While ambiguity abounds as AI accelerates and employee expectations evolve, some companies are adeptly navigating this environment, says Jamie Aitken, VP of HR Transformation at Betterworks. They share these characteristics:
- Accountability and agility
- Ability to pivot as things change
- Being lean and efficient
- Being ready for the next change
To achieve this edge, HR must reimagine performance management — not as an annual ritual, but as a continuous engine for empowerment, clarity, and growth.
During Betterworks’ recent webinar, “2026 Performance Enablement Shift: HR’s Role in the AI Era,” Jamie explained the key behavioral shifts, emerging technologies, and strategies that will enable HR, leadership, employees, and managers to successfully transform to meaningful performance that drives business results.
Moving from performance management to performance enablement
Traditional performance management — centered on top-down reviews and rigid cycles — is no longer fit for today’s agile work environment. Performance enablement is the new standard. It’s about unlocking people’s potential through ongoing conversations, goal clarity, and real-time support. “Enablement is about empowering our employees and managers, having continuous conversations throughout the year so there are no surprises — and making it all proactive,” Jamie Aitken explained.
Performance enablement isn’t about control. It’s about momentum.
Managers: from evaluators to coaches
Managers are the linchpin of enablement — but many are unprepared for the shift from evaluator to coach, said Jamie.
Key barriers:
- Coaching skills gaps: Managers are often promoted based on technical expertise rather than leadership capabilities, leaving them ill-prepared to coach their teams effectively.
- Time constraints: Continuous performance management means more frequent conversations, so managers need to use streamlined processes.
- Fear of failure without real-time tools: Without tools to support in-the-moment coaching, managers may lack the confidence to adapt to this new role.
Betterworks helps managers succeed with in-the-moment support. Tools like AI-powered coaching prompts and dynamic dashboards guide them through meaningful one-on-ones and performance conversations — all within familiar workflows like Microsoft Teams and Outlook.
Employees: from passive recipients to active participants
Performance enablement also requires a mindset shift where employees take ownership of their performance and development journey by actively seeking feedback, co-creating their goals with managers, and growing into the role of “talent developers.”
“For employees, it’s about moving from this mindset of ‘this is something my boss does to me’ to ‘this is something I am an active participant in,’” Jamie explained.
Betterworks makes this shift easy by connecting employee goals to company-wide priorities. Employees can see exactly how their work contributes to broader outcomes — creating purpose, accountability, and pride in contribution.
HR: from process owner to experience designer
HR’s traditional role as a compliance enforcer is evolving into that of a culture curator. With AI and integrated tech breaking down silos, HR teams can now design experiences that support performance, not just track it. “HR is no longer the compliance cop,” Jamie said. “We’re now cultural and experience designers, curating a fully integrated journey for employees and managers.”
Design thinking plays a central role. Rather than building processes in a vacuum, HR should co-create solutions with the end-user stakeholders — employees and managers — in mind. As Jamie shared: “I’ve been guilty of sitting in a room with HR colleagues, crafting a process, and flinging it over the fence. Co-creation is what drives adoption.”
Leaders: from delegators to stewards of culture
When leaders understand that performance management impacts business outcomes, they stop viewing it as a stand-alone HR process and become active culture-shapers. Leaders will find this mindset challenging because they see performance as an “HR thing,” Jamie said, and only step in when there’s a problem to be solved. But true transformation happens when leaders embrace it as a business imperative. Rather than focusing on end results, like numbers and targets, leaders who become stewards of culture will understand that:
- Coaching, alignment, and feedback drive performance
- Enablement behaviors are as important as outcomes
- Their role is to model and reinforce performance rituals
By holding themselves and others accountable — and by seeing performance enablement as “how we do business around here,” Jamie said, leaders can unlock engagement, retention, and results at scale.
Data that drives action
An informal poll during the webinar revealed that 70% of attendees said they were only somewhat confident in linking performance metrics to business outcomes. About 20% said they were either not at all confident or didn’t have the ability to make this connection.
By shifting HR metrics from static process tracking (e.g., annual performance review completion rates to actionable, behavior-driven insights that drive business outcomes — like productivity, employee retention, and goal completion rates — HR can focus on gauging the impact of performance enablement strategies on business outcomes.
“Leaders need early signals,” Jamie says, “so they can pivot and adjust as required. They need insight they can act on, not more reports or backward-looking data.”
How Betterworks makes it all work
Demos given during the webinar explained how Betterworks’ performance enablement solution equips organizations with tools that support every stakeholder — from HR to people managers and employees.
Key capabilities include:
- Goal tracking: Managers and employees have real-time visibility into goal progress, allowing for alignment and clarity on how individual work contributes to top company goals.
- AI Goal Assist: Simplifies and aligns goal-setting with company objectives.
- Continuous conversations: Managers and employees can have scheduled and ad-hoc conversations throughout the year, with AI providing feedback and coaching suggestions to managers.
- Integrated workflows: Users can update goals and feedback inside the applications they use daily, like Microsoft Teams and Outlook.
- Dashboards: Real-time visibility into team performance, engagement, and coaching readiness
- Analytics dashboards for HR and managers: These provide real-time visibility into organizational performance, team progress, and engagement and attrition metrics, and more — empowering HRs and managers to act on insights immediately.
It’s about empowering people
The shift from managing performance to enabling it requires more than new tools. It demands a cultural reset. That means investing in people, coaching for growth, and embracing AI not as a threat, but as a strategic partner.
“Don’t make it feel threatening,” Jamie advised. “Ensure people grow into these new expectations. This shift isn’t about control—it’s about helping people own their growth journey.”
Catch all of Jamie’s insights and a demo of the Betterworks solution by watching the on-demand webinar now.
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