Awesome Business Resources
Awesome Performance Management
A curated list of the best resources about performance management for HR leaders, people ops professionals, and executives redesigning how their organizations measure and develop talent.
Inspired by awesome lists. Maintained by Rework.
Performance management is one of the most contested topics in people operations. Annual reviews are widely criticized but rarely replaced with something better. This list covers the research, frameworks, and tools that help leaders design systems that actually improve performance - not just document it.
Contents
- Articles
- Books
- Videos & Talks
- Tools & Software
- Templates & Frameworks
- Case Studies & Real-World Examples
- Communities & Newsletters
- Rework Resources
Articles
- The Case for a Performance Reset - McKinsey's argument for why most performance systems need a fundamental redesign.
- Gallup: State of the American Manager - Research on how managers drive or destroy employee performance and engagement.
- Reinventing Performance Management by Marcus Buckingham & Ashley Goodall at HBR - How Deloitte rebuilt its performance system from the ground up.
- The Continuous Performance Management Guide - Lattice's comprehensive guide to replacing annual reviews with ongoing development conversations.
- How Netflix Reinvented HR by Patty McCord at HBR - The culture and performance philosophy that made Netflix's model famous.
- OKRs and Performance Management: Making Them Work Together - Betterworks' framework for connecting goals with performance outcomes.
- Why Performance Ratings Fail (and What to Do Instead) - 15Five's analysis of rating systems and alternatives that work better.
- The Calibration Process: How to Make Performance Reviews Fair - Culture Amp's guide to running calibration sessions that reduce manager bias.
- Performance Improvement Plans That Actually Improve Performance - How to design PIPs that help struggling employees succeed, not just document failure.
- CEB/Gartner: The Performance Management Revolution - Gartner research on the shift away from traditional annual appraisals.
- Josh Bersin: Irresistible - The Seven Secrets of the World's Most Enduring Employee-Focused Organizations - Bersin's synthesis of what high-performance cultures actually do differently.
- 360-Degree Feedback: What It Is and How to Use It - SHRM's toolkit for implementing 360-degree feedback in complex organizations.
Books
- Measure What Matters by John Doerr - The canonical book on OKRs, with case studies from Google, Intel, and Bono's ONE Campaign.
- Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility by Patty McCord - Netflix's former Chief Talent Officer on why most HR practices actively harm performance.
- First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman - Gallup research on what great managers do differently to unlock team performance.
- The Performance Appraisal Question and Answer Book by Dick Grote - A practical reference guide for managers conducting reviews at any level of an organization.
- Radical Candor by Kim Scott - The framework for feedback conversations that are both caring and direct enough to drive real improvement.
Videos & Talks
- How Netflix Reinvented HR - Patty McCord at XOXO - McCord explains why Netflix dropped performance ratings and stack rankings in favor of honest conversations.
- Gallup: What Makes a Great Workplace - Gallup researchers present the data behind what drives employee performance and retention.
- John Doerr: Why the Secret to Success Is Setting the Right Goals - Doerr's TED Talk on OKRs, with context from Andy Grove and Google's early growth.
- Building a High-Performance Culture at Scale at SaaStr Annual - How fast-growing SaaS companies design performance systems that don't break under headcount growth.
- The Problem With Annual Performance Reviews - Harvard Business Review panel on why annual reviews persist despite widespread dissatisfaction with them.
Tools & Software
- Lattice - All-in-one performance management platform with reviews, OKRs, engagement, and compensation in one system.
- Culture Amp - Employee feedback and analytics platform used by 6,000+ companies for performance and engagement data.
- 15Five - Continuous performance management with weekly check-ins, OKR tracking, and manager coaching tools.
- Betterworks - Enterprise OKR and performance management designed for large, complex organizations with multiple business units.
- Leapsome - AI-powered HR platform for performance reviews, learning, and engagement, with modular design for phased adoption.
- Workday Performance Management - Enterprise-grade performance suite integrated with Workday's broader HCM platform.
- SAP SuccessFactors - Large enterprise performance and goals module with deep HRIS integration.
Templates & Frameworks
- Performance Review Template by Lattice - A customizable review template covering goal achievement, core competencies, and development planning.
- Calibration Session Facilitation Guide - Culture Amp's step-by-step guide to running fair, structured calibration meetings.
- Performance Improvement Plan Template - SHRM's PIP template with legal and HR guidance built in.
- 360-Degree Feedback Questionnaire Template - 15Five's bank of 360 feedback questions organized by competency and role level.
- Performance Review Framework: From Design to Execution - A step-by-step approach to designing review cycles that managers and employees actually find useful.
Case Studies & Real-World Examples
Adobe - Eliminated annual performance reviews in 2012 and replaced them with a system called Check-In: lightweight, manager-led conversations on expectations, feedback, and growth that happen continuously rather than once a year. Within two years, Adobe reported a 30% drop in voluntary attrition and credited the change with meaningfully improving manager-employee relationships. Source
Deloitte - Surveyed 2.5 million managers and found that their annual review process consumed 2 million hours per year across the firm while producing ratings that reflected the rater's biases more than actual performance. They rebuilt the system around four forward-looking weekly team leader questions and snapshot ratings, replacing committee reviews with direct manager accountability. Published in a widely cited 2015 HBR article. Source
Microsoft - Under Satya Nadella, scrapped the stack ranking system that pitted employees against each other for ratings and replaced it with a growth mindset framework centered on learning, contribution, and collaboration. Employee engagement scores rose sharply and cross-team cooperation improved measurably in the years following the change. Source
Netflix - Published its culture deck publicly, which includes the principle that Netflix does not use performance improvement plans for underperformers. Instead, managers are expected to coach continuously, and employees who aren't a strong fit are given generous severance rather than managed out slowly. The approach prioritized team density over headcount. Source
General Electric - After decades as the poster company for stack ranking under Jack Welch, GE formally abandoned the practice in 2015. The company replaced forced ranking with an app-based continuous feedback system (PD@GE) that let employees request and give real-time coaching. GE's shift was widely covered as a signal that stack ranking's era was ending across corporate America. Source
Google - Internal research (Project Oxygen) identified that manager quality was the single biggest driver of team performance and that great managers did eight specific things consistently. Google used those findings to redesign its manager training, performance conversations, and upward feedback surveys around those behaviors. Source
Communities & Newsletters
- Josh Bersin Academy - The leading research and learning community for HR and people operations professionals.
- People Ops Society - A peer community for people operations professionals to share frameworks, ask questions, and learn from each other.
- SHRM HR Magazine - The flagship publication for HR professionals covering research, trends, and legal updates in performance management.
Rework Resources
Explore more content on the Rework blog:
- Core Competencies Framework for Performance Reviews - Our guide to defining and using competency frameworks in performance evaluation.
- Organizational Capability Building - How to connect individual performance systems to organizational capability development.
Contributing
Know a great resource that belongs on this list? Let us know.
This list is maintained by the Rework team. Resources are selected for ongoing relevance, quality, and practical value for HR and people operations leaders.
