# Performance reviews that stop being a surprise

> Managers and staff see the same picture of performance, against the same standard, at quarterly reviews plus an annual — five times a year.

[Human view](https://joeperes.com/work/performance-reviews)
Industry: Healthcare clinic

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## The problem

Performance reviews were episodic and largely subjective. There was no agreed definition of what good looked like in a given role, so feedback arrived late, inconsistently, and often as a surprise to the person receiving it.

## What was built

A review system built on explicit KPIs defined per role, with AI tracking progress against them continuously and surfacing feedback to both the manager and the employee — rather than saving it all up for the next review.

## Results

- **0** — Minutes employees spend completing reviews, down from 20–30
  Owner-reported. The review form is gone; employees see their KPIs continuously instead.
- **15** — Minutes per manager review meeting, down from 60–90
  Owner-reported. KPIs are visible continuously, so the meeting is no longer spent reconstructing the quarter.

## How it was done

**Assess.** Reviews were being done. What was missing sat underneath them: nobody had agreed what good actually looked like in a given role, so there was no standard to review anyone against.

**Implement.** Explicit KPIs, defined per role. AI tracks progress against them continuously and surfaces what it finds to the manager and the employee at the same time.

**Measure.** The test was never whether reviews got done on time. It was whether a manager and their employee, asked separately how things were going, would give the same answer.

## Challenge

Performance reviews were episodic and largely subjective. They happened when they happened, and what they concluded depended a good deal on who was writing them.

The real problem sat underneath that. There was no agreed definition of what good looked like in a given role — no standard to measure against. Without one, feedback could only ever arrive late and inconsistently, and it often landed as a surprise to the person receiving it. A surprise in a review is the clearest sign that it should have been said months earlier.

## Solution

The review system was built on explicit KPIs, defined per role. That is the part that usually gets skipped: before anyone can be reviewed against a live standard, somebody has to say plainly what the job is.

With the standard written down, AI tracks progress against it continuously and surfaces feedback to both the manager and the employee — rather than saving it all up for the next review.

## Impact

Managers and staff see the same picture of performance, against the same standard, at quarterly reviews plus an annual — five times a year.

That was the whole point of it. A review should be the summary of a conversation both people have already been having — not the first time either of them hears where they stand.