Google Introduces the GRAD Performance Review System, Shifting to an Annual Impact‑Focused Evaluation

Google has overhauled its performance evaluation process, cancelling the previous twice‑yearly reviews and introducing a new once‑a‑year system called GRAD (Google Reviews and Development) that aims to lessen paperwork and focus on employees' actual impact.

The new GRAD system builds on the OKR (Objectives and Key Results) framework originally created by Intel and popularized at Google by John Doerr, which has since been adopted by many leading tech companies.

Google's performance assessment now consists of five key steps: setting goals, self‑assessment, 360‑degree peer reviews, manager scoring, and a final face‑to‑face performance discussion, all consolidated into a single annual review.

GRAD categorizes employee influence into levels such as “Scarce”, “Outstanding”, and “Transformative” to better reflect the real impact each employee has within Google.

Internal surveys indicate that a large portion of Google staff view the previous system as a time‑wasting burden, and the shift aims to keep employees focused on their core work rather than constantly preparing for rating cycles.

The article also references similar performance‑review experiments at other tech giants, noting Microsoft’s past “stacked” ranking system and Amazon’s 2021 plan to eliminate a percentage of low‑performing staff each year, highlighting industry‑wide challenges in fair evaluation.

From the first day at Google, the company strives to provide a solid career development environment, and since May 2022 it has adopted the GRAD method to track growth, learning, and progress, with expectations, feedback, and checks throughout the year. Promotions occur twice a year, and performance ratings are now conducted once a year, with a new rating table designed to reflect the daily impact of most Google employees.

In addition to the discussion of Google's new review system, the article promotes the IDCF DevOps Hackathon, a 36‑hour event in Hangzhou (Feb 25‑26 2023) that invites teams and individuals to build and launch a product from scratch, combining lean startup, agile development, and DevOps pipelines.