Most performance management projects don't fail at configuration; they fail at adoption. Goals never get set, manual goals go stale, and reviews are finished late or not at all. This checklist covers the parts that decide adoption: the team and owners you need, getting busy line managers to set goals, accountability for updating goals and completing reviews, seeing which departments and teams have no goals, the goal approval flow, and the common pitfalls.
Every item is a recommendation: a practical default to start from, not a rule or a benchmark. The full checklist and the PDF, Excel and CSV versions are free with your work email.
What's in the checklist
- Team structure and owners (5 items)
- Set-up before launch (7 items)
- What to tell whom (4 items)
- Getting busy line managers to set goals (5 items)
- Accountability for updating goals and completing reviews (5 items)
- Seeing which departments and teams have no goals (3 items)
- Common implementation pitfalls to avoid (7 items)
Example items from section 1, Team structure and owners:
- Name an executive sponsor (CEO, COO or CPO)They open the launch, set the expectation that goals and reviews happen, and review completion with department heads.
- Name one programme ownerUsually the Head of People or a performance lead. Owns the calendar, configuration decisions and reporting.
Get the full checklist
The goal approval flow
RecommendationKeep it to one approver per level and a deadline for approvals (for example within 3 working days), or approval becomes the bottleneck. Revolut People supports in-platform approval flows that test goals for ambition and measurability, and company KPIs can cascade into department, team and individual goals. See Revolut People performance management.
Planning a rollout? See what your review cycle costs today, or talk through your rollout plan on a 15-minute discovery call.
A note on adoption figures
People often ask what goal or review completion rate to expect. This page deliberately doesn't quote one: adoption varies widely with company size, set-up and leadership involvement, and a generic number would be misleading. Measure your own coverage and completion every cycle. For individual, published examples, see the customer stories, for instance Plum, which recorded 96% of its goals on Revolut People in less than 4 weeks (roughly 600 goals across 90 individuals).
Related: review-cycle checklist · switching from spreadsheets · goal cascade worked example · building a skills-based framework.
FAQ
How do we get line managers to set goals when they are busy?
Make the first step small and pre-filled: one team goal cascaded from the department goal, drafted for them where possible, then individual goals agreed in the next 1:1. Use a department champion for nudges and pull goals into the review so managers see the payoff.
How do we know which departments and teams have no goals?
Check goal coverage by department and team during each goal-setting window, including goals stuck in draft or awaiting approval, and send the list of named teams to each department head weekly.
What should the goal approval flow look like?
A simple default: the employee drafts, the line manager approves individual goals, the department head approves team goals, and each approver checks ambition and measurability. Revolut People supports in-platform approval flows for this.
How many people do we need to run performance management?
As a starting point: an executive sponsor, one programme owner, a champion per department and a system admin. In smaller companies one person can be both programme owner and admin. These are recommendations, not a staffing benchmark.
What completion rates should we expect?
This page doesn't quote adoption or completion benchmarks, because they vary widely with company and set-up. Set your own target, measure coverage and completion every cycle, and see the published customer stories for individual examples.
What are the most common implementation mistakes?
Launching everything at once, a messy org structure, too many goals and skills, no executive sponsor, changing the process mid-cycle, and measuring the launch instead of ongoing use.