How Waterford.org Made Performance Reviews Twice as Efficient with Lattice AI

Waterford.org is a nonprofit organization focused on advancing early learning through education. As a mission-driven organization with a distributed workforce, the team relies on strong performance and feedback processes to support employee growth and impact.

Before adopting Lattice AI, Waterford.org was already deeply embedded in the Lattice platform, with employees consistently using one-on-ones, updates, and performance tools.

But as the organization evolved its performance strategy, it introduced a new competency-based review format, one that significantly expanded the depth and expectations of evaluations.

While the new format enabled more meaningful feedback, it also created a new challenge: employees now had nearly twice as much content to complete during review cycles.

What could have slowed the process down instead had the opposite effect: with Lattice AI, teams delivered 2x more review output with zero additional time investment, with managers writing their reviews 2x faster and ICs writing their reviews 3x faster. 

From Simpler Reviews to More Rigorous Evaluations

Waterford.org’s shift to competency-based evaluations marked an important step forward in how they assess performance. Their former evaluation format lacked specificity, limiting their employees' ability to connect job performance to focused, tangible career milestones. Their solution was to add specificity and clarity to performance expectations and to provide clear, actionable feedback to promote career advancement.

Instead of a smaller set of general questions, employees were asked to provide more structured, competency-based feedback, doubling the number of questions for managers (18 to 38) and nearly tripling it for ICs (4 to 12).

For many employees, this created friction.

What had previously been a relatively straightforward process quickly became more time-consuming and, at times, overwhelming, especially for those unsure how to structure or articulate their feedback.

Managers and HR partners also felt the impact, fielding more questions from employees asking for help writing reviews or understanding expectations.

Introducing AI as a Real-Time Writing Assistant

To support this transition, Waterford.org introduced Lattice AI.

Initially, the team expected the AI agent to function primarily as an HR help desk, answering basic policy questions and helping employees navigate internal resources. They uploaded company policies and documentation into the platform, making it easy for employees to search and retrieve information. 

But as employees began using the tool, a different, more valuable use case emerged. 

“We thought it was going to be more of an HR help desk, but it turned into something much more,” said  Wilson Kirkpatrick, Director of People Operations. 

Instead of using Lattice AI only for policy questions, employees began leveraging it to support performance reviews.

During the review cycle, Waterford.org encouraged employees to try using Lattice AI to draft and refine their responses. They reinforced this through internal communications and employee testimonials demonstrating how the tool could help them write their reviews. 

When Lattice AI was introduced, it didn’t start from scratch. With Lattice AI, they could instantly pull from months of feedback and updates, making it much easier to write high-quality reviews, fast.

These testimonials made the value immediately tangible, and helped employees see how the tool could support their workflows. 

• "The new Lattice feature made the review process feel much more manageable. Having everything in one place helped me organize my thoughts, stay focused on what mattered most, and quickly recall the key highlights from this season without scrambling through notes or trying to piece everything together at the end. It helped me capture meaningful wins, learning, and impact efficiently so I could get right back to the wonderful things we do together at Waterford and the work we love." - Samantha Boyer, Waterford employee.
• "Ask Lattice was really helpful for writing mid-year reviews because it helped me focus my thoughts. It's easy to try to include too much information in each section of the review. Streamlining and organizing ideas is one of the best uses for AI tools in Lattice. A process that could have taken hours was simplified into about 30 minutes. It's also nice to know I'm avoiding typos and grammatical errors that are being reviewed by my boss. I also used the search tool in Lattice to better understand my competencies." - Gretchen Willard, Waterford employee.

Adoption quickly followed. 

Wilson said, “People started using the Lattice AI Agent for coaching. Asking questions like, 'How do I write a performance review?', 'How do I handle this situation?'” 

By establishing consistency and routine use early on (through Lattice 1:1s, Updates, and Reviews), a rich set of data was created that employees could draw on when writing reviews.

As Lori, their chief people officer, noted, once employees saw how others were using it, “that’s when it really clicked.”

How Teams Use Lattice AI in Practice

As usage increased, several key workflows emerged. Employees began using Lattice AI to:

• Draft performance review responses based on past feedback and updates.
  
  • Try this prompt: “What were the strengths identified in [Your Direct Report’s Name]’s last review? ”
• Synthesize information from one-on-ones and ongoing check-ins.
  
  • Try this prompt: “Based on [employee’s] recent feedback and 1:1’s, how can I help them?”
• Get guidance on phrasing and clarity when writing evaluations.
  
  • Try this prompt: “I’m working on a performance review and want help tightening the wording. Can you help me make the feedback more concrete, remove vague language, and better highlight impact?”

“Some managers are even asking for summaries of the last six months of data from their direct reports.” Wilson Kirkpatrick, Director, People Ops

What started as a simple support tool became a real-time assistant embedded directly into the review process, helping employees move from blank page to high-quality responses faster.

The Results

With Lattice AI, Waterford.org was able to support a more rigorous performance process without increasing the burden on employees or HR.

• ‍2x increase in review output with zero additional time investment
  
  • Managers wrote their reviews 2x faster
  • ICs wrote their reviews 3x faster
• ‍1000% increase in AI usage for performance review-related queries after internal promotion‍
• Fewer employee questions to HR about how to write reviews‍
• Faster adoption of a more complex, competency-based evaluation format

Employees were able to complete significantly more detailed reviews without spending any additional time.

Review complexity increased significantly, but the time to complete them didn’t.

Enabling Scale Without Adding Friction

What began as a tool for answering HR questions evolved into something much more impactful for Waterford.org.

By embedding AI directly into the flow of work, the organization empowered employees to take more ownership of their performance reviews without needing additional guidance or support.

For HR, this meant fewer repetitive questions and more time to focus on strategic initiatives. For employees, it meant less friction and more confidence when completing complex evaluations.

And for the organization as a whole, it meant the ability to scale a more thoughtful, high-quality performance process without increasing effort.

That’s what a productivity layer looks like in practice.

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