Why We’re Writing This

For over a decade, Bonusly has helped teams see and celebrate one another’s work. But recognition was the start, not the whole story.

What we’ve learned from tens of millions of moments across thousands of teams is that recognition isn’t a perk. It’s a signal. It shows how work actually happens, how people connect, and how teams collaborate and grow.

That realization changed us. Once you see culture being built in real time, you don't go back to thinking of it as something managed by policy or measured once a year. You start to understand that the key to business performance isn’t process. It’s people. And you also learn that making work worth doing for everyone is the most reliable way to build lasting success.

That’s what this manifesto is about.

What’s Broken — and Why Now

The old model of work is cracking under its own weight. Annual reviews masquerade as development. Engagement surveys measure sentiment instead of change. Performance management systems burn more energy than they create, leaving people disengaged and leaders frustrated.

Everyone knows it’s broken. According to Mercer, 60% of HR leaders say performance management doesn’t work the way they wish it would, and only 4% believe their approach delivers exceptional value. Yet 58% haven’t made a major change in over three years. There’s nowhere else in business where everyone knows the system doesn’t work but still keeps using it anyway.

Most organizations are trying to solve today’s problems with yesterday’s playbook. They update 20th-century systems instead of replacing them—adding new dashboards, new AI assistants, new feedback forms—but still manage people with the same industrial logic: command, control, compliance.

Today’s leaders were raised in that system. They learned that alignment comes from approval chains, that improvement requires oversight, that performance must be managed from the top down. So when they try to reinvent the system, they reach for the same old levers (think: more calibration, more forms, more enablement workshops) and end up recreating the very bureaucracy they intended to escape.

But work has changed faster than the systems built to run it. Distributed teams, AI collaboration, and a new generation of workers all demand speed, autonomy, and purpose. Companies that cling to yesterday’s tools will fall behind.

You can’t build a future-ready organization with a factory-era mindset. To unlock human potential now, we need a new operating system for work—one that makes work worth doing for everyone, every day.

Our Manifesto for Work Worth Doing

We believe the best companies are built on the same foundation as the best teams: trust, connection, and progress.

For too long, work has asked people to trade trust for oversight, progress for judgment, and connection for compliance. Most organizations still act as if engaging work and strong performance are opposites. They are not. They’re cause and effect.

When people feel trusted, they take ownership.
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When teams are connected, they move faster.
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When progress is visible every day, performance compounds.

That’s the engine of every successful company: work that feels worth doing for everyone.

When people find purpose, belonging, and progress in their daily work, they don’t just perform better. They make the business better. Work worth doing isn’t just morally right — it’s strategically essential.

Over the decade we’ve spent building solutions for the future of work, we've studied exactly what makes work more meaningful. We’ve come to value:

• Trust over process
  
• Habits over mandates
  
• Connection over compliance
  
• Progress over perfection

While there is sometimes value in the terms on the right, the terms on the left matter far more. They’re how you make work worth doing, for both people and performance.

So take a moment and ask yourself: What are you building into your culture today that makes work worth doing — for everyone?

Where We’re Headed

We believe the next era of work will be defined by continuous performance and culture.

A world where trust, connection, and progress aren’t initiatives but everyday realities. Where technology frees people to be more capable, creative, and connected. And where the companies that win understand a simple truth: business success depends on making work worth doing.

Because in this new era, doing right by people is doing right by the business.

The organizations that thrive will be the ones that build cultures of trust, autonomy, and daily growth — where work is not just worth doing, but worth believing in.

That’s the future of performance. That’s the future of work.