Performance Appraisal Policy
The Performance Appraisal policy & process at Wednesday.
Frequency & Timing
Performance appraisals will occur once per year, taking place each February, and will become effective from April 1 of the same year.
Eligibility
- Employees who have completed at least 10 months of continuous service by February of the appraisal year will be eligible to participate in that cycle.
- Increments and adjustments for employees with less than a year of service may be determined on a prorated basis, at the company’s discretion.
- To be eligible for appraisal, employees are expected to:
- Successfully complete their probation period within the same year. Written confirmation of completion should be recorded with HR, and employees are encouraged to ensure this is received.
- Set their OKRs for the review period, within the timeline communicated for that cycle.
- Hold monthly OKR check-ins with their manager, and share written minutes of each discussion.
Setting your OKRs
Set your OKRs within the timeline communicated at the start of each review period. When they are set matters, and it forms part of the picture at review time.
Wednesday will keep sending reminders in the run-up to the date. The reminders are there to help, and the date stands on its own.
If your role, project, or reporting line changes mid-period, revise your OKRs with your manager instead of leaving stale objectives in place.
Monthly check-ins and minutes
Check-ins with your manager happen monthly, alongside the yearly review of accomplishments. You are responsible for making sure each one takes place. If a check-in is missed, cancelled, or postponed, reschedule it within the same month.
Share written minutes with your manager and HR after every check-in. The minutes are what carry the conversation forward to review time, so a discussion that goes unrecorded has little to draw on later. Keep them concrete: what progress was made, what changed, what is blocked, and what you committed to next.
Juno and your OKRs
Juno, our governance agent, monitors whether OKRs have been set, schedules the monthly manager check-ins, and tracks the yearly review of accomplishments.
Juno records and reminds. Setting the OKRs, holding the meetings, and writing the minutes stay with you. Having an agent in the loop makes the process easier to see, and the ownership of it sits where it always has.
Because everything is tracked, the record is a fair reflection of the year: the OKRs, the check-ins, the minutes. It is worth treating it as complete, since it is what your appraisal draws on. If something in it looks wrong, or a scheduled meeting does not appear, flag it then rather than at review time.
Employee ownership
- Employees are responsible for driving their own performance conversations by setting OKRs, scheduling reviews, and maintaining records.
- The company encourages frequent reviews, as they create more opportunities for feedback, alignment, and growth.
Appraisal at Wednesday looks for people going above and beyond what is expected of them. The interest you show in your own performance is part of that, and it is one of the things we look at.