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All-in-one HR platform · v2.0
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All-in-one HR platform · v2.0
14-day free trial · No credit cardhello@HrMagix.com
An appraisal cycle is a project with many contributors and one owner. It stalls in predictable places: managers who have not finished their reviews, a calibration meeting nobody prepared for, and a gap between ratings being final and increment letters going out.
This guide covers the logistics of the cycle. The performance reviews topic page covers how to have the conversation itself.
01
Before announcing anything, settle who is in the cycle. Most employers set an eligibility cut-off by date of joining, and decide separately what happens to people on probation, on long leave, or serving notice.
Then fix dates for each stage, working back from the date increments take effect. A cycle with dates only for the start and end will slip in the middle.
02
Use the KRAs or goals set at the start of the period as the basis for the form. If goals were never set, the cycle will be about impressions, and calibration will be argument.
Pull together what managers need before they start: each person's goals, any mid-year review notes, and recognition or feedback recorded during the year. A manager writing ten reviews from memory in one evening will rate the last two months, not the year.
03
Open the self-assessment window, then the manager window. Publish completion by team regularly to the leadership group. Completion is the stage that slips most.
Ask managers to write evidence for each rating, especially at the ends of the scale. A rating without a reason cannot be calibrated.
Watch for itDo not let managers see a proposed increment while writing the review. Ratings written backwards from a pay figure defeat the purpose of the review.
04
Calibration is the meeting where managers in a function compare ratings across teams, so that a given rating means the same thing everywhere. Bring the distribution of ratings by manager and the evidence for outliers.
Whether you use a guided distribution or none at all is an employer decision. Either way, the output of calibration is a final rating per person with a recorded reason for any change.
05
Once ratings are final, apply the increment and bonus rules approved for the cycle, get budget approval, and only then let managers hold conversations. A manager who shares a rating before the increment is approved invites a second conversation.
Issue increment letters with the effective date, and give payroll the revised salaries in good time. If the effective date is earlier than the month of processing, the difference is paid as arrears, which also changes the year's tax projection.
Every guide ends here rather than in a summary. If a line below is not true yet, that is the next thing to do.
Set eligibility and dates, prepare forms and evidence, run self-assessments, run manager reviews, calibrate, approve ratings and increments, hold conversations, and issue letters and revised salaries.
That is an employer decision. Most set a joining-date cut-off and separate rules for employees on probation, on long leave or serving notice. Write the rule down before the cycle opens.
Generally no. Sharing a rating before the pay outcome is fixed tends to lead to a second, harder conversation.
If the increment takes effect from an earlier month than the one in which it is processed, the difference for the intervening months is paid as arrears.
The checklist above is generic by necessity. Bring your own structures, states and rota and we will tell you which lines are already true and which are not.
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