Rethinking Performance Management in the Age of AI | Webinar Recap

Performance management has felt overdue for a reset for a while now. Work has changed dramatically over the last few years, AI is changing manager expectations even faster, and yet many performance processes still look exactly the same.

That’s exactly what we unpacked during the very first session of Performance IRL, Klaar’s new monthly webinar series focused on how performance management is actually evolving inside modern organizations.

For our kickoff session, Lana Peters, Chief Revenue & Customer Experience Officer at Klaar, sat down with Hebba Youssef, Chief People Officer at Workweek, and Sarika Lamont, Chief People Officer at Vidyard to talk about why traditional performance management is starting to break down, how AI is reshaping the role of managers, and what a more modern approach to performance actually looks like in practice.

Check out the full webinar recording below or keep reading for a recap of the biggest themes from the conversation.
 

1.) Why Traditional Performance Management Is Starting to Break Down

One of the clearest themes from the discussion was that traditional performance management simply hasn’t kept pace with how work actually happens today.

Employees now expect more continuous feedback, more transparency, and more coaching than annual review cycles were ever designed to support. Meanwhile, managers are being asked to navigate distributed teams, changing business priorities, burnout, and now AI…often all at once.

Both Sarika and Hebba discussed how many organizations already know their performance processes aren’t working, but stay stuck because the systems feel familiar. Processes like annual reviews and nine-box exercises have existed for years, even though many teams no longer feel they reflect how performance actually shows up day to day.

Hebba also emphasized that performance management problems are ultimately behavior and change management problems. Organizations can introduce new tools and processes, but if managers are still uncomfortable giving feedback or avoiding difficult conversations altogether, the process itself won’t improve.

And that operational strain showed up clearly in one of the audience polls we ran during the session:

• 40% said their teams spend the most time writing reviews
• 23% said manager coaching/support
• 11% said calibration conversations
• 11% said pulling context together across systems
• 9% said goal tracking

The results reinforced just how manual and time-consuming performance management still feels for many organizations today.

2.) How AI Is Reshaping the Role of Managers

AI naturally became a major focus of the conversation, and the audience poll results showed organizations are still in very different stages of adoption.

• 34% said they’re actively using AI in performance management today
• 24% said they’re experimenting with it
• 15% said they’re discussing it internally
• 27% said they haven’t started yet

The panelists agreed that AI absolutely has the potential to improve performance management, particularly when it comes to reducing administrative burden, helping managers summarize information faster, surfacing patterns earlier, and giving leaders better context for conversations.

But they also cautioned that organizations are at risk of expecting AI to solve management problems that are fundamentally human problems.

One of the most important points Hebba made was that great managers will naturally learn how to use AI to become even more effective. But managers who already struggle with feedback, coaching, or accountability won’t suddenly become strong leaders just because AI exists.

The conversation also touched on the importance of enablement. Too many organizations introduce AI tools without actually teaching managers how to use them responsibly or effectively.

As Hebba pointed out during the webinar, “that’s not how behavior change works.”

The future of performance management may absolutely involve AI, but Sarika and Hebba agreed that managers still need to own the human side of leadership: coaching, trust-building, difficult conversations, and career development.

3.) What Modern Performance Looks Like in Practice

So what does a more modern approach to performance management actually look like?

According to both panelists, it looks far more continuous, contextual, and integrated into day-to-day work than traditional review cycles.

The discussion focused heavily on continuous feedback cultures and the idea that performance conversations shouldn’t only happen once formal review season arrives. Instead, organizations need systems that help managers and employees stay aligned throughout the year.

The panelists also discussed how career development often breaks down when organizations assume employees automatically know how to navigate growth opportunities internally. Even with career frameworks in place, many employees still struggle to understand how to advocate for themselves, what skills they need to develop, or how performance connects to long-term growth.

One of the biggest takeaways from this portion of the conversation was that modern performance management is less about adding more process and more about creating better visibility, earlier signals, and stronger manager support.

Because by the time many traditional review cycles identify a problem, it’s often already too late to meaningfully change the outcome.
_________________________________________________________________________________

To close out the webinar, Lana asked both panelists: what’s one small shift organizations could make today that would have a meaningful impact on performance culture? 

And while the answers varied, the overarching message was consistent: stop treating performance management like an annual event.

The organizations making the most progress right now are building cultures where feedback, coaching, and growth conversations happen continuously, not just when HR sends out review reminders.

A massive thank you again to Hebba and Sarika for joining us for the first session of Performance IRL.

And if you’d like to continue the conversation, join us for our next webinar on June 23 featuring Adam Weber (Executive Coach @ Adam Weber Coaching) and Mark Schaerrer (VP of HR @ Verisys) on what “High Care + High Performance” actually looks like in practice. You can register for that here. 

‍