Performance & Goal Management

Performance and goal management is the setting of objectives, the evaluation of performance against them, and the feedback that helps employees improve. Without a system, reviews happen in scattered documents and goals are forgotten between cycles. SmartSuite keeps goals, reviews, and feedback as linked records on the employee, runs the cycle on a schedule, and shows progress on dashboards, so managers and HR see alignment without chasing forms.

Goals are records with an owner, a target, a due date, and a progress field, and they can be defined at the individual, team, or organizational level. Each goal links to the objective it supports, so a team’s goals roll up into the company objective with rollup fields. Employees update progress on the record; managers see it in their team view.

A review cycle is opened by a scheduled automation, which creates a review record for each employee and assigns the self-assessment, then the manager review, then calibration, with reminders before each due date. Ratings and comments stay on the review record, visible to the employee only when HR releases them. HR tracks completion by team on a dashboard.

Check-ins are logged on the goal or the employee record as dated entries with notes and next steps, so feedback accumulates between formal reviews. Managers can schedule recurring check-in tasks with an automation. At review time, the year’s check-ins are already on the record.

Individual goals link to the objectives and key results in Strategy & OKR Management, so each employee can see which company objective their work serves. Rollups show how much of each objective is covered by active goals and how far they have progressed. Leaders use that view to find objectives nobody is working on.

Yes. Review cycles can run per region, business unit, or employee group, each with its own template and schedule, while all goals and reviews stay in one workspace with permissions that keep ratings private. Dashboards roll up completion and results across every unit for HR leadership. Adding a business unit means adding a cycle template, not a new system.

Dashboards show goal progress by team, review completion rates, rating distributions, and trends across cycles, with each widget drilling into the records behind it. HR uses them to spot teams behind on reviews and managers whose ratings cluster at one end. The same dashboards support calibration meetings.

Performance improves when goals are visible, feedback is recorded as it happens, and reviews arrive on schedule rather than in a year-end rush. Employees see what is expected and how it connects to the company’s objectives. Over successive cycles, the record shows each person’s development and gives managers a basis for fair decisions.