Five Signs Your Performance Review Process Is Outdated

Performance reviews are meant to help employees grow, align teams, and improve performance. But let’s be honest—too many companies are stuck in outdated processes that don’t actually drive results.

If your reviews feel like a yearly dentist appointment, it’s time to rethink the approach.

Here are five clear signs your performance review process needs an upgrade in 2025.

1. You’re Only Doing Reviews Once a Year

A once-a-year review isn’t enough. Employees need continuous feedback to improve, not a single meeting where they rehash the past 12 months.

If feedback is only happening annually, you’re missing opportunities to course-correct and motivate your team throughout the year.

Fix it: Implement more frequent check-ins—quarterly or even monthly—to keep feedback fresh and actionable.

2. Employees Walk in Nervous and Leave Confused

If your employees are anxious before reviews and unclear about next steps afterward, something’s broken.

Performance reviews should motivate, not demoralize. They should be about growth, direction, and clarity, not just a retrospective report of what went wrong.

Fix it: Make reviews a safe space for honest conversations and forward-looking goals, not just a performance recap.

3. Managers Do All the Talking

If performance reviews feel like a one-sided lecture, they’re not working.

Employees should be active participants in their own growth. If managers are the only ones speaking, reviews become passive, ineffective, and disengaging.

Fix it: Make performance reviews a collaborative conversation. Let employees reflect, share feedback, and set their own growth goals.

4. You Spend More Time Managing the Process Than the Conversation

Are you drowning in spreadsheets, forms, and surveys? If so, your performance review process has become more about administration than actual impact.

Fix it: Streamline the process so managers spend less time filling out forms and more time coaching their teams.

5. Your Feedback is So Generic It Could Apply to Anyone

If your go-to feedback is “needs improvement” or “keep up the good work,” that’s a problem. Vague, generic feedback doesn’t help anyone grow. Employees need specific, actionable insights to improve.

Fix it: Make feedback clear, tailored, and useful so employees actually know how to improve.

It’s 2025. Time to Do Better.

Performance reviews shouldn’t be a box to check. They should be a tool for growth.

If any of these signs sound familiar, let's set up a conversation to share more of how WorkStory might help your team.