Understanding How a Goal's Supervisor Is Determined
What a Goal's Supervisor Is
A goal's supervisor is a user — someone other than the person who created the goal — who can view and manage the goal, and who sees it under Team Workspace → Goals. The supervisor is the manager who oversees the goal alongside the creator.
The person who created a goal always keeps their own edit rights, no matter how the supervisor is determined. The supervisor is in addition to the creator, not instead of them.
Understanding How the Supervisor Is Chosen Automatically
You do not choose a goal's supervisor yourself. The supervisor is worked out automatically from your academy's organizational structure, based on the person the goal is assigned to and the role the goal is assigned for.
Locating the "Supervised by" Selector
If you are used to picking the supervisor manually, you will notice there is no longer a Supervised by selector on the goal setup page. That step has been removed on purpose. Because the supervisor is now derived automatically from the organizational structure, there is nothing left for you to select — the right manager is applied for you.
Understanding How Oversight Self-Heals
Because the supervisor is tied to a position in the organizational structure rather than to one fixed person, oversight keeps itself correct over time. When people change roles or leave, oversight of the goal moves to whoever takes over the relevant position — with no manual clean-up on your part.
If the position that would supervise a goal is currently empty — for example, no one holds it, or the person who did has been deactivated — the goal simply has no supervisor for the moment, and its creator continues to manage it. As soon as the position is filled again, oversight is restored automatically.
The same is true at the top of the hierarchy: if there is no manager one level above the relevant position, the goal has no supervisor, and its creator keeps managing it.
Understanding Person-Anchored Goals
Some goals are anchored to a specific person. This covers Personal goals, Team goals, and a goal cascaded down to a specific learner. For these, the supervisor is the manager (or managers) responsible for the assignee's job and unit — that is, the role the goal is assigned for.
- When the goal is assigned for a standard employee role within a Unit, the supervisor is the Unit Manager (or Unit Managers) of that Unit.
- When the goal is assigned for a managerial role — such as a Unit Manager, Assistant Unit Manager, Head of Above Unit, or Assistant Head of Above Unit — the supervisor is the Head (or Heads) of the Above Unit one level above.
Understanding Organization-Anchored Goals
Other goals are anchored to a place in the organization rather than to one person. This covers Organizational goals and a goal cascaded down to an org node. For these, the supervisor is every manager in the Above Unit (or Above Units) one level above the target org node.
If the target org node sits under more than one parent Above Unit, then the managers of all of those parents are supervisors — you no longer choose a single parent yourself; every manager one level above oversees the goal.
Understanding the Difference Between Follow and Stay
When a goal is created, it is set to either Follow or Stay. Both use the same rules above to work out the supervisor — the difference is when that lookup happens.
- Follow — oversight is resolved live against the person's current role. If the assignee moves to a different job, the supervisor is recalculated to match wherever they are now.
- Stay — oversight is frozen to the role and org context in place when the goal was created. Even if the assignee later moves, the goal stays with the managers of that original role.