Leadership
Your managers spend 210 hours a year on performance admin. Here's where it's going.
A time audit of traditional performance management, plus a modern alternative that gives those hours back.
8 min readMarch 5, 2026·Carter Calhoun
We timed it. Across 40 managers at 8 different companies, we measured every minute spent on performance admin. The average manager burns 210 hours a year on it. That's five working weeks.
Where does it go?
- 48 hours: annual review prep + delivery
- 36 hours: quarterly goal setting + updates
- 24 hours: HR-mandated forms
- 62 hours: 1:1 prep (when it happens at all)
- 40 hours: interpreting engagement surveys
What Give River replaces
- Annual review → **Rapid Reviews** (5-minute quarterly structured check-ins)
- Manual engagement surveys → **Feedback Friday** + continuous eNPS
- Disjointed 1:1s → templated conversations with recognition history
Result in customer data: managers get roughly 70–80% of those 210 hours back. That time goes to actual coaching. Which is, you know, the whole point.
See the platform in action.
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