Manage peer nominations for a review cycle participant

Peer reviews within a Best-Self Review® cycle are reviews in which nominated peers are asked to review their teammates. Review cycle participants, their manager in the review cycle, review admins, and cycle collaborators can manage peers for a review cycle participant. Managers, review admins, and cycle collaborators can approve or deny peer nominations for a review cycle participant.

In this article, you will learn...

• An overview of the peer nomination process
• How to nominate a peer to review a review cycle participant
• How to approve, deny, or remove peer nominations
• What the icons in the peer nomination status key mean
• How to nudge nominated peers to complete peer reviews

Help Center article 💡: Manage my peer nominations

Peer nomination process overview

• Review cycle participants will nominate peers to review them. A person's manager, review admins, or cycle collaborators can also nominate peers on their behalf. Peers can be nominated up until the review cycle's end date, or until your review results have been finalized— whichever comes first.
• Once a review cycle participant nominates a peer(s), their manager will receive a notification email letting them know that they can manage peers for their team member.
• After peer nomination, a person's manager, a review admin, or a cycle collaborator will either approve or deny the nominations on the participant's peer nomination page.
• The person approving/declining peers will see a warning icon next to the names of any peers who have been nominated more than five times. They'll also see the number of total nominations and approved nominations for the peer so they can make an informed decision about whether or not they should approve the peer.
• Approved peers will be sent a notification asking them to either accept or decline the nomination. Peers who accept the nomination will then write a peer review about the participant.
• Any peer nominations that are denied by a manager, review admin, or cycle collaborator or who are declined by the nominated peer can be removed from the list of nominated peers so a new peer can be nominated in their place. Peer nominations can be after they've been accepted and before the review has been submitted.
• After submission/notification, you can open the peer review. Review admins, cycle collaborators, a participant's review viewers (previously called "additional managers), and anyone in the participant's hierarchy* can also view peer reviews upon submission.
• If any answers on the peer review aren't constructive, you have the ability to either remove feedback or send feedback to review admins to remove it so it isn't shared with your direct report.
• Refer to our "Review submitted peer reviews of my team" Help Center article for next steps.

*This is only the case if hierarchy visibility is enabled for the review cycle

Check out these additional resources ⬇️

Help Center article 💡: Roles in a Best-Self Review® cycle
Help Center article 💡: Review submitted peer reviews of my team

Nominate peers on behalf of a review cycle participant

1. Click on Best-Self Review® in the left-hand navigation bar.
   
2. Open the review cycle you want to nominate peer reviewers for.
   
3. Click to open the 'Peer nominations' tab at the top of the page.
   
4. You will land on the 'Manage peers for your team' page, on which you can manage peers for your direct reports. If you're a review admin or cycle collaborator that wants to manage peers for someone that isn't your direct report, click into the 'Everyone's Peers' tab.
   
5. Find the participant you want to nominate peers for, either by scrolling through the participant list or using the search bar at the top of the page. Managers only have the option to search for their direct reports using the search bar, whereas review admins and cycle collaborators can filter by any individual or group that's included in the review cycle. All review cycle participants that match selected filters will appear in the participant list.
   
6. Click Add peer to the right of a review cycle participant's name.
   
7. A screen will pop up that allows you to add peers on a participant's behalf. Choose the names of the people you want to nominate as peers, then click Confirm.
   
8. Peers that you nominate on behalf of a participant will immediately be sent an email notifying them that they've been nominated as a peer and asking them to either approve or decline the nomination. Throughout this process, you can keep track of what peers have accepted or declined their nominations on the 'Manage peers for your team' page. 
   
   Please refer to the "Peer nomination status key" section of this article for a refresher on what the icons on nominated peer's avatars mean.

Approve, deny, or remove peer nominations

Once peers are nominated, managers, review admins, and cycle collaborators can approve, deny, or remove peer nominations as needed by following the steps below.

1. Click on Best-Self Review® in the left-hand navigation bar.
   
2. Open the review cycle you want to manage peer reviewers for.
   
3. Click on the 'Peer nominations' tab at the top of your page.
   
4. You will land on the 'Manage peers for your team' page, on which you can manage peers for your direct reports. If you're a review admin or cycle collaborator that wants to manage peers for someone that isn't your direct report, click into the 'Everyone's Peers' tab.
   
5. Find the participant you would like to add nominations for in the "Participants" column and check out the nominated peers in the "Peers" column to the left.
   Peer nominations that are pending manager approval are marked with an orange exclamation mark. For a refresher on what the icons on nominated peer's avatars mean, please refer to the "Peer nomination status key" section at the top of this article.
6. Hover over a peer nominee's avatar to see full details about how many times they've been nominated as a peer and how many peer nominations they've accepted.
   
7. To approve all pending peer nominations, click the Approve all button. Or, if you'd like to manage peer nominations individually, click the down arrow to expand options.
   
8. To approve a peer, click the approve button next to their name. An email notification will be sent to the nominated peer immediately upon approval requesting that they approve or decline the nomination.
   
9. To deny a peer, click the deny button next to their name. If you deny a nomination, you will then see the option to remove that peer from your direct report's list of nominated peers so that a new peer can be nominated in their place. 
   
10. To remove a peer, click the remove button next to their name. This will remove the peer completely from view.
    
    To bulk remove all peers who were denied or who declined their nomination, click the ... at the top of the peer list and select 'Remove declined & denied' from the dropdown menu
    
    If you'd like to see a list of all nominated peers who have been removed, click the ... at the top of the peer list and select 'Show removed nominations' from the dropdown menu.
    

Peer nomination status key

As you go through the process of managing peers, you will notice various icons on nominated peers' avatars. This section walks through the possible icons you will see and their meanings. Please note that you can also hover over anyone's avatar and see their peer nomination status.

• Green checkmark: "Accepted" status. This icon appears next to people who have accepted their peer nomination and are charged with writing a peer review.
• Red X: "Declined" status. This icon appears next to people who were nominated to write a peer review, but either 1) the nomination was denied by a manager or cycle collaborator, or 2) the peer themselves declined the peer nomination. These nominations can be removed so that another peer can be nominated in their place.
• Orange exclamation point, circle: "Pending manager approval" status. This icon appears next to people who have been nominated as a peer, but haven't yet been approved by a manager or cycle collaborator.
• Orange exclamation point, triangle: This icon means the same thing as the orange exclamation point in a circle, with one difference. The exclamation point will appear in a triangle if the person in question has been nominated as a peer more than five times. We include this warning so that managers can make informed decisions about whether or not they should approve a peer.
• Purple exclamation point circle: "Pending peer approval" status. This icon appears next to people who have been nominated to write a peer nomination and approved by a manager/cycle collaborator, but who haven't yet accepted or declined their peer nomination.

Send nudges to nominated peers

Sometimes people need a little "nudge" to complete a task. As a manager, you can send nudge emails to approved peers who haven't yet accepted or declined their peer nominations reminding them to take action.

1. Click on Best-Self Review® in the left-hand navigation bar.
   
2. Open the review cycle you want to nominate peer reviewers for.
   
3. Click on the 'Peer nominations' tab at the top of your page.
   
4. You will land on the 'Manage peers for your team' page, on which you can nudge peers for your direct reports. If you're a review admin or cycle collaborator that wants to nudge peers for someone that isn't your direct report, click into the 'Everyone's Peers' tab.
   
5. From here, look out for any purple exclamation points, which is the label that denotes participants who have been approved but have not yet accepted or declined their peer nomination. These are the individuals you have the option to nudge.
   
6. In the "Participants" column, find the participant whose peer(s) you would like to nudge. Click the blue arrow to the far right of their name to expand a list of all peers.
   
7. Click Nudge next to the peer you want to send a notification to.
   
8. Customize your nudge email using the pop-up window, then click Send email.
   

What happens next?

Any peer you nudge will receive an email notification from notifications@15five.com with the subject line "Nudge: don't forget to accept or decline peer nominations you received!". Please see the below screenshot for an example of what that email looks like.