Performance reviews, made fair
Get on the same page. Literally.
Write down what good looks like, show it to the person it’s about, and hold the review against those exact words. Two chairs at the same height, one page between them.
Who this is for
Every review has two nervous people in it.
Most review tools are built for the person holding the clipboard. improwe is built for both chairs, because a review only works if the person on the receiving end believes it was fair.
Manager The night before, they worry about
- Rebuilding a whole year from Slack search and a hazy memory.
- Defending a rating they can’t quite explain out loud.
- Saying something that lands as a complete surprise.
Employee The night before, they worry about
- Being judged against a bar nobody ever showed them.
- Twelve months of work shrinking to one bad week in October.
- Walking out with a number and no idea what to do on Monday.
Same meeting, six worries, and every one of them is fair.
A year in the record
Meet Maya. She leads support. Jonas is her manager.
Their company has no career framework and no HR team to build one. Here’s their year, from a blank page to a plan.
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Jan Expectations
Jonas writes down what good looks like.
Four areas that matter for Maya this year, and what good looks like in each. It takes him a few drafts. She sees it as soon as he saves it, because nobody should be measured against something they’ve never read.
Expectations for Maya Shared with Maya
- Hard tickets
- Solves the gnarly ones, not just the quick ones.
- Calm queue
- Keeps the team steady on bad days.
- Know-how
- Turns repeat questions into help articles.
- Coaching
- New hires go to her first, and leave better.
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Mar–Sep Evidence
Both of them jot things down.
A dated note after a good week, a rough one, or a 1:1. Maya writes some, Jonas writes some. The ones that matter get marked as evidence, so in November nobody has to remember anything.
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14 Mar Evidence Maya
Wrote the refund article everyone kept asking for. Linked it in 31 replies the first week.
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03 Jun Evidence Jonas
Took the outage queue alone for two hours. Every reply was still kind.
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22 Sep 1:1 Jonas
Maya is curious about support tooling. Agreed she runs the tool review in Q4.
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Nov Assessment
Two private answers. No peeking.
Maya and Jonas each rate all four expectations, with the wording right there and the notes a click away. Neither can see the other’s answers until both have submitted. Not even an admin can change that.
Maya’s self-assessment Hidden until both submit
Coaching · “New hires go to her first, and leave better.”
- Developing
- Consistent
- Strength
- Next level
- Not observed
I help when people ask. Not sure that counts as coaching.
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Dec The conversation
Plot twist: she undersold herself.
Both answers open side by side. They agree on three. On coaching, Jonas rated her higher, with two notes to back it up. That difference becomes the agenda.
Expectation Maya Jonas Hard tickets Strength Strength Calm queue Consistent Consistent Know-how Strength Strength Coaching Consistent Strength On the agendaCoaching: both of the new hires named Maya in their first 1:1s. She thought that was just being helpful.
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Jan, again The plan
Three things to grow into. Jonas has homework too.
No verdict to file away and forget. Each focus area says what Maya will work on and what Jonas will do to make it possible. They check in during 1:1s, and next December starts from all of this instead of a blank page.
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Run the tooling review end to end.
Jonas will clear two afternoons a week for it.
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Make the coaching official.
Jonas will ask her to run onboarding for the spring hires.
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Hand off the night rota.
Jonas will find a second lead by February.
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No framework yet
You don’t need a complete framework. Start small.
Career frameworks are great. They also take a quarter of meetings to agree on, and reviews don’t wait. So start the way Jonas did: write down what good looks like for one person, this week. When the company framework arrives, it moves in next door. A workspace can run both.
Personal expectations Ready this week
A few areas and what good looks like in each, for one person, right now. Their own manager writes it, they can read it straight away, and it freezes when a review opens.
Company framework When you’re ready
Tracks and levels with your own words in every cell. Got a levels doc already? Paste it in as markdown: headings become levels and areas, and your wording stays yours. Start from a template if you’d rather.
House rules
Six things improwe won’t let anyone do.
A review can shape someone’s pay, their next role and how they feel on Monday. Good intentions are lovely, but on a busy week they need backup. So these six are built into how improwe works, and no setting turns them off.
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Won’t let anyone
Peek.
Neither side sees the other’s assessment until both are in. No exceptions, no override button.
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Won’t let anyone
Move the goalposts.
Once a review opens, its expectations are frozen. You’re judged against the words you were shown, even if they get edited later.
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Won’t let anyone
Do maths on people.
No scores, weights or secret formulas. The outcome is written by a person, in words, after a conversation.
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Won’t let anyone
Count silence against you.
“Not observed” means nobody has evidence yet. It’s a gap to fill together, never a low mark in disguise.
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Won’t let anyone
Skip the manager’s part.
Every focus area comes with what the manager will do to help. Growing someone is a two-person job.
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Won’t let anyone
Hold your record hostage.
Your reviews, the expectations behind them and every dated note sit in one record, and you can export your own at any time.
Pricing
Pricing you can do in your head.
€9 per person, per month. One plan with everything in it, because being treated fairly shouldn’t be an enterprise add-on.
€108 a month, excluding VAT
12 people × €9. Every feature, whatever the size.
The small print, in normal print
- Everyone counts the same: employees, managers and admins.
- Someone joins mid-month? You pay for the part they were there.
- Someone leaves? You stop paying for them.
- Monthly, no annual contract, cancel whenever.
- Minimum five people. Prices exclude VAT.
- If the free month ends without a subscription, the workspace turns read-only.
Everything in the one plan
- Expectations for one person
- Career frameworks with levels
- Markdown import
- Dated notes, from both sides
- Private self-assessments
- Answers compared side by side
- Plans the manager commits to
- One record per person
- Teams and reporting lines
- Weekly one-question pulse
- Export your own record
Questions
Asked from both sides of the table.
If you manage people
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We have no framework. Is that a problem?
Not at all. Write personal expectations for one report, a few areas and what good looks like in each, and run a full review against them today. A shared framework can come later, or never.
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Our levels doc is in Notion. Start over?
No. Paste it in as markdown. Headings become levels and areas, your wording stays exactly as you wrote it, and every cell is editable until you publish.
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What if we stop paying?
The workspace turns read-only. Nothing is deleted, and everyone can still export their own record.
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Will this eat my week?
A note takes a minute when something happens. The review itself is the conversation you’d have anyway, minus the evening spent digging through a year of messages.
If you’re the one being reviewed
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Can my manager see my answers first?
No. Neither of you sees the other’s answers until both have submitted, and nobody can override that.
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Can my manager read all my notes?
No. Your notes are private until you choose to share them.
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Can I add my own evidence?
Yes. Either of you can write dated notes all year and mark the ones that matter as evidence. Your own notes count just as much.
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What if I don’t agree with the outcome?
Say so in the conversation. That’s what it’s for. You’re arguing from two written assessments and dated evidence instead of memory, which makes your case a lot easier to make.
Still wondering? Write to [email protected]. The person who replies probably also wrote the code.
Why this exists
You notice something in March, mean to write it down, and by November you’re reconstructing a year from the last six weeks.
It’s worse when nobody wrote down what doing well means here, and it’s the person being reviewed who pays for that. Every tool I tried wanted a framework rollout first. So improwe does two small things instead: expectations you can actually finish writing, even for one person, and somewhere to put the note in March.
Start the record today. Thank yourself in December.
Pick one person. Write down what good looks like for them. Add the first note before Friday. It’s free for 30 days, then €9 a person each month, minimum five.
Try it free for 30 days