How does Aspen know what to write in a review?
Aspen captures performance signals continuously: wins shared in Slack, feedback given and received, 1:1 notes, and progress against goals. At review time, it drafts from that real evidence, and contextualized by performance Standards for the person's role and level.
Can I edit the draft?
Yes. Edit any sentence directly, regenerate the whole thing with one click, or lean the review into a specific topic — "more on leadership," "less on execution," "tighter on tone." You can also re-anchor sections to specific evidence.
How long does a review take?
First draft generates in roughly 90 seconds. Most managers finish a review in under 15 minutes — the difference between writing from a strong draft and starting from a blank page. Companies report 80%+ time savings on review cycles.
What types of reviews does Aspen support?
Self-review, peer review, upward review, and manager review. Aspen prompts the right participants at the right times, drafts from evidence, and hands clean ratings off to whoever owns the final call.
How does peer feedback get collected?
Employees nominate peers directly in Slack, or managers assign reviewers. Aspen handles the prompts, reminders, and collection inside Slack so nobody leaves the flow. Peer feedback can be tagged to a competency from the recipient's Standard (or left untagged); either way, it feeds the review draft alongside everything else.
How customizable is the review cycle?
Fully. Set start and end dates, deadlines, and reminder cadences. Include or omit self-review, peer review, upward review, and manager review per cycle. Customize questions and rating scales. Reflect your company's values and competencies inside any review template.
Does Aspen support ratings, calibration views, and 9-box grids?
Yes to ratings and calibration views. Managers select ratings on customizable scales. We deliberately don't support 9-box, as "potential" is a subjective measurement that can introduce bias. We do, however, power talent reviews through richer signals: growth velocity, performance over time, engagement, and impact patterns.
Will the AI introduce bias?
Aspen drafts from evidence anchored to the Standard, which actively reduces the recency, halo, and similarity biases that creep into memory-based reviews. Managers still own the final call; Aspen surfaces what they might be missing.
Does this replace our HRIS or our review cycle process?
Aspen is the review writing layer; final ratings can flow back to your HRIS. No need to migrate; teams adopt Aspen alongside what they already use, and reviews stop being the bottleneck.