The Conversations feature is a collaborative performance management tool designed to facilitate meaningful one-on-one meetings and catch-ups. It supports continuous discussions between managers and employees, making performance reviews smoother and more effective by maintaining a systematic record of discussions and achievements. This feature is enabled by default and should be available to all users.

With Conversations, users can:

Record achievements or discussion topics during regular one-on-one meetings.
Link discussions to existing performance appraisal components, such as Goals, Competencies, or Development Objectives.
Add meaningful notes to appraisals to support performance reviews.

Create a New Conversation

1. Navigate to Performance > Conversations.
2. Click Get Started to open a search bar.

3. Search for a colleague by name.

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The Conversations feature allows users to initiate chats with colleagues across the organisation based on your company’s settings.
Here are the available search scope options:

Direct Reports plus Team Members: This will allow the user to search for anyone who directly reports to them plus anyone who reports to the same manager.
All Direct and Indirect Reports plus Team Members: This will allow the user to search for anyone who directly or indirectly reports to them plus anyone who reports to the same manager.
Whole Organisation: This will allow the user to search for any active user in the system.

By default, the search scope is often set to Whole Organisation, but this can vary depending on your company’s preferences.

If you need to modify this configuration, please contact our Support Team for assistance.

4. Select the person to initiate a new conversation. You will be redirected to the conversation screen.

Recording Discussions

During one-on-one or regular catchups, both managers and employees can record discussion topics and notes. Once a discussion is done, they can mark it as completed and move on to the next topic.

Conversations feature allows both the manager and the employee to record any topic: personal goals, learning courses, remuneration, company policies, compliance, onboarding and career development plans.

Steps to Record a Discussion

1. Click Create New to start a discussion.

2. Enter the discussion subject and click Save.

3. Add details in the Notes section using the rich text editor or emojis for clarity and better engagement.

4. Click Save

4. The notes can then be visible to both parties and the conversation can be marked completed.

Marking a Discussion as Complete

Once a topic has been fully discussed:

1. Click the ellipsis icon beside the discussion item.
2. Select Complete to move it to the Completed Items list.

You can also restore or delete the completed discussion to the active Conversation list if needed. Find the relevant completed conversation and click the drop-down menu and click Restore or Delete.

Discussing an Item in an Employee’s Appraisal

The Conversations feature allows managers and employees to pull Goals, Competencies, and Development Objectives from performance appraisals into discussions.

During their one-on-one meetings or regular check-ins, employees can easily discuss many things written in their assigned appraisals, such as personal goals, development plans and targets, without going back and forth between Conversations and Performance Appraisal pages. In addition, managers and employees can easily add notes to the associated appraisal sections.

Creating a Discussion Topic from an Employee Appraisal

1. Click the arrow next to the Create New button and select From Appraisal.

2. Select the employee’s appraisal you wish to discuss.
3. Navigate to the relevant appraisal section and click Create Discussion.

4. A new discussion linked to the selected appraisal section will appear.

You can also view the Appraisal assignment by clicking the Appraisal name in the Conversation

Adding Notes to Appraisal Section Items

The Conversations feature lets employees or managers choose notes they want to display in the employee's appraisal section items. However, this feature is only available for notes under discussion linked to the appraisal section items, not appraisal sections.

1. Create a discussion linked to an appraisal section item.
2. Add notes to the discussion.
3. Select the Also add note to appraisal checkbox and click Save.

1. The user needs to navigate to the section items and click the “Create Discussion” button

2. Once the discussion is created, enter a note under that discussion

3. Ensure the "Also add note to appraisal" checkbox is selected and then click “Save”

The note will then appear in the linked appraisal section item.

📝	Appraisal section items must be added to the appraisal section to enable this feature. Without section items, notes cannot be sent from Conversations to the appraisal.

Access, Permissions, and Privacy in Conversations

The Conversations feature is designed to ensure both privacy and appropriate access to appraisal components during discussions.

Accessing Appraisal Component Permissions

Employee-Manager Conversations:
In regular one-on-one meetings:
- Managers can view employees' appraisals and create discussion items from them.
- Employees can only access their own appraisals for creating discussion items.

Peer Conversations (Non-Manager-Employee Relationship):
Users can hold one-on-one meetings with peers, seniors, or other colleagues (e.g., coaches or other managers). In this case:
- - Users can only access their own appraisals to create discussion items.

Privacy in Conversations

Conversations are private to the users involved:

Only the participants in a conversation can access the discussions.
Admins, even with impersonation privileges, cannot access these discussions.

📝	If an admin logs in as another user, they will not see the Conversations tab for the impersonated account. Only the actual user logged into their own account can view and access this tab.

When notes from Conversations are added to appraisals, they become visible to users with access to the respective appraisal.