You're a manager here because someone reports to you, not because a role was switched on. Being given a report is what creates the My Reports perspective.
It takes nothing away from your own record: you still have a level, an assessment to write, and a manager reviewing you. See As an employee for that half.
Placing a new report on a track and level
They appear on My Reports as soon as a reporting line points at you, whether that came from their team or was set directly on their record. If someone you manage isn't there, fix the reporting line, not the team — see Teams.
Your first job is to place them on a track and level. No admin can do this for you, deliberately: you're the one who'll assess against it, so you decide which rung they're on. Until it's set, they have no expectations to read and no review can open.
Between reviews: log evidence as you go
Log evidence about your reports straight from the My Reports roster, without opening anyone's record. Do it in the moment — two sentences on what happened, tagged to a dimension if it maps to one. The alternative is writing an assessment from memory, and six months of memory is mostly the last three weeks.
Entries are shared with the person by default. "Don't share it yet" holds one back as a draft until it's ready, on the same terms in both directions — they can hold a draft back from you too. Citing a held-back entry as evidence in an assessment shares it permanently, behind a confirmation step. See Evidence.
Between reviews: keep the plan honest
Each report has at most one active plan, separate from their reviews. You create it, write and complete its focus areas, and add check-ins as things move. When they see something differently, note it in a check-in. They read the plan but don't write on it. Creating a new plan closes the current one and asks which unfinished focus areas to carry over, and you can also close a plan without replacing it. See Plan.
Every focus area requires your own commitment — something you'll do: unblock something, make time, change how a meeting runs. That field isn't decoration. It's what stops a plan becoming their homework with you inspecting it quarterly.
When something's done you record the outcome — achieved, partially achieved, continued, paused, or no longer relevant — and that sets the status at the same time, so nothing sits marked both finished and in progress. See Plan.
Starting a review
There's no scheduler and no nudge count. You start a review when you judge the conversation is ready, from My Reports → Start a review.
Setup asks for the person, confirmation of the track and level, a name, and a conversation date. Nothing is enforced on that date; it's what you're both aiming at, and you can move it later.
Two things to know before you click through:
- A record holds one open review at a time. You can't start a second until this one closes.
- Starting pins the framework version and level. The published version is already frozen, so re-versioning the track afterwards leaves this review alone, which is what lets a review from two years ago still read correctly. See The framework.
Starting it emails them that a review has opened, naming the level and nothing more.
Writing your assessment
The same screen and the same wording they see. There's no more clinical manager's version of the form.
You write blind and so do they. Neither side unlocks until both have submitted, with no override at any level, including yours.
Ratings off the middle of the scale — Developing, Strength, Next level — require evidence before you can submit. Cite something from the log, including something a teammate shared with you, or write it fresh. Submitting is final. See Assessments for the full scale and why that rule is there.
Running the alignment conversation
Once you've both submitted, Alignment opens with both columns side by side and an agenda built from the differences, the flags, and anything nobody rated. Read the agenda beforehand — it's the meeting's shortlist, not a script to work through live.
Afterwards you record the outcome for the review as a whole: exceeds, meets, partially meets, or does not yet meet expectations. There's no default selection and it's never calculated from the individual ratings. Someone has to choose. Write a short summary of what was actually discussed alongside it. Recording them closes the review, so you confirm first: neither can be changed afterwards. See Alignment.
Agreeing the plan
Deciding the next focus areas belongs in the alignment conversation, not a separate meeting. You've just spent an hour on the last few months, so commit to the next few while it's fresh. Create a new plan from the Plan tab and it suggests candidates from the two assessments. Three open focus areas at a time is the recommendation, not a limit. See Plan.
If the review stalls
Sometimes the other side never submits. Once a review has been open two weeks — or past its conversation date, whichever comes later — you'll see Close without alignment instead. It never exposes the unfinished draft. The review is recorded honestly as closed without alignment rather than quietly filled in. See Reviews.
What you can and can't see
You see everything about a report that they see about themselves, and nothing more. My Reports is the same information from your side, not a manager's extended cut. Anything added to your view of them is added to theirs. See My Reports and Roles & perspectives.
Being an admin as well doesn't widen this. Admin access covers the framework, the roster and the workspace. Reading what's inside a review comes from managing someone, never from administering the place.