How leading organizations are turning performance into a strategic advantage through continuous execution, talent intelligence, and AI-powered decision-making.
At EmpowerHR 2026, one message stood above the rest: performance management is no longer an HR process. It’s becoming a business-critical system for execution, alignment, and talent intelligence.
Across industries, organizations are facing the same reality: work is moving faster, priorities are shifting more frequently, and leaders are being asked to make higher-stakes talent decisions with less time and tighter margins. In this environment, annual reviews and disconnected systems simply can’t keep up.
The organizations recognized in this year’s Betterworks Make Work Better Awards are leading a different approach.
They are embedding performance into the flow of work. They are connecting goals, feedback, skills, and business outcomes into continuous systems of visibility and accountability. And increasingly, they are using AI-powered insights to help leaders move faster, coach more effectively, and make evidence-based decisions grounded in real work.
These winners represent the next generation of performance management — one that transforms performance from a retrospective HR activity into a real-time engine for business execution.
Performance Culture Award (America)
Dairy Farmers of America
Dairy Farmers of America transformed performance management from a once-a-year process into an everyday habit through its “Growing Every Day” initiative. The organization embedded Betterworks’ continuous goal-setting, regular check-ins, and ongoing development conversations into the flow of work — reinforcing a culture rooted in accountability, alignment, and growth.
“Growing every day was our campaign, but it’s also a mindset we designed to shift performance and development from once a year to an everyday habit.” — Tim Amadore, Senior Talent Management Analyst
The impact was immediate:
95% of desk employees entered at least one goal within months of launch
2,000+ employees and leaders engaged in goals and development conversations
Self-review completion rates were up to 90% in 2025
By aligning performance conversations to its “One DFA” philosophy, the organization connected individual work directly to broader business priorities while strengthening manager effectiveness and employee ownership.
Performance Culture Award (EMEA)
HelloFresh
HelloFresh built a performance culture designed to evolve alongside the business itself.
As the company moved from rapid growth into a new phase focused on efficiency, ownership, and AI-enabled ways of working, the talent team continuously refined performance programs to align with changing business priorities.
“The goal isn’t really perfect uniformity. It’s building a program that is globally cohesive while still feeling and acting credible and practical in each local market.” — Donna Nguyen Avery, Global Director, Talent Management
The company also embraced transparent anytime feedback, helping move performance conversations from periodic events into continuous, in-the-flow coaching and collaboration. Leaders now use real-time performance insights during calibration cycles to identify trends, improve consistency, and make more informed talent decisions.
HelloFresh’s approach reflects a broader shift happening across modern organizations: performance management must continuously adapt as work itself evolves.
Performance Visionary Award
Synopsys
Under the leadership of Senior Director of Talent Management Lacie Karnauch, Synopsys replaced a decades-old annual review model with a continuous, agile performance management framework designed around ongoing feedback, development, and goal alignment.
“Performance isn’t a once a year event, it is a continuous process that doesn’t have a start or end point.” — Lacie Karnauch, Senior Director, Talent Management
The transformation delivered measurable business impact and successfully integrated thousands of employees from an acquired company into the same framework—all while maintaining alignment and visibility across the organization.
By reducing administrative burden and embedding performance into everyday work, the company enabled managers to spend more time coaching and supporting employee growth.
Performance Impact Award
Protiviti
Protiviti transformed performance management into a connected system for continuous alignment, feedback, and talent visibility across its global workforce.
The organization achieved nearly 94% active participation across its 7,000 employees globally — a signal that performance management had become embedded into the rhythm of work rather than operating as a separate HR process.
As the Protiviti team shared during EmpowerHR, you don’t reach that level of participation through compliance alone. You get there when employees and leaders believe the system genuinely helps them work better, grow faster, and stay aligned to business priorities. Performance conversations became simpler, more continuous, and more connected to the real work happening every day.
“Performance management at Protivity is no longer a snapshot, it’s a living system.” — Parvinder Kaur, Global Performance Development Manager
By embedding goals, feedback, and conversations directly into everyday operations, Protiviti elevated performance from a static process into a real-time system supporting employee growth, manager effectiveness, and business execution. Executives now leverage shared performance data and calibration insights to support workforce planning, promotions, and strategic talent decisions across the organization.
AI Performance Trailblazer Award
Sinclair
Sinclair demonstrated how AI can accelerate strategy execution and improve organizational alignment at scale. The company aligned 76 markets around shared strategic priorities while onboarding 655 SMART Goal users — all without increasing headcount.
Using Betterworks data and AI-generated scorecards, leaders gained real-time visibility into performance trends, strategic alignment, and opportunities for improvement across markets. The organization also increased Betterworks adoption from 347 users in Q1 2024 to more than 800 users by Q1 2026.
“AI makes it digestible and lets us leap to the conversations, the real meaningful change, the real meaningful process progress forward.” — Bob Saylor, Director, Objectives And Key Results
Rather than replacing people, Sinclair used AI to accelerate insight generation, simplify reporting, and create more time for meaningful collaboration and coaching.
Scale & Execution Award
StepStone Group
As StepStone Group expanded globally, the organization re-architected performance management to create greater consistency, transparency, and accountability across business units and regions.
Led by VP of Talent Management Justin Davis, the company adopted a phased, modular rollout approach that balanced operational rigor with employee experience and change management.
“We have built credibility that not only do we understand performance management, but we could also be a partner to the business.” — Justin Davis, VP of Talent Management
By consolidating goals, feedback, and reviews into a single connected platform, StepStone accelerated performance cycles, improved executive visibility into talent decisions, and reduced administrative complexity.
The organization also leveraged AI-enabled support tools to improve goal quality and reduce friction for employees and managers.
Performance Has Become a Business-Critical Engine
The organizations recognized at EmpowerHR 2026 are proving that the future of performance management is continuous, outcome-driven, and embedded directly into how work happens.
Across every winner story, several themes emerged:
Stronger alignment between employee work and business priorities
More continuous, evidence-based coaching
Real-time visibility into performance and skills
AI-powered insights that accelerate decisions
Greater manager effectiveness and organizational agility
Together, these organizations are helping redefine performance management from a static HR process into a dynamic system for execution, talent intelligence, and business impact.
At Betterworks, we believe performance should help organizations move faster, adapt more confidently, and make better talent decisions grounded in real work — not subjective memories or disconnected systems. We’re proud to partner with customers who are leading that transformation.
Learn More
To learn more about how Betterworks helps organizations align goals, performance, skills, and talent intelligence in real time, explore our customer stories, connect with us at future events, or see how Betterworks is helping organizations turn people performance into a strategic business engine.
