Performance reviews were meant to help people grow. But if we’re being real with ourselves, they’ve never quite lived up to that goal.

Too often (read: pretty much always), they turn into a stressful, time-consuming exercise that frustrates employees and HR leaders alike.

Why? Because the system is broken by design.

Performance reviews are backward-looking, memory-powered rituals. They reward what’s remembered, and force people to look in the rearview mirror when the story of progress is happening right now.

Think about it: when you sit down to reflect on your own performance, where do you start? If your first move is scanning emails, Slack threads, and project management tools to remember what you’ve accomplished, you’re not alone. But that process is unreliable at best, and at worst, it leaves your best work buried and forgotten.

The result is a review that doesn't reflect your contributions, and a process that doesn’t set anyone up to grow. And then you have to wait an entire year to try again.

Managers are stuck doing the same thing: scrolling, searching, and summarizing for every direct report on their team. Meanwhile, HR teams chase consistency and fairness in a process that feels anything but.

To reiterate, the people aren’t the problem here. The system is. Work moves fast and growth happens every day. Once-a-year reviews just can’t keep up.

That’s why Bonusly built Recaps: a smarter, simpler way to capture growth as it happens.

Why Recaps Matter

Recaps are AI-powered summaries that automatically capture the story of work.

They bring together the signals already flowing through Bonusly—recognition activity, 1:1 discussions, feedback, and goal updates—and generate ready-to-use summaries for self-reflections, reviews, or career conversations.

Each Recap includes:

• A performance snapshot: A high-level overview of progress over a chosen timeframe.
• Context from real work: Recognition, goals, and 1:1 notes embedded for clarity.
• Reflection templates: Structured prompts that make reviews faster and more consistent.

Now, managers and employees walk into conversations with context and examples already organized. 

How Recaps fit into everyday work

Bonusly’s Recaps meet people where they are. They pull from the daily moments that already reflect how work happens and make those moments visible, connected, and actionable.

• For employees, Recaps are like a work journal: a living record of accomplishments, feedback received, and goals reached.
• For managers, Recaps eliminate hours of prep work during review cycles, surfacing the specific examples needed for meaningful evaluations.
• For HR and People teams, Recaps provide ongoing visibility into engagement and growth patterns across the organization, making it easier to spot trends and ensure equity in development conversations.

And because Recaps connect seamlessly with Bonusly's recognition, 1:1s, and insights tools, they give everyone the same view of performance.

A partnership between People teams and managers

Fixing performance management is as much about saving time as it is about building trust.

For years, HR teams have been responsible for structuring reviews, enforcing timelines, and ensuring fairness. That work isn't going away, but with Recaps, it's getting a lot easier.

Recaps give HR visibility into how growth is tracked across teams while empowering managers to take ownership of coaching and development. Instead of running the process for managers, HR can enable them to lead it well.

It's a partnership that reflects a larger shift in how tech-forward organizations think about performance: HR provides the framework and consistency, while managers bring the context and connection.

Finally, everyone gets to participate in growth all year long.

The takeaway

At Bonusly, we believe growth should be captured in the flow of work. Recaps make that possible, turning performance from a once-a-year event into an everyday habit.

When progress is visible, people feel valued. And when people feel valued, they’re motivated to grow.