Your Year-End Performance Reviews Are Costing You Millions — Here’s How to Fix Them

As year-end review season approaches, leaders everywhere are preparing for one of the most time-consuming and emotionally charged rituals in business: the annual performance review.

But what if that process — meant to drive accountability and growth — is actually draining millions from your organization each year?

In this Executive Forum, Scott Arrieta, Founder and CEO of Unity & Company, unpacks why traditional performance management systems so often fail to improve results and what forward-thinking organizations are doing instead.

Drawing on research from Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan, Gartner, SHRM, and Unity’s own work with executive teams, this session reveals the hidden costs of outdated review models — from wasted managerial hours and disengaged employees to bias, burnout, and lost trust.

Attendees will learn:

• Why annual reviews rarely improve performance (and can actually hurt it)

• The real cost in time, morale, and dollars of outdated review systems

• How feedback frequency, delivery, and compensation linkage can make or break motivation

• Proven alternatives being adopted by leading companies like Adobe, Microsoft, and Deloitte

• How to design a modern, fair, and effective performance system that drives engagement and ROI

• Practical steps to pilot and scale change — from coaching capability to cultural alignment

With performance review season in full swing, this conversation couldn’t be more timely.
Scott will challenge the assumption that reviews are simply a compliance task and show how they can instead become one of the most powerful drivers of growth, retention, and trust in your organization.

Because the truth is: performance reviews don’t have to drain your budget — they can build your future.