This page covers our old system for Performance Reviews; we used this through H1 2024. It consists of a formal review written by each person’s manager, in addition to a self-review written by the teammate.

For the new system we started creating and testing in H2 2024, see Reflections .

The Process and Format:

We use Lattice for performance reviews. Each time a review cycle kicks off you’ll receive an email and link to begin your review. The people-ops team will also share a thread with details and dates each cycle so you won’t miss a step.

Everyone at Buffer completes a self-review and receives a manager-review except new teammates who are still in the 90-day onboarding process, or who completed it within the last 3 months.

Once you complete your self review and your manager completes their review of you, you’ll receive a review packet so you can review the feedback privately ahead of speaking with your manager. Your review packet will always be accessible to you via Lattice so you are welcome to go back and review it ahead of your next review.

Teammates or managers who will be on family leave or sabbatical for the review cycle should plan ahead and reflect on the following options: [use dropdown to display]

Schedule:

We generally do performance reviews twice a year, in May and October. (The timing is designed to avoid major holidays and heavy vacation seasons.)