Performance reviews beyond traditional organizational structures

Performance reviews for all organizational structures

With the launch of Custom Reviewers, a powerful addition to our Performance Reviews module, Small Improvements now supports performance evaluations for all types of organizational structures.

by Kelly Han

In today’s business landscape, many organizations are adopting new ways of operating and distributing work. From talking to our customers, we’ve seen an increase in matrix structures, flatter hierarchies, and self-managing teams. And with this comes the need to rethink the performance review process.

Traditionally, performance reviews are tied to the management structure and employees receive feedback from a direct line manager. But as new types of organizational structures emerge, employee performance can be evaluated by various types of managers or different members of the team.

With the launch of Custom Reviewers, a powerful addition to our Performance Reviews module, Small Improvements now supports performance evaluations for all types of organizations.

Run reviews beyond traditional org structures

People Operations leaders are able to choose a reviewer outside of an employee’s reporting chain, such as a project lead. This is particularly useful for organizations operating under a matrix structure composed of both functional and project teams. Now you can run reviews for both to give employees more comprehensive evaluations and feedback. Alternatively, an additional reviewer may also contribute feedback to a performance appraisal. You can learn more about Small Improvements’ easy Performance Review process here.

Custom Reviewers also enables organizations to run ad hoc reviews outside of company-wide cycles. Perhaps an employee participated in a one-time project or works closely with a colleague who should contribute a performance assessment. People Operations leaders can easily kick off a review cycle independent of the org chart.

Additionally, Custom Reviewers caters to performance review processes in holacratic organizations, organizations with flatter hierarchies, and for employees without a specific manager, such as the CEO. People Operations leaders have the flexibility to assign the most suitable reviewer, ensuring everyone has an opportunity to receive valuable feedback.

Adjust reviews to organizational changes

As your organization scales, selecting custom reviewers allows you to configure review cycles to adapt to your changing teams. For example, when there is a change in manager, setting a custom reviewer allows you to decide which person is best equipped to evaluate an employee.

People Operations leaders can easily edit reviewers even after a review cycle has been created. The new reviewer will be able to provide their evaluation while maintaining read and write access for the employee’s previous line manager. This gives employees the most relevant appraisal and allows a new manager to get up to speed on an employee’s recent performance.

Ready to get started?

If you are a Small Improvements customer, learn how you can set up Custom Reviewers for your upcoming review cycle.

Interested in learning more about how Small Improvements can support your unique organizational structure? See it in action here!

by Kelly Han

Discover more articles

Search, Upgraded.

Ever wanted to search for more than just a user name on our overview screens? We’re excited to introduce the ability of combined search criteria! Our latest small improvement enables you to search specific columns, add departments and even filter by status and location, in combination. That way, you can define whether you mean Chris the reviewee, the…

Setting goals, the SMART way

Setting goals, the SMART way

Want real results? Then setting realistic and achievable SMART goals is the way to go. Here is an outline of the process and best practices to get you started.

Simple Objective Alignment

Does your company have overarching goals that you’d like employees to align with? We’ve shipped some neat improvements to our objectives module that will help you. Improved alignment We added categories and ratings to objective cycles last week. This allows for lean objective alignment towards your quarterly company goals: When employees are creating objectives, they’ll…

Unlock your company’s full potential