Talent Review for managers

As part of the Performance Management features in the Planner, the Talent Review page provides a single workspace for talent calibration. There, line managers rate their direct reports on a 9-box grid and answer a questionnaire about each of them. Talent HRBPs calibrate those ratings across teams, with both the manager's and their own judgment in view. Each worker is placed on the grid automatically as ratings are entered, so the distribution of talent is always visible while the discussion is taking place. When the review is closed, one final rating is calculated and locked for every worker.

Talent reviews are set up and published by template owners in Workbench. To understand how talent reviews are configured and managed, read our Creating a talent review template and Working with talent review templates articles.

This article describes how you, as a manager, work with a published talent review, rating your direct reports, answering the questionnaire, submitting your evaluations, and consulting the final results. For information on how Talent HRBPs calibrate these ratings, see Talent Review for HRBPs.

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Talent Review is available under Planner > Talent Review. The tab appears as soon as a published talent review includes at least one of your direct reports. Talent reviews still in draft never appear in the Planner.

Talent Review page

The Talent Review page lists every talent review that concerns you. At the top of the page, the 9-box grids widget shows the number of talent reviews available to you. Also, the Lead with clarity and insight card offers practical tips on using the 9-box grid in talent conversations. Use the arrows on the right of the card to browse the tips.

Below, the paginated Talent reviews table lists the talent reviews with their Name, Published date, and Status (In progress or Closed). To open a talent review, click its name, or click the three-dot icon at the far right of its row and select View.

If you are both a line manager and a Talent HRBP, the Manager view and HRBP view tabs in the top-right corner of the table let you switch between the two perspectives. Each view has its own list of talent reviews, its own count, and its own tips: the Manager view lists the reviews that include your direct reports, and the HRBP view lists the reviews that include workers within your scope.

The figure below illustrates the Talent Review page as a manager sees it:

List of talent reviews in the Manager view

Overview of the talent review

When you open a talent review, its page displays the name of the review at the top, with an Autosave indicator reminding you that ratings entered in the table are saved automatically. In the top-right corner, Exit takes you back to the Talent Review page, and Submit lets you submit your evaluations. Once the review is closed, a Closed badge appears next to its name and Submit is no longer available.

The page is divided into two sections:

• The Talent review grid section, which shows the placement of workers on the 9-box grid.

• The Talent review data section, which lists the workers with their ratings.

9-box grid

The grid displays the levels of the vertical axis (by default, Potential) as rows, with the highest level at the top, and the levels of the horizontal axis (by default, Performance) as columns, with the highest level on the right. Each cell shows its header, for example, STAR, and its label as a badge, for instance, Retain.

Workers appear in the cell that corresponds to their ratings, and move immediately whenever a rating changes. In a crowded cell, the first workers are shown by name, the next ones as avatars, and a + N more bubble indicates how many additional workers are placed there. To see everyone in a cell, open the cell as described in Viewing the workers in a grid cell below.

The tabs in the top-right corner of the section let you switch between:

• The first grid, for example, Talent review.

• The second grid, such as Retention risk, if the talent review includes one. Each grid places workers independently by its own pair of axes, so a worker can appear on one grid and not yet on the other.

• Details, which shows the description of the talent review and of each grid, as well as a Details widget with the Status and Published date of the review. The Details tab looks as follows for a review with two grids:

Review and grid descriptions in the Details tab

Regardless of the active tab, the table in the Talent review data section always shows the columns of both grids.

Viewing the workers in a grid cell

To see who is placed in a cell, click the cell. A drawer opens with the cell header as its title and, below it, the two axis levels that define the cell (for example, Performance: Exceeds expectations and Potential: High potential).

The Workers table in the drawer lists every worker placed in the cell, with the Worker, their status, Organization, and Country. Workers are sorted alphabetically by name, and the list is paginated for large cells. To close the drawer and return to the grid, click the × icon.

To find specific workers within the cell, type a name or a worker ID in the Search by name or worker ID field. Results update with each character you type.

In the Manager view, the drawer lists your direct reports placed in the cell. A worker is placed once both axis ratings of the grid exist, and your latest ratings, including unsubmitted ones, are used. The status shown for each worker reflects your progress with their ratings.

In the example below, the drawer lists the four workers placed in the Star cell, along with the Performance and Potential levels that define it:

Workers placed in the Star cell

If no worker matches your search, the drawer shows an empty state. Clear the search text to list all the workers in the cell again.

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When working with the cell drawer, keep in mind that:

• The search and filter controls in the drawer affect the drawer only. The grid and the table behind it stay the same, and any changes are discarded when you close the drawer. As a result, the number of workers listed in the drawer can differ from the count shown in the cell.

• These controls never widen the results beyond the selected cell or your own scope.

• The drawer is read-only, and you cannot change ratings from it.

• A cell with no workers in it cannot be opened.

Rating your direct reports

In the Manager view, the Talent review data table lists your direct reports included in the talent review, with the following columns:

• A checkbox, used to select workers for submission.

• Worker: The worker's name and job title. This column stays pinned while you scroll the table horizontally.

• Action: A View link, which opens the worker's details drawer.

• Questionnaire: The status of the worker's questionnaire. This column is displayed when the talent review includes a questionnaire.

• Manager status: Your progress with the worker.

• For each grid, one column per axis, for example, Performance and Potential on the Talent review grid, or Risk of loss and Impact of loss on the Retention risk grid, followed by Current rating, which shows the cell the worker is currently placed in, calculated automatically from the two ratings.

For a description of the statuses shown in these columns, go to Understanding talent review and worker statuses.

The following figure shows the Manager view of a review with two grids, with the Talent review tab active:

Rating direct reports in the Talent review tab

Switching to the Retention risk tab places the same workers on the second grid, but the table keeps showing the columns of both grids:

Rating direct reports in the Retention risk tab

Rating workers in the table

To rate a worker, select a level in each axis drop-down list of the worker's row. Your rating is saved as soon as you choose it, with no manual save step. When both axes of a grid are rated, the worker is placed on the grid, and the Current rating column shows the corresponding cell.

Rating workers in the details drawer

To see all the information about a worker in one place, click the worker's name or the View link in their row. The worker's details drawer opens, with the following content:

• The worker's name, job title, and status.

• The worker's current category on each grid, or Unassigned if the worker is not placed on a grid yet.

• For each grid, your rating, with a drop-down list for each axis. Both axes of every grid must be rated before you can submit the worker.

• The questionnaire, if the talent review includes one. You can answer the questions assigned to managers, as well as your part of those assigned to both managers and Talent HRBPs. Questions assigned to Talent HRBPs are shown for information only. Their answers are marked Hidden until review closes and become visible to you when the review is closed:

Worker details drawer with manager and HRBP questions

When you have finished, use one of the following buttons at the bottom of the drawer:

• Save & exit, which saves your ratings and questionnaire answers and closes the drawer. The questionnaire status is recalculated every time you save.

• Submit, which submits the worker's evaluation, as we mention in Submitting your evaluations.

• Cancel, which closes the drawer and discards your changes. You can also click the × icon.

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Unlike ratings in the table, changes made in the drawer are not saved automatically. Remember to click Save & exit before closing the drawer.

Submitting your evaluations

You can submit a single worker from the details drawer, or several workers at once from the table. A worker can only be submitted once all ratings are provided, on both grids if the talent review has two, and every mandatory question assigned to managers is answered and saved. Mandatory questions assigned to Talent HRBPs never prevent you from submitting.

You can submit a single worker from the details drawer, or several workers at once from the table. A worker can only be submitted once all ratings are provided, on both grids if the talent review has two, and every mandatory question assigned to managers is answered and saved. Mandatory questions assigned to Talent HRBPs never prevent you from submitting.

Submitting a single worker

To submit a single worker, open their details drawer and click Submit. The worker is submitted immediately, and the drawer closes with a banner confirming your submission. If any required information is missing, the drawer stays open and a message is displayed under each incomplete field.

Submitting several workers at once

To submit several workers at once, proceed as follows:

1. In the Talent review data table, select the workers you want to submit using the checkboxes. You can select the checkbox in the header row to select all workers. Your selection is kept when you move between pages. Workers who are already submitted cannot be selected.

2. Click Submit in the top-right corner of the page. A dialog opens, stating how many workers you are about to submit and that your responses will be saved and visible to your HR team.

3. Click Submit to confirm.

Submission is tolerant of gaps, which means that the workers whose evaluations are complete are submitted, and the others are skipped. A banner above the grid then tells you whether all, some, or none of the selected workers were submitted.

If some workers could not be submitted, the banner also lists the workers on the current page who were skipped and the reason for each one, such as missing ratings or unanswered mandatory questions. Their rows are highlighted until you fix the issues. These workers remain editable and selectable, so you can complete their evaluations and submit them again.

After submitting

Once a worker is submitted, their ratings and questionnaire answers change to read-only for you, in both the table and the drawer. The worker stays visible in the table and on the grid, and your submitted ratings become visible to the Talent HRBP, who uses them as input for calibration.

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A Talent HRBP can submit a worker before you do. In such a case, your evaluation can no longer be submitted or edited. Your status for the worker becomes Not submitted, and any answers you saved remain visible to you only, marked as not submitted.

Consulting a closed talent review

When the template owner closes a talent review, the system calculates one final rating per worker and locks it. A Closed badge is displayed next to the name of the review, and the review becomes read-only for everyone. Ratings, questionnaire answers, and submissions can no longer be changed. Still, you can consult both grid tabs, the details drawers, and the cell drawers.

The final rating is determined as follows, independently for each grid:

• A submitted HR rating, if one exists.

• Otherwise, an HR draft rating, if one exists.

• Otherwise, the manager's submitted rating.

• If nobody entered a rating, the worker has no rating.

After closing, the Talent review data table does not include the selection checkboxes or the Manager status column. For each grid, your axis ratings are shown read-only, followed by two columns:

• Manager rating: The cell resulting from your submitted ratings, or Not rated if you never submitted the worker. Your unsubmitted ratings remain visible to you in the axis columns.

• HRBP rating: The worker's final rating, or Not rated if the worker has none.

In the details drawer, you can now see all questions and answers, including those of the Talent HRBP, read-only. The name and photo of the Talent HRBP also become visible to you for the first time.

Understanding talent review and worker statuses

Throughout a talent review, statuses show how far the review as a whole, and each of your direct reports in it, has progressed. The following table summarizes the statuses described in this article: