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Performance management software: Review cycles that land on a set date.

Individual and team goals tied to structured review cycles, with manager and self-assessment, so performance conversations land on a date rather than a good intention.

Performance Goals in DenwaysHR: 474 active goals, 152 completed and 65% average progress across 750 goals, each row showing the owner, category, weight and progress bar

Goals, reviews and feedback on schedule

  • Individual Goals
  • Team Goals
  • Review Cycles
  • Manager Assessment
  • Self-Assessment
  • Performance Reports
  • Cycle Scheduling
  • Org-Wide Visibility

Performance

Performance, in 4 parts.

4 parts. Swipe across.

Goals that connect to a review, not a document

A goal written in a spreadsheet in January is invisible by June. Here goals are set against the review cycle they will be judged in.

  • Individual goals owned by the employee
  • Team goals visible to everyone contributing
  • Tied to the review cycle from the start
  • Progress visible to the employee and their manager

Both sides write before either side talks

Structured cycles collect the manager's assessment and the employee's own, so the conversation starts from two written positions rather than one person's memory.

  • Structured review cycles with defined windows
  • Manager assessment against the agreed goals
  • Employee self-assessment in the same cycle
  • A record that stays on the employee file

HR sees the shape of the whole organization

Summarised results tell you which teams completed their cycle, which are behind, and where the outcomes cluster.

  • Summarised results for managers and HR
  • Completion visibility across the cycle
  • Departmental breakdowns from the same data
  • Feeds workforce analytics alongside headcount

The same record as everything else

Performance sits on the employee record next to attendance, leave and salary, so a promotion conversation has the full picture in one place.

  • One employee record behind every module
  • Role-based access to review content
  • Salary revisions handled in payroll
  • Every sensitive change on the audit trail

Performance, screen by screen.

The product itself, on a demo company's data. Nothing here is drawn for the website.

A restaurant supervisor's goals in DenwaysHR: his guest-rating goal opened to show the two team goals that feed it, with 63% average progress across his 23 active goals

Three people. One cycle.

A review cycle only works if everyone involved knows what is expected of them and when.

Self

The employee

  • Their own goals and progress
  • Self-assessment in the cycle
  • Their review history on their record
Team

The manager

  • Goals across their reporting line
  • Assessment against what was agreed
  • Who has completed and who has not
Organization

The HR team

  • Cycles defined and scheduled once
  • Completion tracked across departments
  • Summarised results for the business

The full list

What does the Performance module include?

45 features across 7 parts of the product, each one built into the application. Where one depends on a plan, a setting or a release, the note under its module says so.

Review cycles

An appraisal that moves from the employee to the manager to HR, and ends with a rating somebody signed off.

Competencies
A company-wide list, each with a name and a description, chosen per cycle.
Create and launch
Name the cycle, set its period, pick its competencies and launch it for everyone you can see. Add people later and nobody is duplicated.
Three stages
Self review, manager review, HR review. Each submission moves the person on.
Star ratings
One to five on each competency and overall, with strengths and areas to improve in writing.
Stage counts
The cycle shows how many people sit at each stage, and a participant list with stage and final rating.
Calibration table
Self, manager, HR and final ratings side by side for everyone who has reached HR review.
Finalise
Set the final rating, or leave it blank and it is calculated: the HR rating averaged with the weighted progress of the person's linked goals.
Rating to increment
Type a new annual pay figure when finalising and a salary revision is drafted for payroll.
Who sees what
The self-assessment is open to the employee, their manager and HR. The manager and HR assessments are held back from the employee until the review is complete.
No reviewing yourself
Nobody acts as manager, HR reviewer or finaliser on their own review.

My reviews

One page for your own self-assessment and for every review that is waiting on you.

Three lists
Your self-assessments, reviews awaiting you as a manager, and reviews awaiting HR.
Action needed or submitted
Each row carries a badge, so you know what is still yours to do.
Save a draft
Keep what you have written and finish later. Submit needs an overall rating.
Room to write
Strengths and areas to improve take up to 5,000 characters each.

Goals

A goal with a number on it, linked to the review it will be judged in and to the goal above it.

On plans that include payroll.

Goal details
Title, description, category (development, performance, behaviour, project), start and end dates and a weight.
Measurable target
A target, a current value and a unit, with "higher is better" or "lower is better". Progress is calculated from them.
Aligns to
Link a goal to one above it in the reporting line or to a company goal. The parent shows how many goals align to it and their average progress.
Linked to a review cycle
A linked goal's weighted progress feeds the final rating in that cycle.
Protected once linked
The employee cannot change the weight, target or progress of a goal that counts towards their own review.
Update progress
Enter the current value or a percentage. The bar turns green at 100 per cent.
Summary and filters
Active goals, completed and average progress, filtered by status and category.

Ad-hoc reviews

Feedback written down outside a cycle, for the moments that should not wait for the annual one.

On plans that include payroll.

Four kinds
Self, manager, peer and 360 reviews, each written by one person about one colleague for a date range.
Five-point scale with names
Outstanding, exceeds expectations, meets expectations, needs improvement, unsatisfactory.
Structured lists
Strengths, areas for improvement and goals as short lines, plus free comments.
Confidential option
Mark a review confidential and only HR and the reviewer can see it.
No duplicates
The same reviewer cannot write a second review of the same type for the same person and period.
On the journey
Completed, non-confidential reviews appear on the employee's timeline with the rating.

One-to-ones

A running conversation between a manager and each report, private to the two of them. HR cannot read it.

Either side schedules
Pick the person and the date, add a first talking point, and the other person is notified.
Talking points
Both people add points and tick them off.
Shared notes
One text area both of you see.
Action items with owners
Each assigned to me, to the other person or left unassigned, ticked when done.
Private note
Each person has their own. The other side's is never sent to them.
Held, upcoming, past
Mark a meeting as held or cancel it. Tiles show the next one, open action items and how many have been held.
Overdue nudge
Team overview lists reports who have had no one-to-one in 30 days.

Talent grid and succession

A nine-box grid where performance comes from closed reviews and is never retyped, and a successor list for the roles you cannot leave empty.

Performance is read, not entered
Taken from the final ratings of the most recent closed cycle, in three bands. The grid names the cycle it came from.
Potential is a recorded judgement
Well placed, can grow, or ready for more, stored with who made the call and when.
Stale assessments are marked
A potential rating more than twelve months old carries a tag.
Not placed, and why
People missing an axis are listed with the reason: no rating in the last cycle, no cycle closed yet, or potential not assessed.
Succession plans
A role, who holds it now, and successors marked ready now, in one to two years, or in three or more.
Cover at a glance
Each plan is badged "cover available" or "no ready successor".
HR only
Managers and employees have no access, and nobody is shown their own position.

Performance reports

How a cycle went across the organization, without opening anyone's review.

Pick a cycle
The running cycle by default, or any earlier one.
Average ratings
The overall average final rating, and the averages given at the self, manager and HR stages.
By department
Average final rating and number of participants per department, highest first.
Goal completion
Completed against total, overall and per department.

Questions

Performance questions, answered.

More in the full FAQ

How are review cycles structured?

You define the cycle and its window, and goals set for that period are assessed within it. Both the manager assessment and the employee's self-assessment belong to the same cycle, so the two sit side by side rather than arriving weeks apart.

Can goals be set for a team as well as a person?

Yes. Individual goals sit with the employee and team goals are visible to everyone contributing to them, so a shared target is not tracked separately by each person in a private document.

Who can see somebody's review?

Access follows the roles your administrators configure. Group-based data access scopes managers to their own reporting line, so a manager does not read reviews from another department unless you give them a role that allows it.

What do HR and leadership get out of it?

Summarised results for managers and HR, showing completion across the cycle and how outcomes break down by department. Because it runs on the same employee record as attendance and payroll, it feeds the same workforce analytics.

Does a review outcome change someone's salary automatically?

No, and deliberately so. Salary revisions run through payroll with their own approval, revision letters that the employee accepts or rejects, and arrears handled in the next run. Performance informs that decision rather than triggering it.

Which plan includes performance management?

Performance sits on Professional Payroll and Enterprise. Like the other plan modules it switches on with the plan rather than needing a separate installation.

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