Resource Library

WorkStory Blog

Our collection of written and video resources based on our work with customers.
Performance Reviews

Performance Reviews Reinvented: Leveraging Microsoft Teams with WorkStory

This post explores how leveraging Microsoft Teams with WorkStory can transform your performance review process, making it more efficient, accurate, and conducive to ongoing improvement.
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Performance Reviews

Revolutionize Your Performance Reviews with Just One Click

In the dynamic world of work, performance reviews are pivotal in guiding employee development and organizational growth. However, the traditional process can be time-consuming and often detracts from the real purpose: meaningful development conversations. That's why we're thrilled to unveil a groundbreaking solution that's set to change the game.
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Performance Reviews

Communicating the Benefits: How to Introduce a Continuous Performance Evaluation Culture to Your Team

Nurturing a culture of continuous feedback is pivotal for fostering organizational growth and employee development. For executives contemplating this transformation, the task involves not just implementing a new system, but also effectively communicating its benefits to encourage buy-in from employees.
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Performance Reviews

Unveiling the Hidden Cost of Traditional Performance Reviews

Performance reviews, a staple in organizational management, are notoriously time-intensive. This time commitment equates to more than five full work weeks, a substantial portion of the year that could otherwise be spent on productive tasks​​​​​​.
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Performance Reviews

Shifting the Paradigm in Performance Management: WorkStory vs. Traditional Software

Many performance management tools in the market claim uniqueness, but in reality, they're repackaging the same old approach. This approach, while familiar, fails to address the fundamental issues inherent in once-a-year evaluations.
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Performance Reviews

Transforming a Flawed Process: Getting Real Value from Your Annual Performance Review

In the world of small to medium-sized businesses, annual performance reviews are often met with skepticism and dread, both by employees and managers. Here's how you can maximize the benefits of your annual performance evaluation process.
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Performance Reviews

Jack Dorsey: No More Annual Reviews at Block

In a recent announcement that caught the attention of the corporate world, Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Block (formerly Square), unveiled a transformative approach to performance management within his company. This change, departing from traditional annual performance reviews, signifies a broader shift in how companies are rethinking employee evaluation and development.
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Performance Reviews

The Problem with Spreadsheet-Based Performance Reviews

Performance reviews are a critical part of managing and developing employees. However, many organizations still rely on spreadsheet-based reviews, which are manual, disconnected, and full of flaws.
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Performance Reviews

Preventing Surprises in Employee Performance Reviews

Employee performance reviews are a cornerstone of professional development and organizational growth. However, when handled as an annual or biannual event, they can lead to unexpected and often negative outcomes.
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Performance Reviews

Getting Ready for Annual Reviews: A Guide to Preparing for Effective Performance Evaluations

The time for annual performance reviews is rolling around once more. As a manager, thoughtfully conducted reviews allow you to provide meaningful feedback, set aligned goals, identify growth opportunities, and guide your team’s development over the past year.
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Performance Reviews

The Evolution of Performance Reviews: How Continuous Feedback Replaced Annual Reviews

The dreaded annual performance review has been a staple of workplaces for decades. Where did this practice originate? And why is it ripe for disruption by continuous feedback models? Let's explore the past, present and future of performance management.
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Performance Reviews

Kickstart Your Reviews With Our Performance Review Templates

We are excited to introduce our extensive library of performance review templates, carefully crafted to suit various industries and roles.
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Performance Reviews

Tips to Help You Improve Your 1:1 Meetings

It's time to revolutionize the way we conduct these meetings, transforming them from mere status updates to strategic growth sessions.
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Performance Reviews

What People Get Wrong with Performance Reviews

Performance reviews, when done right, can be a powerful tool for employee development and organizational growth. However, they often fall short due to common pitfalls that hinder their effectiveness.
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Performance Reviews

How to Conduct a 360 Review: A Comprehensive Guide

In this article, we will walk you through the step-by-step process of conducting a 360 review, highlighting its benefits and offering practical tips to ensure its success.
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Performance Reviews

Getting Your SMB Started with 360 Reviews

360 reviews are especially relevant to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). These reviews offer a holistic view of an employee's performance, providing insights that can be missed in a traditional, top-down review.
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Performance Reviews

The Psychology Behind Effective Performance Reviews

Performance reviews are a critical part of business strategy, aimed at aligning individual goals with organizational objectives. But at their core, they're deeply rooted in psychology. Understanding this psychological basis can empower leaders to conduct more effective, impactful performance reviews.
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Performance Reviews

A Guide for SMBs: Upgrading from Paper to Digital Performance Reviews

Employee performance reviews are essential to the growth and development of both your team and your business. However, traditional, paper-based reviews often pose challenges. They can be time-consuming, prone to errors, lack real-time feedback, and bring up storage issues.
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Performance Reviews

Transforming Employee Evaluation With AI and Automation

In this digital age, performance review processes are evolving with the integration of automation and AI technology. By embracing these advancements, businesses can streamline their performance review processes, improve objectivity, and drive meaningful outcomes.
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Performance Reviews

Why People Hate Employee Performance Reviews

Employee performance reviews can be challenging for many people. Let's explore the common reasons why these reviews are often disliked and how we can make them better.
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Performance Reviews

Getting on the Same Page: How Managers and Employees Become Misaligned in Performance Reviews

Infrequent discussions between employees and managers can lead to a misalignment of expectations, stifled growth, and missed opportunities for improvement. Let's delve into the ramifications of infrequent performance conversations and explore how embracing continuous performance reviews can bridge the gap, fostering a more aligned and thriving workplace.
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Performance Reviews

The Go-To Guide for Continuous Performance Reviews

In the world of performance management, the old ways are giving way to a new paradigm – continuous performance reviews. Traditional annual or biannual reviews are no longer enough to support the growth and development of employees.
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Performance Reviews

Collaborating with Employees to Create a Performance Review Process That Works

Performance reviews are an essential aspect of employee development and growth, but oftentimes they can feel like a one-sided conversation. Involving employees in the development of the performance review process can lead to more effective and impactful reviews.
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Performance Reviews

Introducing WorkStory AI Assist

WorkStory, a platform for employee feedback and performance management, has launched a cutting-edge AI-powered performance management tool called WorkStory AI Assist. This new feature uses the latest OpenAI technology to provide real-time insights into employees' performance and development needs.
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Performance Reviews

5 Tips for Effective Remote Performance Reviews

Managers are faced with new challenges in conducting performance reviews for their remote employees. The traditional approach of a face-to-face meeting is no longer applicable, and managers must adapt to the new normal.
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Performance Reviews

Choosing Performance Review Software for Marketing and Creative Agencies

As creative agencies and marketing firms mature, leadership typically develops a need for managing performance reviews. But with so many options available, how can you choose the best one for your team?
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Performance Reviews

Forced Ranking: How to Learn and Improve Upon Them

Forced ranking systems, also known as forced distribution, have been used by many organizations as a way to evaluate employee performance. However, this system has a negative impact on employees and can be detrimental to their motivation, morale, and productivity.
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Performance Reviews

How to Handle an Unfair Employee Performance Review

Performance reviews are an important part of any job, providing employees with feedback on their work. However, sometimes you might receive a performance review that you feel is unfair or inaccurate.
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Performance Reviews

Why Performance Reviews Matter for PR, Marketing, and Creative Agencies

Many companies, particularly in the fast-paced world of PR, marketing, and creative agencies, struggle to implement a formal performance review process. Here's how and why you should get reviews started.
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Performance Reviews

Why Annual Performance Reviews are a Waste of Time (and What You Can Do Instead)

Are you tired of annual performance reviews that feel as exciting as watching paint dry? With continuous performance evaluation, employees receive feedback in real-time, which leads to increased engagement, productivity, and employee satisfaction.
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Performance Reviews

Breaking the Cycle: It's Time to Ditch Traditional Annual Performance Reviews

Do you dread annual performance reviews? You're not alone. Organizations are turning to more continuous feedback and performance evaluation to support employee development and improve performance.
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Performance Reviews

Performance Reviews for Marketing and PR Agencies

Marketing and PR agencies are fast-paced, task-based environments. As such, traditional performance review processes may not provide a complete picture of employee performance.
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Performance Reviews

12 Employee Performance Review Question Examples

For companies just getting started with their first employee performance review process, the task can seem overwhelming. To help simplify the process and ensure that companies gather meaningful and useful feedback, we've put together a guide on the 12 core questions that companies should be sure to ask during their first employee performance review.
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Performance Reviews

Effective Performance Review Phrases

Employee performance reviews, self-evaluations, and 360 reviews are important opportunities for team members to reflect on their performance and receive feedback from others. But it can be difficult to know exactly how to phrase your feedback to be constructive and effective.
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Performance Reviews

Avoiding Common Mistakes in Employee Performance Reviews

It's not uncommon for companies or team members, in particular, to make mistakes in their performance review process. In this post, we'll highlight some of the most common pitfalls of performance evaluations and how to avoid them.
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Performance Reviews

How to Implement Performance Reviews at Your Company

Performance evaluations can be a daunting task, especially for companies that have never had a formal process in place. This post will cover how to get started with performance reviews, overcome resistance, and make the process a success.
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Performance Reviews

Leveraging Microsoft Teams for Employee Performance Reviews

Traditional performance review processes can be time-consuming, difficult to coordinate, and often result in low employee engagement. That's why many companies are now turning to Microsoft Teams to help streamline the process and get better results.
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Performance Reviews

Empowering Your Team with 360 Reviews: A Guide for HR Managers

A 360 review is a comprehensive performance evaluation process that involves feedback from multiple sources, including an employee's manager, peers, direct reports, and sometimes even customers.
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Performance Reviews

How to Master the Self-Review Process

Self-appraisals are an important part of the performance review process. They provide employees with the opportunity to reflect on their accomplishments and contributions, and to make a case for a raise or bonus. However, many employees find self-evaluations to be a difficult and time-consuming task.
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Performance Reviews

Separating Performance and Pay: A New Approach

Performance reviews and paying out raises or bonuses are two integral processes in any organization. However, many companies struggle to align the two effectively, leading to confusion and dissatisfaction among employees.
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Performance Reviews

Breaking the Link Between Annual Reviews and Compensation

One of the biggest challenges faced by many companies is the way in which annual performance reviews become closely tied to conversations around bonuses, raises, and merit increases. This can lead to disappointment, frustration, and have a negative impact on culture.
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Performance Reviews

Why Regular Check-ins Are Key to Effective Performance Management

Instead of relying on an annual performance review, managers should conduct regular, ongoing check-ins with employees. These check-ins can take many forms. The key is that they should be regular, consistent, and focused on performance.
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Performance Reviews

Navigating Difficult Conversations: Tips for Giving Negative Feedback in a Performance Review

Performance reviews can be difficult, especially when you have to give negative feedback to an employee. Here are some tips on how to approach the conversation.
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Performance Reviews

How to Handle End of Year Performance Reviews

While the performance review conversation should never be a surprise, it never hurts to be prepared to put your best foot forward.
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Performance Reviews

10 Tips for Giving Constructive Feedback

In order to maintain a productive and positive work environment, it's essential to give feedback that is both timely and constructive. Here are 10 tips on giving constructive feedback.
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Performance Reviews

How to Write Effective Performance Review Comments

With regards to performance review comments, it helps to be as specific and actionable as possible.
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Performance Reviews

Tweeting About Performance Reviews

We took a cursory glance at Twitter to see what the crowd thinks of year-end performance reviews. The results were not unexpected...
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Performance Reviews

We All Hate Performance Reviews

When it comes to employee performance reviews, put in the requisite time to make it a pleasant and meaningful experience. Make them relevant to your team. These adjustments could fundamentally change your business.
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Performance Reviews

Avoid Central Tendency Bias

If you're ever given a question on a scale of one to five, you're probably going to pick a three or a four-regardless of the subject. This is central tendency bias.
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Performance Reviews

Involve More People in Performance Reviews

The typical 1-on-1 performance review is outdated, unhelpful, wildly subjective, and biased. Keeping the meeting between a manager and employee is not the future of workforce management.
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Performance Reviews

Keep Looking Forward

We call them performance reviews. This is somewhat of a misnomer. Yes we're looking back at how you've done, but what is the purpose of a performance review, really?
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