Performance reviews and probation

MusterHR handles two related things: performance reviews, which run in cycles that HR opens for the whole company, and probation, which tracks each new joiner up to the day their employment is confirmed. This chapter covers both — creating and running a review cycle, writing a self-review, writing a manager review, finalising and acknowledging, and then how probation due dates are worked out and how HR confirms, extends or ends employment. It is written for everyone who touches either: employees writing their own review, managers writing reviews and recommendations, and HR running the cycle.

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Who can do what

Reviews live at My space → Reviews in the sidebar. Probation lives at Approvals → Probation. Review cycles have no sidebar entry of their own — open My space → Reviews and click Manage cycles, or press ⌘K (Ctrl+K) and search for it. If a page in this chapter is missing from your sidebar you do not have the permission for it; see Roles and permissions.

Writing your own self-review needs an employee record, not only a login. An admin account that is not linked to an employee record is never enrolled in a cycle, and its My reviews panel says so.

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Review cycles

A cycle is one round of reviews — "Q1 2026 Review", "Annual review FY 2025-26". Everyone is reviewed inside a cycle; there is no way to raise a single review on its own.

Create a cycle

1. Go to My space → Reviews and click Manage cycles.
2. Type a Cycle name. This is what employees and managers see, so name it after the period: "Half-yearly review Apr–Sep 2026".
3. Choose a Type — Probation, Quarterly, Half-yearly, Annual or Ad-hoc. The type is a label for your own reporting; it does not change how the cycle behaves.
4. Set the Highest rating. Ratings then run from 1 to this number. It must be between 3 and 10, and 5 is the usual choice.
5. Set Period start and Period end — the stretch of work being assessed, not the deadline for writing the review.
6. Click Create cycle.

The cycle is created as a Draft. Nobody is enrolled and nobody is notified at this point, so you can create it well ahead of time.

The rating scale

Ratings are whole numbers from 1 to the highest rating you set. On the standard 1–5 scale each number carries a written label, shown next to it in the dropdowns:

If you choose any scale other than 5, the dropdowns show plain numbers with no labels. The scale is fixed when the cycle is created and applies to every review in it.

Open a cycle and enrol everyone

Opening is the step that creates a review for each person.

1. On Review cycles, click View → on the draft cycle.
2. Click Open & enrol.
3. Read the confirmation and click Open and enrol.

Every employee whose status is Active at that moment is enrolled, with their primary reporting manager recorded as the reviewer, and each of them who has a login is notified to write their self-review. This cannot be undone — a cycle cannot be returned to draft, and only a draft cycle can be opened.

Two consequences are worth planning around:

• People join the cycle only at the moment you open it. Someone hired next week is not added to a cycle you opened today, and there is no way to enrol them into it afterwards. If you are hiring steadily, open the cycle once the joiners you want included are Active.
• Employees still on status Onboarding are not enrolled. Check People → Employees before opening if you expect a new joiner to be included; see Employee records and profiles.

Someone with no reporting manager on their record is still enrolled, but their review has no reviewer assigned. Nobody will be prompted to write it — HR has to write and finalise it from Reviews across the company.

Track who has submitted

Open the cycle from Review cycles → View →. The heading shows the cycle status, the rating range and how many reviews have started, for example "Active · ratings 1–5 · 12 of 30 reviews started". "Started" means anything past Not started; because a manager can file their review before the employee writes theirs, it is not a count of self-reviews.

Below that sit six counters — Everyone, Not started, Self-review submitted, Manager review submitted, Finalised and Acknowledged. Click one to filter the table to that state, and click Everyone to clear it. Find an employee searches by name or employee code within the cycle. The table lists each person's status and overall rating (or "Not rated"), with View → to open the review itself.

Close a cycle

On the cycle page, click Close cycle and confirm. Closing stops the cycle for good: it cannot be reopened. It does not conclude anything on its own — reviews that were still in progress stay in whatever state they had reached, so chase the outstanding ones before you close.

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Writing a review

Each enrolled person has one review, which moves through five states.

The intended order is self-review first, then manager review. It is not enforced: a manager can file their review while the employee's is still Not started. If that happens the self-review step closes — the employee's screen then reads "You didn't submit one before your manager filed their review, so it can no longer be added", and the manager's copy reads "None was submitted before the manager review was filed". Give people notice before you file early.

Your self-review

1. Go to My space → Reviews and click the cycle name under My reviews (it carries a Self-review due badge).
2. Write Your self-assessment. This is required — the review cannot be submitted empty.
3. Add Key achievements (optional) if you want to list specific results.
4. Click Submit self-review.

Once submitted it cannot be edited or withdrawn. The page then confirms "Self-review submitted. Your manager will add their feedback next."

You cannot see your manager's section yet. Until the review is finalised, that part of the page reads "Your manager's feedback appears here once it is written and the review is finalised. You'll be notified when it is ready to read."

The manager review

Managers see their reports under Reviews to give on My space → Reviews; HR and super admins see Reviews across the company instead, which lists every review in an open cycle, not only the ones they write themselves. Click a name to open the review.

You will see the employee's self-review (or a note that they have not written one), then the manager form:

The five competencies are fixed for every cycle: Communication, Ownership, Quality of work, Collaboration and Growth & learning. Rate the ones you have something to say about and leave the rest as Not rated — only the ones you rate are stored and shown.

Click Submit manager review. This cannot be edited afterwards. The page confirms "Manager review submitted. It stays hidden from the employee until you finalise it."

For example, Kavya Nair reviewing Priya Sharma might rate Communication 4, Ownership 4, Quality of work 5 and leave Growth & learning as Not rated, with an overall rating of 4 — Exceeds expectations.

Finalise and share

Nothing you write reaches the employee until the review is finalised. Once a review is at Manager review submitted, the reviewer or an HR administrator sees Finalise & share at the bottom of it.

1. Read your own review through once more — after this step it is visible to the employee and cannot be edited.
2. Click Finalise & share.

The employee is notified that their review is ready to read and is asked to acknowledge it. Their My reviews entry now shows the overall rating, for example "Finalised · overall rating 4/5". Until a review is finalised, no rating is shown to the employee at all.

Acknowledge your review

When your review is finalised you get a notification and an Acknowledge badge on My space → Reviews.

1. Open the review and read the manager section — the written assessment, strengths, areas to improve, goals and any competency ratings.
2. Optionally add a note in Add a note (optional).
3. Click Acknowledge review.

Acknowledging confirms you have read your manager's feedback. It does not mean you agree with it, and it cannot be undone. The review then shows as Acknowledged to you, your manager and HR.

Worth knowing. The note you add when acknowledging is saved on the review record and written to the audit trail, but no screen in the product displays it back — not to you, not to your manager, not to HR. If you want to register a disagreement so that someone reads it, raise it with your manager or HR directly rather than relying on this box.

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What you see at My space → Reviews

Everyone with a login and an employee record has this page, whatever their role.

• My reviews lists every review you are the subject of, newest first, with its status. A Self-review due badge means it is your turn; an Acknowledge badge means your manager's feedback is ready to read. Your overall rating appears here only once the review is finalised.
• Reviews to give appears if you manage people, and lists the reviews you are the assigned reviewer for.
• Reviews across the company replaces that panel for HR and super admins, and lists every review in an open cycle.

If you have no reviews yet, the page says so: "Your reviews appear here once HR opens a cycle. You'll be notified when your self-review is due." That is normal — nothing exists for you until HR opens a cycle.

Every step (submitting, finalising, acknowledging, and every cycle action) is written to the audit log with who did it and when.

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Probation

Approvals → Probation lists everyone who has not yet been confirmed, so nobody's confirmation quietly slips past its date. Managers see only their own reports and can recommend an outcome; HR and super admins see everyone still on probation and make the decision.

How the confirmation due date is worked out

The due date is the joining date plus the probation period recorded on the employee record — a joining date of 1 January 2026 with a 90-day probation gives 1 April 2026. If either the joining date or the probation length is missing, the column reads Not set and the page explains why.

The list is sorted by due date, soonest first, and anything past due carries a red 7 days overdue badge. The page heading counts them, for example "3 confirmations are past due."

Worth knowing. No screen in MusterHR currently offers a field for the probation length. It is part of the terms carried on an offer letter (see Hiring, offers and onboarding), so on records created another way the confirmation due date usually shows Not set. Those rows still appear in the list and can still be decided — you simply have to know the date yourself rather than being warned by it.

Probation statuses

A manager's recommendation

If you manage people on probation, the last column is Your recommendation with two buttons:

1. Open Approvals → Probation.
2. Click Recommend confirming or Recommend extending for the person concerned.

HR is notified straight away, and your recommendation appears under that person's status on HR's copy of the list as "Manager recommends confirming". A recommendation is advice only — HR still makes the decision, and you can record one while the status is either On probation or Extended. There is no button to recommend ending someone's employment; raise that with HR directly.

HR's decision

HR and super admins see a Decision column with three options.

Confirm employment

1. Open Approvals → Probation.
2. Click Confirm employment on the person's row.

Their confirmation date is set to today, their employee status becomes Active, they are notified, and they disappear from the Probation list. This cannot be undone from this screen.

Extend probation

1. Pick a date in Extend probation until. The Extend button stays disabled until you do.
2. Click Extend.

The status becomes Extended, the confirmation due date is replaced by the date you chose, and the employee is notified that their probation has been extended. They stay on the list, so the new date is chased in exactly the same way. An extended probation can be extended again, confirmed, or ended.

End employment

1. Click End employment. It sits below the other two controls, separated by a line, so a mis-tap cannot land on it.
2. Type a Reason (required) in the confirmation dialog. The decision is not accepted without one and the reason is recorded against it.
3. Click End employment again to confirm.

Terminating puts the employee on notice. Their employee status changes to On notice, the decision is written to the audit trail, and they are notified immediately. It cannot be reversed from this screen. The exit itself — clearance, assets, settlement and revoking access — is finished under Approvals → Offboarding; see Assets and offboarding.

After a decision

The employee gets a notification for any of the three outcomes ("Your employment has been confirmed", "Your probation has been extended", "Your probation outcome has been recorded"). There is no probation section on My space → My profile, so what they actually see there is the effect of the decision: Status under Employment reads Active after confirmation and On notice after a termination. Tell people the outcome yourself as well; the notification alone is thin.

Probation and review cycles are separate features. A cycle of type Probation is a normal review cycle with a label — it does not enrol only people on probation, and finalising it does not confirm anyone. Confirmation happens only on Approvals → Probation.

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Related chapters

• Roles and permissions — why a page or button is missing for you
• Employee records and profiles — joining dates, reporting managers and employee status
• Hiring, offers and onboarding — where probation terms are stated to a new joiner
• Assets and offboarding — finishing an exit after a probation is ended