I’ve always been a bit of a data geek, but even I couldn’t make sense of how so many companies (ours included, at one point) rely on once-a-year performance reviews. We’ve got these massive spreadsheets, awkward face-to-face meetings, and that lingering tension that makes everybody dread the season. I once sat through a review where my manager read from notes on a piece of paper like it was a script. It felt like a surreal mix of theater and annual penalty fees, and the worst part was that, by the time these reviews came around, any feedback was mostly outdated. I just remember thinking, “There has to be a better way to do this.” Because if you’re anything like me, you don’t just wake up once a year wanting to improve; the urge to be better happens daily—sometimes hourly.
We built Safia because we saw this same problem creeping into every corner of the workplace. People only talk about performance when it’s way too late. You get blindsided by feedback in December that you wish someone had mentioned in July. It’s like we’re structuring our entire people-development process around a date on the calendar, instead of what actually drives motivation, productivity, and engagement. Over coffee with a fellow founder last year, we both laughed about the universal dread of “review season.” And I thought: Wait, if we hate this so much, maybe it’s broken. Maybe it’s time to reconsider how we evaluate and support each other’s progress. That’s the short story of why I’m so passionate about continuous feedback and the systems that enable it. Of course, I don’t have all the answers, but I’ll share what I’ve learned in the trenches.
Why do we wait an entire year to talk about how someone’s doing at work? I used to wonder if I was doing a decent job or if I was completely off track. The official word would come months later in a formal meeting stuffed with corporate jargon. And more often than not, the feedback felt stale—like opening the fridge and finding leftover pizza from who knows when. My biggest frustration was that I couldn’t act on the suggestions quickly, even if they were helpful. By the time I received them, priorities had changed, new projects popped up, or I’d already addressed the issue on my own.
The kicker is that these processes are often built into the structure of hierarchical organizations, so it’s not exactly easy to buck the system. But many of us suspect there’s a better way. We’re starting to see the cracks in the annual approach—cracks that become impossibly wide chasms when teams grow quickly, or when remote work changes how we interact. The real question becomes: If one big meeting isn’t enough, then what is?
I remember watching a newly hired manager conduct a review for someone they’d known for maybe two weeks. They followed standard procedure: open the HR system, read the “performance categories,” check the boxes, and deliver their rating. It was surreal. The new manager was basically forced to rely on secondhand information or quick impressions. I asked myself, “How can this possibly feel fair to the person being reviewed, or even representative of their actual work?” That’s when I realized we were evaluating people with a system that wasn’t flexible enough to adapt to changing roles, teams, and even leaders.
When we were building Safia, we started pivoting more and more to real-time data. We wanted to see if continuous check-ins—small, frequent “How’s it going?” moments—could create a more accurate picture over time. If your manager changes mid-year, no problem: the historical record of tasks, goals, and feedback is there, living and breathing to inform whoever steps in. We didn’t set out to replicate traditional performance management in a fancy wrapper; we wanted to scrap the old model altogether and see what living, real-time feedback could do. And you know what? People lit up. Suddenly, you weren’t being judged on a single conversation or a manager’s memory of your performance. Instead, it was about an ongoing dialogue and a record of actual achievements and blockers.
And because this massive pivot was such an improvement for us, I started talking about it with other founders over coffee, dinner, or any chance we had to compare notes on hiring and retention. No one had the ultimate blueprint, but we all shared war stories of how the dreaded annual review crushed morale, took up valuable time, and often didn’t move the needle on growth or productivity. The frustration was universal, and that’s when I knew we weren’t crazy for thinking there had to be a different way.
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: money and time. Conducting annual reviews is expensive. When I say expensive, I don’t just mean the cost of the tools or the HR staff time. Think about the hours upon hours that managers and employees spend chasing feedback forms, writing self-evaluations, and scheduling reviews. We’re talking about thousands of collective hours in organizations with hundreds or thousands of employees. Time that could be spent planning new products, building customer relationships, or refining processes. Instead, it’s funneled into an archaic ritual that most people begrudgingly go along with.
I’ve also seen organizations that tie annual reviews directly to compensation decisions. While the link between performance and compensation can make sense, the timing is usually inopportune. You’re pairing the stress of an evaluation with the stress of financial considerations. It becomes a high-stakes drama that can overshadow honest conversations. Instead of truly listening to feedback, an employee might be mentally calculating how to justify a raise. Or a manager might be steering the review toward some middle ground because the budget for raises is limited. The result? The conversation gets diluted, political, and ultimately less constructive. The cost here isn’t just monetary; it’s a blow to trust and transparency.
One last hidden cost that rarely gets discussed is the emotional toll. Real talk: People can walk away from annual reviews feeling demoralized, unappreciated, or misunderstood. We say we want to empower employees, but then we put them through this nerve-wracking gauntlet once a year. If someone’s going through a tough time—professionally or personally—this format can exacerbate it. You step out of the meeting with a pit in your stomach, not entirely sure what you did well and not entirely sure what the path forward is. And it’s not that managers lack empathy; it’s just a flawed system. We can’t expect a single meeting to address the complexities of people’s growth, goals, and well-being over an entire year. And that’s the real travesty: we’re missing out on the chance to connect more frequently, to course-correct in smaller increments, and to actually support each other where it matters.
So here’s the thing: feedback is only meaningful when it’s timely, specific, and actionable. You can’t achieve that with an annual or even biannual format. You might try to store everything up for months, but let’s face it—memory is flawed, and the details we record or recall aren’t always the ones that matter the most. Continuous feedback, on the other hand, means you have smaller, more frequent touchpoints. It’s a conversation rather than a decree. If I notice a team member struggling with a certain aspect of their project, I can mention it that week, offer help, see how we can pivot, and track improvements over time in a natural way.
If you’re worried about “feedback fatigue,” trust me, I get it. No one wants to be micromanaged or under a microscope. But continuous feedback doesn’t mean constant nitpicking—it means a structure where updates and check-ins are fluid, not forced. This is one of the reasons we built Safia to integrate directly with email and calendar data. If a big meeting didn’t go as planned, or if we’ve been pushing back deadlines repeatedly, the system can gently nudge the right person in real time. It’s not about blasting you with notifications; it’s about a subtle, intelligent prompt that keeps everyone aligned on goals and progress. We’re still fine-tuning this approach every day, because what works for one team might not work for another. Some people prefer weekly check-ins; others thrive on daily pulses. The key is to find a frequency that feels supportive, not disruptive.
Let’s be honest, no single off-the-shelf solution can handle every nuance of human interaction. That’s why I’m such a big believer in flexible systems. In fact, a friend told me about a time they tried to implement a “frequent feedback” solution at their startup. It flopped because they basically replaced the annual review with a monthly review format that was still rigid, still top-down. People were filling out the same forms, just more often! That defeats the purpose. Continuous feedback should feel organic, relevant, and, dare I say, helpful. We don’t have to shoehorn everything into a performance rating or a formal assessment. Sometimes it’s just a Slack message or a short in-person chat. Or maybe it’s a quick question: “Hey, are there any blockers right now?” Those little moments add up to a much more honest assessment of performance than a single, stale conversation can ever deliver.
I love founder-to-founder chats because there’s always a sense of brutal honesty—no sugarcoating. We’ve all been through the same roller coaster of product launches, team expansions, hiring mistakes, and everything in between. In these chats, the topic of performance typically comes up, and we always end up venting about annual reviews. The funny thing is, no one is defending them. Not a single person has said, “Yeah, once-a-year reviews are amazing! Employees love them!” Instead, the discussion shifts to what we can try instead.
I recently grabbed coffee with the CEO of a mid-sized tech firm who shared how they’ve completely done away with annual reviews in favor of weekly one-on-ones. I was like, “Isn’t that a lot of overhead for managers?” But they said, “Actually, no. We keep it short—like 15 minutes. And we don’t treat it like a formal ‘review.’ It’s more of a catch-up. We talk about what’s working, what’s blocking progress, and how they’re feeling. If we see a training or coaching opportunity, we note it. It gets logged quickly, and then we move on.” The more I listened, the more I realized how continuous, lightweight interactions can be far more productive than rigid, bureaucratic processes. It can be done without drowning managers in admin tasks if you keep it simple and consistent.
Also, I chatted with a founder who uses a monthly survey for their employees. Instead of waiting a whole year to measure engagement or performance, they send out a three-question email that focuses on current challenges, recently accomplished wins, and areas where they could use help. They said it keeps a small pulse on the entire company. People can answer in a couple of minutes, and it gives the leadership team insight into shifts in morale or performance. It’s a version of continuous feedback that doesn’t require everyone to fill out huge forms or attend long meetings. Again, the consistency and simplicity make all the difference.
When we started down this path with Safia, we had some hits and misses. One early mistake was sending out too many prompts. We figured, “More data = more insights,” right? Well, it turns out that people ignore prompts if they occur too frequently and don’t seem relevant. We scaled it back and learned to time them based on natural project milestones or changes in a team’s workflow. That approach worked much better because it aligned with real events. After a big deliverable, a prompt would ask, “How did that go? Any roadblocks? Anything you’d improve next time?” This kind of check-in feels tied to a moment in time rather than a random request out of nowhere.
We also realized that feedback shouldn’t come solely from managers. Peers often provide some of the most useful perspectives, especially when they’re in the trenches together on a project. A single manager can’t see everything that’s going on (especially now, in remote or hybrid setups). By allowing peer-to-peer feedback, we found that employees gained more balanced insights and felt less like they were being evaluated by just one authority figure. Plus, it fosters a sense of community: everyone feels like they have a stake in each other’s success.
Still, I have to admit, we haven’t cracked the code entirely. Some people prefer structured feedback forms while others like casual conversations. Some teams have daily standups, and some check in once a week. There’s no universal formula for continuous feedback; it has to be flexible enough to accommodate different work styles and company cultures. That said, I’m convinced that almost anything is better than waiting a full year to tell someone how they’re doing. We’re still tweaking, learning, and iterating. In a way, implementing continuous feedback is like adopting an experimental mindset: you keep what works, scrap what doesn’t, and never assume you’ve perfected it.
I sometimes get asked, “Is there any place for an annual review?” My answer is usually, “Yes, but not as your main system of feedback.” Annual reviews can still serve a ceremonial or strategic purpose, like summarizing big-picture achievements, reevaluating long-term goals, or just celebrating milestones. It’s nice to have a moment in the year where everyone steps back and takes stock of where the company is heading. But that can be more of a retrospective than a performance critique. Instead of using it to deliver judgments or scores, you can use it to realign on strategy, celebrate wins, and maybe set the tone for the next 12 months.
In that sense, we’ve actually started experimenting with a “year-in-review” format within Safia that’s more about storytelling. We pull highlights—major milestones, top accomplishments, fun moments, and lessons from failures—and present them in a neat summary. It’s like a highlight reel rather than a performance scoreboard. Honestly, I’d still call it a work in progress—we’re trying to figure out the right balance between reflection and goal-setting for the upcoming year without falling back into the trap of formalized, high-pressure reviews. For us, it’s been a chance to see the forest through the trees, but people’s day-to-day or week-to-week feedback loops remain the primary drivers for growth and improvement. That’s not going away.
So if your organization is attached to having an annual event, fine—just make sure it’s not the only touchpoint for giving and receiving feedback. Let it be a milestone, a party, or a reflection exercise. But don’t treat it like the sole moment to build or break someone’s career growth. The real work happens in the 364 days between those annual check-ins, after all.
Technology can do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to gathering insights and prompting timely conversations. But tools are just tools; it’s how you use them that matters. In building Safia, our vision wasn’t to simply swap out the old performance form for a new digital form. We wanted to leverage AI and real-time data so that feedback becomes natural, almost invisible—it happens as part of your regular workflow. We connect to your email and calendar so we can see patterns: Are there fewer meetings happening on a critical project? Has communication dropped between certain team members? There might be an issue brewing. We can push a gentle nudge to check in. That’s continuous feedback in action.
But technology can’t fix what leadership won’t support. You need a culture that values open communication, trust, and psychological safety. If you’re rolling out a new system in a culture that still punishes people for admitting mistakes, it’s probably going to fail. The best leaders I know don’t see continuous feedback as a way to police their teams; they see it as a way to empower them to grow. It’s a mindset shift from “We need to keep track of performance for accountability” to “We want to help everyone become the best version of themselves.” That shift can be hard, especially in larger or more traditional organizations. But I’m seeing more openness to it these days, maybe because the workforce is changing, or maybe because everyone’s just tired of the old ways. Whatever the reason, I see more and more leaders willing to experiment. That’s a positive sign.
Even though I’ve spent a lot of energy exploring these alternatives, I’ll be the first to say I’m still learning. Some questions keep me up at night: How do we ensure that continuous feedback doesn’t become superficial or obligatory? How can we avoid a situation where everyone’s praising each other but real issues go unaddressed? What about more formal industries that rely heavily on hierarchy and compliance—how do you incorporate continuous feedback in a strict, top-down environment?
Another thing I’m pondering is the cultural aspects of feedback. What works in one region or office might not translate in another, especially if employees come from diverse backgrounds accustomed to different norms. Some people might find weekly feedback intrusive, while others might find it absolutely necessary. There’s also the risk of technology overload. Many of us already have multiple project management tools, chat apps, workflow systems—the last thing we need is another interface demanding our attention. That’s why, in Safia’s case, we’re experimenting with subtlety. Less is often more. But I don’t have a magic wand. We’re testing, failing, and adjusting as we go. We’ll probably never declare victory, because making people’s working lives better is a journey, not a destination.
Let me share a couple of moments that made all the experimentation worth it. One manager told me about a situation where a team member was struggling with a specific technical skill. In the old system, that employee might have only found out during a formal review, months later. Instead, the manager noticed the struggle within the first week or two and brought it up in a casual, supportive check-in. The employee then got the training they needed, felt more confident, and ended up knocking their project out of the park. A simple shift in timing made all the difference.
In another instance, we had a situation where someone on the team was regularly missing small deadlines. Instead of waiting to bring it up in a formal setting, colleagues gave timely peer feedback: “Hey, we noticed you’re swamped with tasks, maybe we can redistribute some, or you can block time for focused work.” That continuous dialogue helped solve the problem before it ballooned into a bigger issue. If we had waited six months, both performance and morale would’ve suffered—maybe even leading to that person quitting out of frustration. Instead, it was handled with a quick pivot, no blame game, just mutual accountability.
Moments like these underscore why I’m convinced that continuous feedback is more humane, more effective, and just better for the kind of work culture I want to help build. It gives people the chance to learn and evolve in real time. And while I don’t think continuous feedback alone can solve every organizational challenge, it’s certainly a step in the right direction. Because at the core of all this is the realization that work is inherently about people—people who need support, validation, guidance, and yes, candid feedback. But if that feedback only arrives once a year, can we really say we’re supporting them in a way that makes sense?
If you’re reading this and thinking, “I hate annual reviews, too,” then you’re in good company. The more I talk to people, the more I realize that this system is widely disliked. In an age where we can do real-time analysis on almost everything—customer behavior, website traffic, financial transactions—why are we still sticking to a once-a-year approach for something as important as employee development? There’s an irony there that I can’t ignore. But I’m hopeful because so many founders, team leaders, and professionals are open to breaking the mold.
To be clear, I’m not advocating for a scorched-earth policy, where we obliterate all forms of structured evaluation. I just think the real magic happens in the everyday conversations, the weekly or biweekly check-ins, the quick messages that say, “Hey, I see you,” or “Hey, do you need help?” Our old approach was broken, but that doesn’t mean the concept of performance feedback is broken. We just have to deliver it in a more human, timely, and continuous way. That’s why we tried to bake these ideas into Safia, but I firmly believe the best solutions are the ones that fit your team’s culture—whether that’s a sophisticated piece of AI or a simple five-minute chat every Friday.
I’d love to hear your thoughts or experiences. What’s worked for you? What’s been a total flop? Because nobody has this fully figured out. We’re all just trying to create better environments where people can grow, innovate, and do work they’re proud of. If annual reviews are driving you nuts, maybe this is your invitation to explore something different. Let’s keep the dialogue going—and who knows—maybe in a few years we’ll look back at annual reviews the same way we now look at fax machines: a relic of a bygone era, replaced by something more dynamic and unquestionably more human.
Thanks for reading this far. Seriously, I’m always amazed by how these personal reflections resonate with folks who’ve been through the wringer of traditional performance management. Let’s keep questioning, keep iterating, and keep striving for workplace cultures that genuinely help everyone thrive instead of stressing everyone out. We might not land on a perfect system, but we can certainly aim for a better one, together.
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