Performance Reviews
The Performance Reviews feature gives HR teams and managers a structured, repeatable process for evaluating employees. Review cycles track self-assessments, manager ratings, competency scores, and career-level signals — all in one place, integrated with the Quests system for goal grading.
Plan requirement: Performance Reviews is an org-configurable feature available on supported plan tiers. Admins can enable it under Settings > Feature Flags.
Key concepts
| Concept | What it is |
|---|---|
| Review Cycle | A named period (Annual, Half-Yearly, Quarterly, or custom dates) during which every active member receives a review. |
| Rating Scale | The numeric scale used to rate competencies and goals — configurable per org, with built-in 5-point and 3-point presets. |
| Competency | A skill or behavior the org evaluates — grouped into Values and Role competencies. |
| Career Level | A rung on the org’s level ladder (e.g., Junior → Mid → Senior → Staff → Principal for ICs; Manager → Director → VP for managers). |
| Review | One employee’s record inside a cycle — contains their self-assessment, the manager’s review, and the final shared result. |
Admin setup
1. Enable the feature
Go to Settings > Feature Flags and enable Performance Reviews. This makes the Performance Reviews section appear in the sidebar for members and managers.
2. Seed defaults (recommended first-time step)
Go to Admin > Performance Reviews. Click Seed Defaults to populate:
- A 5-point rating scale (Below, Needs Improvement, Meets, Exceeds, Outstanding)
- A 3-point rating scale (Below, Meets, Exceeds)
- A starter competency library with common Values and Role competencies
- A default career level ladder with IC and Manager tracks
You can customize everything after seeding.
3. Manage rating scales
In Admin > Performance Reviews > Rating Scales you can edit the default scales or create new ones. Each scale has a name and a set of labeled numeric levels (e.g., 1–5 with descriptors). When you create a review cycle you choose which scale to use.
4. Manage competencies
In Admin > Performance Reviews > Competencies you can edit the competency library:
- Values competencies — org-wide behaviors expected of every member (e.g., Collaboration, Ownership, Communication).
- Role competencies — skills tied to specific job functions (e.g., Code Quality, Delivery, Technical Leadership).
Add, edit, or remove competencies at any time. Changes apply to future cycles; reviews in progress are not affected.
5. Manage career levels
In Admin > Performance Reviews > Career Levels you manage the level ladder:
| Track | Levels |
|---|---|
| IC (Individual Contributor) | Junior → Mid → Senior → Staff → Principal |
| Manager | Manager → Senior Manager → Director → VP |
You can rename, reorder, or add levels to match your org’s structure. Each member can then be assigned their current level from the member management screen, and the level is captured on each review.
Running a review cycle
Create a cycle
Go to Admin > Performance Reviews > Cycles and click New Cycle. Fill in:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | A descriptive label (e.g., “H1 2026 Performance Review”). |
| Cycle type | Annual, Half-Yearly, Quarterly, or Custom. |
| Start / End date | The period being evaluated. For Custom type, set both dates. |
| Rating scale | Choose which scale reviewers will use for competency and goal ratings. |
Save the cycle. It starts in Draft status — visible to admins only.
Open the cycle
When you are ready for reviews to begin, click Open Cycle. Opening the cycle:
- Generates one review record for every active member in the organization.
- Changes the cycle status to Open.
Employees can then find their review under My Reviews and begin their self-assessment.
Close the cycle
Once all reviews are completed and shared, click Close Cycle. This locks the cycle — no further edits are possible — and the status changes to Closed. Closed cycles remain visible as a historical record.
The review lifecycle
Each review passes through four stages. Both the employee and their manager have actions to take at each stage.
Stage 1 — Self-Assessment
The employee opens My Reviews and sees their active review. They complete:
- Goals: rate each goal linked to the review (see Goals via Quests below).
- Competencies: rate themselves on each competency in the library using the chosen rating scale.
- Notes: add free-text comments for any section.
The employee submits the self-assessment when ready. The review moves to the next stage.
Stage 2 — Manager Review
The assigned reviewer — by default the employee’s direct manager — opens the review in Team Reviews. They complete:
- Goal ratings and weights: for each goal, the manager sets a weight (how much it counts toward the overall score) and a rating.
- Competency ratings: the manager rates each competency independently of the self-assessment.
- Overall rating: an explicit overall rating for the review period.
- Career level signals: the manager marks whether the employee is performing at their current level and whether they are promotion-ready.
- Manager notes: private notes that are hidden from the employee until the review is shared.
The manager review is invisible to the employee at this stage.
Stage 3 — Share
Once the manager is satisfied, they click Share. The employee can now see:
- The manager’s ratings and overall score.
- The career level signals.
- The manager’s written notes.
Once shared, the review appears for the employee under My Reviews with the manager’s feedback visible.
Stage 4 — Acknowledge
The employee reads the shared review and clicks Acknowledge. They may optionally add a brief comment. Acknowledgment marks the review complete and is recorded with a timestamp. The cycle shows one fewer pending review.
Goals via Quests
Instead of a separate goal tool, Performance Reviews grade the employee’s existing Quests from the review period.
When a manager opens a review, the system pulls in quests that are linked to the employee for the cycle’s date range. For each quest, automatic KPI cards appear as read-only metrics:
| KPI card | What it measures |
|---|---|
| On-time rate | Percentage of tasks completed before their due date. |
| QA pass rate | Percentage of tasks passing QA without rework. |
| Completion rate | Percentage of accepted quest tasks completed by cycle end. |
The manager then rates and weights each goal. The weighted average flows into the overall review score.
Orgs not using Quests: if your team does not use the Quests system, managers can add simple inline goals directly on the review form — title, description, target, and rating — without any quest connection.
XP bridge (optional): if the gamification XP bridge is enabled, achieving a quest-linked goal in a review can automatically award XP and coins to the employee. This connects performance outcomes to the gamification leaderboard.
Who sees what
| Role | What they can access |
|---|---|
| Employee (reviews.view_own) | My Reviews — their own review for any cycle; manager notes hidden until shared. |
| Manager / Reviewer (reviews.review_reports) | Team Reviews — reviews for their direct reports; can write and submit the manager review. |
| HR / DH (reviews.view_team) | Team Reviews — read access to all reviews in their department or team. |
| Admin (reviews.manage_cycles) | Full admin panel — create/open/close cycles, manage scales, competencies, and levels; view all reviews across the org. |
| Super-admin (reviews.review_any) | Can read and act on any review in the org regardless of reporting line. |
Manager review content is hidden from the employee until the manager explicitly shares the review (Stage 3 above).
Per-cycle field visibility
Plan requirement: The “What the employee sees” control requires the Performance Reviews Field Visibility capability, available on Pro and Enterprise plans. The field visibility section only appears in the Cycles admin when this capability is enabled for your org.
By default, Takonaut shows the employee a curated subset of the manager’s review after it is shared — calibration signals that are used internally for headcount and promotion planning are kept private unless you explicitly open them up.
Default split
| Field | Default visibility |
|---|---|
| Overall rating | Shared with employee |
| KPI — manager rating | Shared with employee |
| KPI — manager comment | Shared with employee |
| Competency — manager rating | Shared with employee |
| Competency — manager comment | Shared with employee |
| At level | Manager/HR only |
| Promotion readiness | Manager/HR only |
The calibration fields — At level and Promotion readiness — are hidden by default because they are typically discussed in a calibration session before being communicated to the employee in a dedicated conversation.
Customizing visibility per cycle
When the capability is enabled, a “What the employee sees” section appears on every cycle in Admin > Performance Reviews > Cycles. Each of the seven manager-review fields has a toggle:
- Checked (on) — the field is shared with the employee after the review is released.
- Unchecked (off) — the field is visible only to the reviewer, HR, and admins.
You can configure visibility when creating a new cycle or update it on an existing cycle at any time. After changing any toggles, click Save visibility to persist the changes. The new settings apply the next time a review is shared — already-shared reviews are not retroactively affected.
Note: Privileged viewers — the assigned reviewer, HR staff with
reviews.view_team, and admins — always see the full manager review regardless of field visibility settings. The visibility map only controls what the employee (reviewee) can see.
Coming later
The following capabilities are planned for a future release:
- Peer / 360 feedback — collect anonymous ratings from peers and stakeholders alongside the manager review.
- Calibration sessions — compare ratings across teams to normalize scores before sharing.
- 9-box talent grid — a visual performance-vs-potential matrix generated from review signals.
Related sections
- Quests — understand how quests work and how they feed into goal ratings.
- Gamification Overview — XP, coins, and how the XP bridge connects performance to rewards.
- Organization Members — assign career levels to members.
- Settings & Admin — enable the Performance Reviews feature flag and manage plan tiers.