish assessment

Other related links:

• Manage review cycles

Was this article helpful?

More help resources:

▶ Video - Watch our how-to videos to learn more about greytHR.

❓ FAQs - Solve your queries using FAQs.

📢 Product Update - Read about the product updates.