Create a review cycle

What this achieves

A review cycle is one round of performance reviews, with its own phases, forms, participants, and rules. Creating it assembles all of that; launching it, which is a separate step, is what starts reviews for real people.

Required role: Administrator or Manager.

Before you start

Create the rating scale first — a cycle names the scale it uses, and reviews cannot be rated without one. Decide your phase dates and participant scope before you open the form.

Steps

Go to Performance → Cycles.
Create a new cycle.
Under Basics, enter the Name and Description, set the Review period start and Review period end, and choose the Rating scale.
Under Review forms, choose a Self review template and a Manager review template.
Under Participants, choose the scope — Departments, Teams, or specific employees.
Under Phases, set the Start and End of each phase.
Under Settings, set the per-cycle behaviours.
Select Create cycle.

Review forms

Option	Description
Self review template	The form employees complete about themselves.
Manager review template	The form managers complete about their reports.

Leaving a template blank skips that review. Choosing None for the self review template is how you run a manager-only cycle.

Phases must run in sequence

Each phase starts after the previous one ends, and the form rejects dates that overlap or run backwards. It tells you which phase is wrong and what it conflicts with.

Example: setting HC Corp UK Ltd’s manager review phase to begin before self assessment ends is rejected — manager review must start after self assessment finishes.

Settings

These are the per-cycle behaviours, and several change what people experience.

Option	Description
Include self review	Employees complete a self-assessment.
Include goal review	Reviewers rate goal outcomes as well as giving an overall rating.
Require manager comments	Managers must include written comments.
Allow manager to view self review	Managers can see the employee’s self review.
Enable forced distribution	Constrain ratings to target percentages.

Allow manager to view self review deserves a deliberate decision rather than a default. Whether a manager reads the employee’s own account before forming a rating changes both what the manager writes and what the employee is willing to say.

Example: with it switched on at HC Corp UK Ltd, Olivia Bennett reads James Whitfield’s self assessment alongside his goals before rating him. With it off, she rates independently and the two are compared afterwards.

Forced distribution

Switching on Enable forced distribution reveals a Target distribution, where you set a percentage against each rating level. The form shows the running total so you can see it reach 100%.

Agree these targets before the cycle opens. A manager who meets a constraint at the moment of rating experiences it as being overruled.

Participants

Scope by department or team, or search for specific employees to add. The scope is not resolved until you launch — the cycle holds the definition, and launching turns it into participant records.

What happens next

Creating the cycle leaves it in draft. Nothing has been sent to anyone and no participant records exist yet. Launching the cycle creates a participant record for every employee in scope and activates the first phase, and that is the point at which the cycle becomes real.