Expectations · evidence · honest reviews

Tell people what good looks like here.

Growth Record gives a manager and each person they manage the same written expectations, evidence logged as it happens, and a review judged against that record, not memory.

Start 30-day trial See one review, start to finish

30 days free
No card needed
No framework needed to start

Craft & Quality · Senior

“Sets the pattern others copy.”

Your words, from a company framework or written for one person. Frozen when the review opens.

Why reviews stall

Nobody sets out to give vague feedback. They just have nothing to give it against.

Without a written bar, a review turns into a debate about personality and whatever happened in the last six weeks. That is uncomfortable for the manager and unconvincing for the person being reviewed. What helps is expectations in plain words, for one person or the whole company, and examples logged as they happened instead of reconstructed from memory.

What is at stake	Without a written bar	With Growth Record
Setting the bar	Everyone carries a private version in their head, and nobody can say it out loud.	Written expectations in your words: a company framework, or a set written for one person.
If you have no framework	A rollout project nobody has time for, so the review happens without one anyway.	A manager writes expectations for one report this afternoon. A framework can come later, or never.
Where the expectations live	A doc from 2023 that three people have read and nobody opens at review time.	Inside the review, next to each rating: the exact words the person is assessed against.
What counts as evidence	Whatever you both happen to remember from the last six weeks.	Dated examples either of you logged during the year, filed against the dimension they belong to.
Who decides the outcome	A gut call, or a formula nobody can explain in the meeting.	You do, after you have talked. Nothing is calculated.
What they walk out with	A rating, a locked PDF, and no idea what to do differently on Monday.	A handful of focus areas to work on, usually three, each with something the manager commits to doing as well.
Next year	A new template, a new admin, last year quietly lost.	Last year’s review, the exact expectations it used, and every dated example, all in the person’s record.

Setting the bar

Without a written bar

Everyone carries a private version in their head, and nobody can say it out loud.

With Growth Record

Written expectations in your words: a company framework, or a set written for one person.
If you have no framework

Without a written bar

A rollout project nobody has time for, so the review happens without one anyway.

With Growth Record

A manager writes expectations for one report this afternoon. A framework can come later, or never.
Where the expectations live

Without a written bar

A doc from 2023 that three people have read and nobody opens at review time.

With Growth Record

Inside the review, next to each rating: the exact words the person is assessed against.
What counts as evidence

Without a written bar

Whatever you both happen to remember from the last six weeks.

With Growth Record

Dated examples either of you logged during the year, filed against the dimension they belong to.
Who decides the outcome

Without a written bar

A gut call, or a formula nobody can explain in the meeting.

With Growth Record

You do, after you have talked. Nothing is calculated.
What they walk out with

Without a written bar

A rating, a locked PDF, and no idea what to do differently on Monday.

With Growth Record

A handful of focus areas to work on, usually three, each with something the manager commits to doing as well.
Next year

Without a written bar

A new template, a new admin, last year quietly lost.

With Growth Record

Last year’s review, the exact expectations it used, and every dated example, all in the person’s record.

Two ways to set expectations

A framework is optional. Written expectations are not.

Nobody is assessed against wording they have not been shown. Whether that wording is a company ladder or four sentences a manager wrote for one person is your call. You can run both in the same workspace.

Company framework

One shared bar, across tracks and levels.

One grid per track, dimensions down the side and levels across the top, your own wording in every cell. Import a markdown doc you already have, or start from a template. Published versions never change, so a closed review always shows the bar it was judged against.

An admin builds it and publishes it when it is ready.
Managers place each person on a track and level.

Personal expectations

What good looks like for this person, now.

A manager writes a handful of dimensions and the expectation for each. No levels, no ladder, no rollout. The person sees them the moment they are set, and a review keeps the wording it opened with, just as it does with a framework.

For one report the framework does not fit, or a company without one.
Belongs to that one person. Nobody else can be placed on it.

How it works

One review, start to finish.

Engineering track · draft Editable

Dimension	Junior	Mid level	Senior
Craft & Quality	Follows team conventions.	Produces work others can build on without asking first.	Sets the pattern others copy.
Ownership	Finishes what they take on.	Owns a feature end to end.	Owns an ambiguous problem.
Judgment	Asks before choosing.	Explains trade-offs.	Says no to needless complexity.

Every cell is yours to rewrite before you publish.

Evidence log 14 notes
- 12 Mar Judgment self
  
  Cut two thirds of the onboarding rewrite after reading support tickets. Shipped the small version.
- 04 May Ownership manager
  
  Handled the client escalation end to end, including the write-up nobody asked for.
- 27 Jul Craft & Quality manager
  
  Coached Nadia through her first client presentation. She ran the second one alone.

Alignment · both submitted Unlocked

Dimension	Self	Manager
Craft & Quality	Consistent	Consistent
Ownership	Strength	Strength
Judgment	Consistent	Strength
Collaboration	Consistent	Not observed

1 difference
Judgment: you both cited the pricing rewrite. You read it as scope, your manager read it as trade-off calls.

1 gap
Collaboration: no evidence either way. Nobody is marked down for it; it is a gap to close before next time.

Outcome · recorded by the manager
Meets expectations, with the manager’s summary of the conversation beside it.

Three focus areas · next 6 months Outcome recorded
1. 01
  
  Make trade-off calls visible, not just correct.
  
  Manager · Hands Kasper the Q1 pricing decision to write up.
  
  Done when · Others cite his written decisions without asking him.
2. 02
  
  Get real evidence on collaboration.
  
  Manager · Brings him into two cross-team reviews before March.
  
  Done when · Someone outside the team can describe how he works.
3. 03
  
  Keep the mentoring going, deliberately.
  
  Manager · Pairs him with the next new joiner in January.
  
  Done when · The new joiner ships alone in their first month.
No next review is scheduled. Start one when it is useful; the plan stays open in the meantime.

Engineering track · draft Editable

Dimension	Junior	Mid level	Senior
Craft & Quality	Follows team conventions.	Produces work others can build on without asking first.	Sets the pattern others copy.
Ownership	Finishes what they take on.	Owns a feature end to end.	Owns an ambiguous problem.
Judgment	Asks before choosing.	Explains trade-offs.	Says no to needless complexity.

Every cell is yours to rewrite before you publish.

Alignment · both submitted Unlocked

Dimension	Self	Manager
Craft & Quality	Consistent	Consistent
Ownership	Strength	Strength
Judgment	Consistent	Strength
Collaboration	Consistent	Not observed

1 difference
Judgment: you both cited the pricing rewrite. You read it as scope, your manager read it as trade-off calls.

1 gap
Collaboration: no evidence either way. Nobody is marked down for it; it is a gap to close before next time.

Outcome · recorded by the manager
Meets expectations, with the manager’s summary of the conversation beside it.

Why I built this

Keeping track of how someone is really doing is harder than it sounds. You notice something in March, mean to write it down, and by November you are reconstructing a year from the last six weeks.

It is harder still when nobody wrote down what doing well means here. Every tool I looked at wanted a framework rollout project first. So this does the two small things instead: expectations you can actually finish writing, for one person if that is all you need, and somewhere to put the note in March.

Jess Stopa · Growth Record

Pricing

€9 per user. That is the whole pricing page.

One price, one plan

€9 per user, per month, excluding VAT

Minimum 5 users, so €45 a month to start.

Every feature included · 30-day trial

Priced per person in the workspace: employees, managers and admins alike. Add someone mid-month and you pay for the part of the month they were there. When someone leaves, you stop paying for them. No annual commitment.

Start 30-day trial

No card needed to start.

What a team of ten pays.

€90 a month, whether you run one review a year or five.

5 users €45 /mo One manager and a small team.
25 users €225 /mo Several teams, a framework or two.
100 users €900 /mo Several departments, each with its own managers.

Included

Every workspace gets all of it. There is no higher tier.

Unlimited frameworks and versions
Unlimited reviews and evidence
Tracks and levels, with each person placed on one
Personal expectations for anyone off the framework
Blind assessments, revealed side by side
Development plans with a manager commitment
A complete growth record per person
Teams and reporting lines
A weekly pulse check, run by each team
Anyone can export their own record

30 days free, everything unlocked.
Monthly, per user, cancel whenever.
Prices exclude VAT.
Minimum 5 users.
If the trial ends without a subscription, the workspace turns read-only.

Questions

The ones people actually ask.

We do not have a career framework at all. Can we still start?

Yes, and you never have to build one. A manager writes personal expectations for a direct report, a few dimensions and what good looks like for that person now, and can run a full review against them today. If you want a shared framework later, pick a starter track or import the doc you already have. A workspace can run both at once.
What do personal expectations give up?

The shared bar. A framework means someone is judged by the same words as their peers, and expectations written for one person do not. Everything else holds: the wording is shown before it is used, it is versioned, and it freezes when a review opens. Only the person’s own manager writes them, and the person sees them as soon as they are set.
We have a rough levels doc in Notion. Do we rewrite it?

No. Paste it in as markdown and keep your own wording. The import reads your headings as levels and dimensions and fills the grid from what you already wrote. Every cell stays editable until you publish.
What if our framework is wrong?

It will be, a bit. Publish it anyway. Versions are immutable, so a closed review always shows the framework it was run against. You can revise for next time without rewriting history.
What will you not build?

Compensation, promotion workflows, succession, forced ranking, PIPs, peer feedback and engagement surveys are deliberate non-goals. If a feature does not make the conversations between a manager and their people better, we do not build it.
You have a pulse check. Isn't that an engagement survey?

No. It is one fixed question, how you are feeling right now, answered in one click on five points. It goes out shortly before a team meets, so each person can say a few words about their answer. Only the team lead sees the answers, there are no company-wide results, and nothing about it reaches a review.
Can the tool just tell managers what rating to give?

It will not. Ratings and the overall outcome are recorded by people, never computed. No rankings, no promotion recommendations.
What about peer and 360° feedback?

We are not building it. Fair peer feedback means getting anonymity, consent and calibration right, and doing it badly is worse than not doing it. Growth Record stays with the conversation between a manager and the person they manage.
Can a manager see an assessment before it is submitted?

No, and there is no override. Both sides write in private, and neither sees the other’s answers until both have submitted. Managers see only their own direct reports, and admins cannot read reviews at all.
Who can see evidence, and can sharing be undone?

Every entry is attributed to whoever wrote it, and either side can leave one unshared while they work out how to put it. Citing an entry as evidence in an assessment shares it, and sharing cannot be taken back.
Can people take their record with them?

Yes. Anyone can export their own growth record: every review with both assessments, the outcome, the focus areas, and the evidence they can read. It is their record of their own work.
Who counts as a user?

Everyone in the workspace: employees, managers and admins. €9 each a month excluding VAT, minimum 5, billed monthly with every feature included. Add someone mid-month and you pay for the part of the month they were there. When someone leaves, you stop paying for them.
What happens when the trial ends?

The 30-day trial is the full product and needs no card, and the seat minimum only applies once you start paying. If the trial ends without a subscription, the workspace turns read-only until you subscribe: everything stays readable and exportable, and nobody can write.
What happens when someone changes manager?

Closed reviews keep their history and their original author. The new manager picks up the open plan and any unfinished focus areas.

Anything else, write to [email protected]. A human answers, usually the one who built the thing you are asking about.

A written bar · evidence · one honest conversation

Start with the part you never got around to.

Write down what good looks like for one person or one team, log the first example this week, and see how the next review goes. Thirty days free with no card, then €9 per user a month, minimum 5.

Start 30-day trial