We understand that manager changes happen. But when they happen during an active Best-Self Review® cycle, there are potential implications. This article walks through how making manager changes during an active review cycle may impact the review cycle, as well as alternate options you can utilize to manage managers during an active review cycle.

In this article, you will learn...

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Options for customizing managers and manager visibility in review cycles

Managers in 15Five: explained

A person's direct manager in 15Five is set in their account settings. The direct manager is responsible for reviewing their direct reports' Check-ins (if your company uses the Check-ins feature) and can manage their account settings.

By default, a person's direct manager is appointed as their manager in review cycles. A person's manager in a review cycle is responsible for writing a manager review about them, sharing and finalizing review results with them, and holding a final meeting with them. Managers can also see all reviews submitted about the participant and run reports on their data. However, review admins and cycle collaborators can change a person's manager in a review cycle to someone other than their direct manager if desired.

Customization options

By default, if a change is made to a person's direct manager in 15Five during an active review cycle, their manager in the review cycle will be updated to the new manager. The impacts of this change are covered in the 'How direct manager changes in 15Five impact review cycles' section of this article.

However, we offer additional options for organizations that need more customization:

  • If you'd like for direct manager changes made during an active cycle to have no impact on review cycle managers, an account admin can disable the 'Automatic manager updates in active cycle' setting in your company's Best-Self review® feature settings (in-app link).
  • If you want to change a person's manager in a review cycle, but want their direct manager to stay the same in 15Five, a review admin or cycle collaborator can change that person's review cycle manager on their Edit Individual Settings page. Editing a person's manager in a review cycle has no impact on any other part of 15Five.
  • If you want more than one person to write a manager review about a person, you can add that person as an additional manager.
  • If you want to give someone aside from a person's manager visibility into their review results, an account admin, review admin, or cycle collaborator can add them as a review viewer. Review viewers have read-only visibility into the participant's review results.
  • If you want managers to have visibility into results for review cycles their direct reports took part in before they were the manager, an account admin can enable the 'Visibility into all past reviews' option in your company's global review settings.
  • If you want to give additional people the ability to share and finalize a participant's review results in a specific review cycle, a review admin or cycle collaborator can add them to the "Who can share and finalize the reviews of [participant] section of the participant's "Edit Individual Settings" page in the review cycle.

How direct manager changes in 15Five impact review cycles

This section walks through how changing a person's direct manager during an active review cycle impacts the review cycle. These scenarios are only applicable if you didn't disable the 'Automatic manager updates in active cycle' setting in your company's global review settings.

In the scenarios below, Dwight is the direct report/review cycle participant whose manager was changed during an active review cycle. Michael is Dwight's old direct manager, and Andy is Dwight's new direct manager.

Direct manager change scenarios:

  • Michael is removed as Dwight's direct manager and Andy is assigned as Dwight's new manager before a review cycle launches. Andy will serve as Dwight's manager in the review cycle, since the reporter <> manager relationship between them was established before the review cycle began.
  • Michael is Dwight's direct manager when a review cycle is launched. During the review cycle, Andy is assigned as Dwight's direct manager. Andy will "take over" Dwight's review process. Andy will immediately have visibility into any reviews that have been submitted about Dwight, and will be responsible for sharing & finalizing results with Dwight. Michael will lose all visibility into Dwight's review results (unless he's added as a review viewer).
    • If Dwight already submitted an upward review of Michael, it will remain submitted in Michael's review results.
    • If Dwight didn't submit an upward review of Michael, Dwight will not be asked to complete an upward review of Michael or Andy by default, but a review admin or cycle collaborator can assign Dwight as an upward reviewer for Michael or Andy if desired.
    • If Michael already submitted a manager review of Dwight, the review will remain and Andy will not be asked to write a review of Dwight. Andy will be able to share and finalize results for Dwight.
    • If Michael drafted a manager review of Dwight, it will be deleted when Andy is appointed as Dwigt's manager, and Andy will be asked to write a manager review instead. If Michael wants to share his drafted answers with Andy, he should copy his draft and send it to Andy outside of 15Five prior to the manager change, as it will no longer will accessible in 15Five.
    • If Michael never drafted or submitted a manager review of Dwight, Andy will be asked to write Dwight's manager review.
  • Michael is removed as Dwight's direct manager after a review cycle ends and Andy is assigned as Dwight's new direct manager. By default, Andy won't be able to see Dwight's review cycle results (since he wasn't Dwight's manager in before the review cycle ended). If Michael has not completed his manager review of Dwight or shared and finalized review results, he will be able to complete these actions up until the cycle is locked. In other words, changing a person's direct manager after a review cycle ends won't allow the new manager to complete the review cycle for the review cycle participant.
    • If you want Andy to have permission to view Dwight's review results, you can either 1) assign him as a review viewer for Dwight or 2) enable the "Visibility into all past reviews" option in your company's global review settings. The latter option allows all managers in your organization to have visibility into review cycles that occurred before they were a person's direct manager.

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