Why Interactive Strategies Returned to Small Improvements

The onboarding felt rushed, leaving the HR lead in the position of learning the system reactively rather than guiding their organization through it with confidence. Reporting was limited. Calibration tools were frustrating. And a restrictive contract structure made long-term planning harder than it needed to be.

“While the platform initially appeared to meet our needs during demos, it ultimately struggled to support the level of customization and visibility our team required,” she says. “Over time, it became clear we needed a solution that felt more intuitive, easier to manage, and better aligned with how we actually operate.”

When Interactive Strategies began evaluating platforms again, they cast a wide net, looking at Lattice, Leapsome, BambooHR Performance Management, and PerformYard, among others. But Small Improvements kept coming back into the conversation.

Part of it was memory. The Performance Review experience had always been a strong point, and that hadn’t been forgotten. Part of it was practicality: many employees had used the platform before, which made the prospect of company-wide adoption feel far less daunting. And when they took a fresh look, it was clear the product had grown.

The features Interactive Strategies had originally left to find, things like goal setting and engagement tools, had evolved within Small Improvements. But more than that, the things that had always set the platform apart, the clarity of the review process, the ease of administration, the quality of the user experience, were still there.

As a digital agency, Interactive Strategies thinks about usability and intuitive design every day. They build those things for clients. When evaluating a platform for internal use, those qualities matter more than most. Small Improvements cleared that bar.

“The platform feels easier to navigate, easier to administer, and easier to explain internally,” she says, “which has made a significant difference from an HR perspective.”

The reporting and data visualizations also stood out, giving managers and HR leaders the kind of visibility they’d been missing. Plus, the platform’s continued investment in AI-powered features made it clear this wasn’t a tool standing still.

One thing stood out quickly after launch: the Praise feature. Simple in concept, but meaningful in practice. It gave the team a consistent, easy way to recognize good work across the organization, something that had been harder to sustain before.

Looking ahead, Interactive Strategies is focused on building a feedback culture that can scale with the company. That means more consistent performance conversations, clearer development pathways, and stronger accountability for managers. They’re also watching the AI capabilities closely, particularly the potential to help managers synthesize feedback, surface themes, and make the review process more useful for everyone involved.

“Having tools that support meaningful performance conversations and clearer development pathways will be incredibly valuable for our team as we continue to scale,” Erica says. “We’re only getting started.”