Performance Reviews: Cycles, Goals & Ratings

Performance reviews live under Human Resources → Overview → Performance Reviews. HR lands on the list of review cycles, a line manager lands on the reviews waiting for them, and employees find their own under the My Reviews self-service tab. A cycle has a name, the period it covers, and optional due dates for the self-review and for the manager’s review. It also has a rating scale — 1 to 3, 4, 5 or 10 — which every rating in the cycle, including the overall rating, must fall within.

You can limit a cycle to one department; otherwise it covers everyone on probation or active. You then list the goals everyone starts with, one per line, and add a weight after a bar to count a goal more heavily — “Quality of work | 2” counts double. Saving leaves the cycle as a draft; nothing reaches anyone until you choose Open cycle. Opening creates one review per employee in scope, each carrying the starting goals. People hired, or moved into the department, after the cycle opened can be brought in with Add employees now in scope while it is still open.

In practice: a Nairobi logistics company sets up “H2 2026 review” for its Operations department, covering July to December, on a 1-to-5 scale, with the self-review due 15 January and the manager’s review due 31 January. Its starting goals are “On-time dispatch | 3”, “Safety and compliance | 2” and “Teamwork | 1”. Opening it creates 46 reviews. Two drivers who join Operations in the second week of January are added with Add employees now in scope and receive the same three goals.

The reviewer is the employee’s line manager, when that manager has an active login. Otherwise the review goes to the HR team. A manager is never asked to review themselves, so the review of someone recorded as their own manager also goes to HR. This is why line managers must be set on employee records before a cycle opens: opened too early, every review lands with HR. HR can act as reviewer on any review, and can hand a review to someone else — for example when a manager changes or leaves — choosing anyone with an active login except the employee being reviewed.

A line manager needs no HR permission to review their own team: being the review’s reviewer is the check. A self-review is asked only of employees who have a way to reach their reviews; an employee who has none goes straight to their reviewer, so a review is never stuck waiting for a self-review that could not be written. Everyone involved is notified when a review is waiting for them, and the review page always shows whose turn it is.

In practice: in the H2 cycle, warehouse supervisor Faith reviews her eight pickers because she is their line manager and has an active login. The night-shift lead, Musa, has no login, so his five team members’ reviews go to the HR team. Ten casual loaders have no way to reach their reviews, so their reviews start directly with their reviewer. In January Faith moves to the Mombasa depot; HR reassigns her eight open reviews to her successor, who is told about each one already waiting for his assessment.

Every review follows the same broad path — goals, self-review, the reviewer’s assessment, acknowledgement — and the review page shows which stage it is at. The goals start as the cycle’s starting goals, and the reviewer can add, reword, reweight or remove goals on their own reviews so they fit the person. Once an employee has rated a goal it can no longer be removed, only reworded, because removing it would silently delete their rating. A goal added after the self-review is marked as such, because the employee never rated it.

In the self-review the employee rates each goal, adds comments and a summary, and submits. Their work is saved as they go, so a half-finished self-review is not lost. Submitting needs every goal rated, and a refused submit keeps everything typed so far. When a self-review is holding a review up — a long absence, or someone who simply will not complete it — the reviewer or HR can move the review on without it, and the employee cannot add one afterwards.

In practice: Faith adds a fourth goal, “Train two new pickers | 1”, to one picker’s review before he starts his self-review, and reweights “Teamwork” to 2 for another. Picker Brian rates three of his four goals on 10 January, saves and comes back on the 12th to rate the last and submit. When Faith later tries to remove “Safety and compliance” from Brian’s review she is refused, because he has rated it; she rewords it instead. One picker on extended sick leave has not started by 20 January, so Faith moves his review on without a self-review.

In the reviewer’s assessment, the reviewer rates each goal, gives an overall rating within the cycle’s scale, writes a summary, and completes the review. The review cannot be completed without an overall rating. Alongside the goal ratings, the review shows a weighted average of the reviewer’s goal ratings as a guide — but the overall rating is the reviewer’s own judgement, not that number, so a reviewer can weigh things the goals do not capture and say so in the summary.

The reviewer’s ratings are hidden from the employee until the review is complete. That is deliberate: an employee who could watch their manager’s ratings appear while writing their own self-review would anchor on them, and a manager halfway through an assessment should not have half a verdict on show. People with the permission to view performance reviews can read reviews, including the reviewer’s ratings, without changing them; people who manage performance reviews can act as reviewer on any review. Once the review is complete, the employee sees the whole of it.

In practice: Faith rates Brian 4 on on-time dispatch (weight 3), 5 on safety (weight 2), 3 on teamwork (weight 1) and 4 on training (weight 1). The weighted guide shows 4.14. Faith gives an overall rating of 4 and writes in her summary that teamwork improved late in the period. While she was still rating, Brian’s My Reviews page showed only his own ratings; the moment she completes the review he is notified and can read all of hers.

When a review is complete the employee is notified, reads the review, and acknowledges it with an optional response of their own. The response is the employee’s voice on the record — agreement, context, or disagreement — and it sits beside the reviewer’s summary rather than changing it. While the cycle is open, whoever an overdue step is waiting on is reminded, at most every three days per review. The due dates are what “overdue” is measured against, so a cycle with no due dates sends no reminders.

Closing a cycle locks it. Reviews that were finished stay as they are, and reviews still in progress are marked Not completed. Nothing in a closed cycle can change afterwards, so chase outstanding reviews before you close. Permissions are simple: managing performance reviews covers creating, opening and closing cycles, adding employees, acting as reviewer and reassigning; viewing them is read-only; reviewing your own performance is the My Reviews tab, for the self-review and acknowledgement; and line managers review the people assigned to them with no permission needed. The common mistakes are opening a cycle before managers are set, expecting self-reviews from staff with no way to reach them, closing on the due date while reviews are in progress, and leaving out the due dates.

In practice: the manager’s review for the H2 cycle is due 31 January. On 3 February, six reviews are still waiting on a reviewer; each reviewer is reminded that day and again three days later if nothing moves. HR plans to close the cycle on 10 February, checks the list on the 9th, and finds two still in progress. Rather than close and have them locked as Not completed, HR reassigns one to a deputy and chases the other, then closes on the 12th with all 48 reviews complete and 41 acknowledged.