When launching a Review cycle, you might want the managers to receive additional input when they are assessing their direct reports. At Leapsome, this can be enabled with a structured approval process. This will allow feedback to be fully aligned and complete before sharing it with the employee.
Leapsome's approval step 'Primary manager review' introduces an approval step in manager assessments. Here, Admins can set up reviews in a way that manager's assessment will require approval from their own managers, HR Business Partners (HRBPs) or specific individuals, such as internal coaches, before the feedback is shared with the employee. This structured approval process ensures that all relevant perspectives are considered, resulting in more comprehensive and accurate feedback.
Setting up the approval
Admins can set up the approval by navigating to 'Settings' > in the 'Automations' section selecting 'Approvals'. In here, under 'Primary manager review', click on '+ New approval flow'. When creating an approval, consider the following:
- The Name of the approval flow. For example: 'Leadership approval in Annual cycles'
- Process - here, ensure the flow 'Primary manager review' is chosen
- Relevant employees - here, define which employees this approval step will be relevant to.
- Lastly, define the Steps. Steps will be used for the groups of people who will be responsible for approving the manager's assessment. You can configure either only 1 step or more. For example, you might want manager assessments to be reviewed by that manager's manager. In that case, the first step's approver would be 'Manager's manager'.
Please note: This approval flow is only relevant for primary manager reviews (not peer, direct report, additional manager, or self-reviews).
What does it look like in a Review cycle?
In an active Review cycle, once a primary manager finalizes their manager assessment, they will see the option to submit it for approval. Then, the relevant approver will see this approval request in their 'Approvals' tab of their home dashboards. The approver can review the assessment and either approve or reject it. The approver sees everything that the manager sees (i.e., all the peer/direct report assessment, etc. based on the visibility rights).
The reviewee will not see assessments that are not approved.
Please note: Calibration can still happen in parallel during approval (and it only impacts sharing of the review).
When a manager assessment is currently in the approval process for a configured approval flow, a status, ‘Pending approval,’ will be displayed in the dashboard as well as 'Progress' analytics.
Assessment is approved
Once the manager assessment is approved, the assessment follows the normal flow. For example, the manager can now share it based on whether sharing is part of the visibility settings or it is visible to the reviewee immediately once all steps are approved.
Please note: Admins can share finalized reviews, bypassing the approval process.
FAQs
1. What implications does this have on the visibility of the cycle's results taking into consideration the 'Cascading access' setting is enabled?
The approval flow takes priority over the cycle visibility settings during the approval process. Once the approval is done, the usual cycle visibility takes precedence.
2. How are calibrations affected?
All scores can be calibrated regardless of the approval status of the review.
3. What happens if a manager re-opens their assessment, makes changes and finalizes it again?
If an approved assessment is re-opened, and the information is updated, then it will go through the approval process again.