When a review is submitted in Workleap, the Workleap agent reads its written answers and tags them with performance themes, each with a sentiment. Themes show what people are repeatedly praised or criticized for across a team, a cycle, or the whole organization, without quoting anyone.
Who this is for: Direct Managers and Executives, who see themes on a review cycle's Themes tab. The Analytics page is for Executives only.
The twelve performance themes
Every written answer in a review is read against the same fixed set of twelve performance themes. They reflect well-established dimensions of workplace effectiveness, so that comments written in different styles and vocabularies can be compared.
Clarity of Expectations: whether people have a clear understanding of their role, priorities, and what success looks like.
Accountability and Follow-Through: how reliably individuals deliver on commitments and uphold ownership without needing reminders.
Decision Quality and Execution Discipline: how effectively people make timely decisions and keep work moving with focus.
Growth, Learning, and Skill Development: whether people are actively building new skills, taking on challenges, and progressing in their roles.
Feedback Culture: how consistently people give and receive actionable feedback that drives improvement.
Collaboration and Cross-Functional Effectiveness: how well people work across teams to align priorities and unblock each other.
Individual Leadership: how effectively individuals support, motivate, and positively influence others, even without formal authority.
Workload and Sustainability: whether workload, pacing, and stress levels support healthy, sustained performance over time.
Outcome Orientation: how strongly individuals focus on meaningful impact and connect their work to customer and business results.
Communication and Trust: whether people feel safe communicating honestly, raising concerns early, and engaging in constructive dialogue.
Innovation and Adaptability: how well individuals generate new solutions, adapt to change, and navigate ambiguity with a problem-solving mindset.
Ownership and Initiative: whether people take proactive responsibility, drive progress independently, and act without waiting for direction.
How a theme's sentiment is decided
Each theme the Workleap agent finds in a review is labelled with a sentiment, from what the reviewer actually wrote, never inferred from the question.
Positive: a clearly positive or praising statement about the theme.
Negative: a concern, criticism, gap, or area for improvement.
Mixed: one statement that holds both praise and a constructive point about the same theme.
Neutral: a factual or descriptive statement. Neutral mentions are kept but never shown.
A theme appears at most once per review, even if several answers mention it. Several reviewers can mention the same theme about the same person with different sentiments. Question headings and prompts are ignored; only the written answer counts.
Workleap agent insight: Themes are produced by the Workleap agent when a review is submitted. Nothing is attributed to a single reviewer or reviewee in the aggregated views; treat themes as an indicator, not a source of truth.
Where performance themes appear
Performance themes are shown aggregated, on two surfaces.
On a review cycle, the Themes tab shows, for the people in your view, three headline cards (Top strengths, Watch area, To monitor) and one card per theme with its share of positive, negative, and not-mentioned reviewees. Every bar spans the whole cohort, so the remainder is the people a theme never came up for. Select How is this calculated? on the tab for the on-screen explanation. See How do I read the results of one review cycle?
On the Analytics page, the Themes tab aggregates themes across many cycles and a period, with the same cards and columns of strengths and growth opportunities. See What do the Themes tab's strengths and growth opportunities mean?
Counts are by distinct reviewee: one review that touches five themes counts one person, not five mentions.
Limitations and workarounds
Written answers only. Rating and multiple-choice answers produce no theme.
Submitted reviews only. Draft and unsubmitted reviews aren't read.
No custom themes. The twelve themes are the same for every person, team, cycle, and organization, so insights stay comparable over time. They can't be renamed or extended.
No quotes. The aggregated views never show the sentence behind a theme. To read what was written, open the review itself.
Related
How do I read the results of one review cycle?
What do the Themes tab's strengths and growth opportunities mean?
Who can see what in a review cycle?