Why quarterly reviews are better than annual evaluations

Workforce Management
Renan Mendes

By Renan Mendes
January 28, 2025

Updated
February 17, 2025

0 min read

For most managers and employees, annual reviews can feel outdated or insufficient

Waiting a whole year to receive feedback or set goals can result in missed opportunities to course-correct, learn, or improve in real-time.

On the other hand, quarterly performance reviews offer a more dynamic and supportive approach. By providing more frequent constructive feedback, they encourage ongoing development and create opportunities to address challenges as they arise. This regular cadence allows employees and managers to stay aligned, celebrate employee progress, and continuously work toward growth.

In this article, we’ll learn how frequent check-ins can bring growth to your team and your company. 


Why annual reviews are inefficient 

Annual reviews - It's harder to remember a whole year of work, and we usually focus on the most recent months

Out-of-date and untimely  

Imagine it’s December, and you’re preparing for annual performance evaluations. Can you genuinely recall everything each team member accomplished over the last 12 months – both the highs and the lows? 

Chances are, you will focus on the most recent months and their current performance. So, if an employee’s productivity dipped in October or November, that’s likely to dominate the conversation, even if they delivered exceptional results and met most of their goals earlier in the year. 

Annual reviews have a great flaw: they overlook timely recognition and delay constructive feedback. Victories take too long to be celebrated, and mistakes take too long to be corrected. This makes the good things seem smaller and allows small behaviour or performance issues to grow into real problems. Both of those factors impact the staff members’ performances negatively. 

Continuous growth happens with real-time feedback. It motivates employees to keep excelling and course-correcting.  

Assumptions get made  

Whilst everyone indeed holds unconscious bias, annual reviews amplify these perceptions. They don’t allow for real-time reflection based on facts and figures.

The long gap between evaluations can cause important details to be overlooked and incorrect assumptions to form, resulting in inaccurate assessments of individual performance, even when employees have delivered strong results.

Without regular feedback, leaders may rely on assumptions about how their team members feel, creating disconnection and frustration. When employees must wait a year to address concerns or workplace issues, dissatisfaction often grows.

For many, this lack of performance improvement opportunities leads to one outcome: seeking new opportunities elsewhere.

One-sided conversations  

When you're reflecting on a whole year of work, the conversation can feel one-sided. Why? Because cramming a year’s worth of details into one meeting leaves little room for open, natural dialogue. It becomes more of a download than a discussion.

If it’s just the manager giving feedback while the employee sits silently, the result is predictable: the employee leaves the meeting feeling disconnected, unmotivated, and undervalued.

But here’s the thing—leaders need feedback, too. When employees feel safe sharing their thoughts openly, trust grows. That feedback allows leaders to course-correct and gain insights they might otherwise miss. Without it, blind spots emerge. These unaddressed issues can quietly erode team morale and productivity.

Incredibly time-consuming  

Reviewing an employee’s performance annually is no small task—it requires gathering a full year’s worth of information. This includes evaluating achievements, identifying areas for improvement, and aligning individual goals with broader team or company objectives.

This process multiplies for managers with multiple team members, as they must prepare tailored feedback for each person.   


How quarterly reviews foster continuous improvement

Quarterly reviews - Frequente evaluations can be much more helpful than annual ones

Improved focus to get more done 

Well-planned routine updates allow the team to focus on the three months ahead. Setting fewer and more realistic goals in critical areas can lead to better results.

In their bestselling book “The 12 Week Year”, Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington discuss how quarterly goals can get more things done in three months than a year focused on annual objectives. 

This short-term goal setting has a faster impact on the employee’s career development and can be better aligned with the business’s strategies. Even if you have long-term goals and an annual plan, splitting them into smaller objectives can make them easier to meet.

You can then focus on how those goals were achieved, where misses happened, and how to move forward in the following quarterly performance reviews.

Also, set actionable goals for the next three months. This gives employees performance metrics they can check to see how they are performing and more focus on what to work on, which they often lack with annual reviews.  

Identify performance issues and solve them quickly  

By connecting every quarter, you can pinpoint the issues impacting your team members' work and assist in resolving them.

For example, if a new system is causing major disruptions in your employees' daily routines, quarterly performance reviews can help identify these issues early and allow you to address them quickly.

If an employee faces behavioural challenges, they may not fully understand the impact of their actions. Effective performance management through constructive feedback can help identify these issues early and provide actionable steps for improvement.

This approach allows for quicker corrections, preventing prolonged frustration within the team and ensuring that challenges don’t escalate or hinder the employee's career development.

More engaged employees  

Employees feel valued and heard when they engage in open and honest conversation. Witnessing tangible actions to enhance employee development and create a better working environment fosters a sense of involvement and commitment.

Furthermore, when they observe that employee feedback during reviews leads to positive changes, they are likely to become even more open in future conversations, enhancing communication and trust within the team.

Reinforces a job well done  

Instead of waiting a whole year to praise an employee for a job well done, quarterly reviews allow positive feedback to be provided promptly.

Recognition makes employees feel validated and drives engagement. It doesn’t require much effort, but it reaps big rewards. It also encourages them to seek continuous development

It is also an opportunity to reinforce practices and behaviours you wish to see more within the team, improving the staff's job performance. 

It takes less time  

Continuous feedback supports your review process. As you take notes during quarterly reviews, reviewing them and an employee’s performance is easier.

This makes the employee performance review process smoother and allows for more opportunities to explore areas you previously did not have time for. It also allows you to remain current on where everything is in real time 

Quarterly performance reviews provide team members frequent opportunities to discuss their professional goals, challenges, and experiences in their roles. These regular check-ins allow for a collaborative assessment of their progress over the year, paving the way for enhanced career development opportunities.

Comparison chart highlighting the differences between annual and quarterly reviews


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