How to Use Growth Cycles

• Overview
• Who Growth Cycles Are Best For
• How to Get Access
• What's Included
• How to Create a Growth Cycle
  • Configure Settings
  • Participants
  • Review Notifications
  • Launch
• Growth Plan History and Tracking
• Employee Experience of Growth Cycles
• Tracking Cycles 

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Overview

Growth Cycles help organizations drive stronger Growth Plan adoption by setting clear timelines and automating reminders throughout the planning process. By reducing the administrative workload, Cycles removes barriers to getting started and supports employees in building, sharing, and reflecting on their Growth Plans.

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Who are Growth Cycles best for?

Growth Cycles will benefit organizations that:

• Want to drive widespread Growth Plan adoption
• Need clearer timelines and expectations for employees and managers
• Want to reduce manual follow-ups and administrative work
• Use annual or otherwise structured Growth planning rhythms

Growth Cycles are especially effective for organizations running annual Growth Planning cycles, though cycle length is customizable.

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How do I get access?

If you’re interested in utilizing Growth Cycles, reach out to your Customer Implementation Manager or Customer Success Manager for support in getting started.

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What’s included in Growth Cycles

Accessing Cycle Management

Cycle Management is available from Growth Administration under the Cycles tab.

From there, admins can create, review, and launch Growth Cycles.

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How to Create a Growth Cycle

1. In the left-hand navigation, expand Growth
2. Select Administration
3. Select Cycles
4. Click Create your first cycle

New cycles are automatically saved as drafts until launched.

To create a Cycle:

1. Configure Settings

When creating a cycle, admins define the bounds of the cycle, not access to Growth itself. Growth Plans remain available to employees who are granted access (in Global Settings > Users) at all times.

You’ll configure:

• Cycle name (for example, [ORG NAME] 2026 Growth Planning)
• Start and end dates
  • Cycles must be at least one month long
    Most organizations use annual cycles
• Share-by date
  • Typically set within the first few weeks of the cycle
  • Used to drive accountability and trigger reminders
    
    

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2. Participants

• All users with Growth access are automatically included in the cycle
• Participant lists reflect existing Growth permissions

The screen lists how many employees will be included in the cycle based on current user access. You may also download the Participant list on this screen to review who currently has access.

To update Growth permissions, click “Manage User Access”, which will direct you to the User Management screen where you can add Growth permissions to users who should be included in the cycle.  

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3. Review Notifications

Growth Cycles include built-in notifications to support employees and managers at key moments without administrative lift. Notification timing and content are preset and align with Growth best practices.

Employee notifications include:

• An invitation email at cycle start explaining the purpose and value of Growth
• A reminder sent 2 days before the Share-by date if a plan has not yet been shared
• A reminder sent 2 weeks before the cycle end date to reflect on progress and update plans

Manager notifications include:

• A notification when a direct report shares their Growth Plan\

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4. Review & Launch

Before launching:

• Review all cycle settings
• Save the cycle as a draft
• Schedule the cycle for launch

Important: Once launched, the cycle becomes active based on the selected start date and cannot be edited. If you need to delete a cycle after its start date, please reach out to Customer Support. 

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5. Growth Plan history and tracking

Growth Cycles automatically capture historical records of Growth Plans to help track progress over time.

• A historical record of each Growth Plan is captured before the cycle begins and at the end of the cycle
• Historical records reflect the plan exactly as it existed at the point in time it was captured
• Historical records cannot be edited

Employees can view past plan records by selecting Plan History from their current Growth Plan.

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Employee experience within a Growth Cycle

Welcome screens

When employees enter Growth during an active cycle, they’ll see a welcome screen tailored to their experience:

1. First-time Growth users see guidance designed to help them build their first Growth Plan
2. Employees with existing plans can choose to:
   • Preserve some or all of their previous plan content, or
   • Start fresh with a new plan

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Sharing behavior at cycle start

At the beginning of each cycle:

• Any Growth Plan that was previously shared with a manager automatically reverts to an unshared state
• This allows employees to privately draft updates before re-sharing
• It also enables admins to accurately track sharing activity within the cycle

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Building and sharing plans

After completing the welcome screen, employees can begin building their Growth Plan.

• The Share-by date is clearly displayed for visibility and accountability
• Employees can update, reflect, and re-share plans as part of the cycle

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Tracking Cycles

Admins and managers will be able to track employee progress within the cycle on the Team Plans and Team Insights page. The status charts and graphs always reflect what is true on current cycles.

We recommend that admins or managers check plan statuses just after the share-by date, so that they can filter to users who have not shared their plans and send an encouraging “nudge” reminding them to take action.