People & HR

How to run a performance review cycle as Event Agency Founders

People & HRFor Event Agency Founders5 apps11 steps~22 min to set up

You run a team of 4–8 people — coordinators, a lead planner, maybe a part-time ops hire — and performance reviews happen whenever you remember to do them, which is usually never. There's no HR system. Feedback lives in your head or in a Slack DM you can't find. You're pulling from memory: 'Did Jess handle the Rothman wedding well? I think she did. The client said something positive in an email.' You want to give real feedback that helps your team grow, but the data is scattered across Gmail threads, Google Drive timelines, and post-event debrief notes nobody wrote down. So reviews get skipped, or they're a 20-minute conversation with no follow-through.

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People & HRFor Event Agency Founders5 apps11 steps~22 min to set up

Outcome

What you'll set up

A structured review cycle that pulls evidence from real sources — meeting notes, email threads, project completion data — so feedback is grounded in what actually happened on specific events

A feedback-gathering workflow that collects peer and self-assessment inputs via a lightweight process your small team will actually complete

An action-item tracker tied to each team member's review so development goals don't die in a Google Doc

The Starch recipe

Apps, data, and prompts

The combination of Starch apps, the data sources they pull from, and the prompts you use to drive them.

Apps used

Meeting Notes Project Management Task Manager Email Agent Knowledge Management

Data sources & config

Connect Gmail through Starch's scheduled-sync integration so the Email Agent can draft review-cycle communications and pull context from past event threads. Connect Google Calendar through Starch's scheduled-sync integration so Meeting Notes can match review 1-on-1s automatically. Connect Notion through Starch's scheduled-sync integration to surface any existing team documentation into the Knowledge Management wiki. Project Management and Task Manager run natively inside Starch — no external connection required for those surfaces.

Prompts to copy

Build me a performance review tracker for my event planning team of 6. Each person should have a profile with their role (lead coordinator, day-of coordinator, ops, etc.), a list of events they owned or supported this cycle, a self-assessment section, a manager-notes section, and a development goals section with due dates.

Create a meeting notes template specifically for 1-on-1 review conversations. After each call, pull out: the top 3 feedback points, any commitments made, and the one development goal we agreed on. Archive these by staff member.

Set up a task list for my Q2 review cycle: send self-assessment forms by April 21, complete all 1-on-1s by May 2, finalize written reviews by May 9, share reviews with staff by May 12.

Draft an email to my team announcing the Q2 performance review cycle. Explain the timeline, what the self-assessment asks, and that the 1-on-1 will be 30 minutes. Keep it direct and not corporate-sounding.

Build a wiki page summarizing our review rubric: how we evaluate event execution quality, client communication, vendor management, and team collaboration. Include a 1–4 scale with descriptions at each level so feedback is consistent.

Run these in Starch → or paste them into your favorite agent

Walkthrough

Step-by-step

1 Set your review window. Tell Starch: 'I want to run a Q2 performance review cycle for 6 people on my event planning team. The cycle covers January through June 2026.' Starch scaffolds the structure and creates individual profiles for each staff member.

2 Build the rubric. Describe your actual criteria to Starch — event execution, vendor management, client communication, day-of problem-solving, team collaboration. Starch builds a 1–4 scoring rubric in your Knowledge Management wiki so you're evaluating everyone the same way.

3 Document the evidence. For each team member, Starch pulls Meeting Notes from 1-on-1s and post-event debriefs held during the cycle. You add context from Gmail threads where a coordinator handled a tough vendor or a client complaint — just paste the thread or let the Email Agent surface it.

4 Send self-assessment requests. Use the Email Agent to draft individualized requests to each team member. Starch drafts in your voice; you send with one click. The self-assessment asks: which events you're most proud of, where you want to grow, and what you need from me as a manager.

5 Log incoming self-assessments. As responses come in, attach each one to the corresponding staff profile in the review tracker. Starch flags anyone who hasn't responded 48 hours before your deadline.

6 Prep your manager notes. Before each 1-on-1, Starch surfaces the staff member's events from the cycle, any meeting notes from prior check-ins, and their self-assessment in one view. You add your ratings and draft talking points.

7 Run the 1-on-1. Meeting Notes transcribes the conversation in real time. After the call, Starch generates a summary: key feedback points delivered, responses from the team member, and the development goal agreed on.

8 Finalize the written review. Use the structured notes from the 1-on-1 plus your manager ratings to generate a written review. Starch drafts it; you edit for tone and accuracy. The final version lives in that staff member's profile.

9 Track development goals. Every committed goal becomes a task in Task Manager — assigned, prioritized (P1–P3), and given a due date. Set Starch to check in with you monthly: 'Remind me on the 1st of each month to review open development tasks for my team.'

10 Share reviews with the team. The Email Agent drafts individual emails with each person's written review attached. You review and send. Starch logs the send date so you have a record.

11 Archive the cycle. Starch saves the completed cycle — all reviews, ratings, goals — in your Knowledge Management wiki under a 'People / Performance Reviews' section. When you run the next cycle, you start with last cycle's goals already visible.

See this running on Starch

Connect your tools, describe what you want, and the agent builds it. Closed beta is free.

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Worked example

Q2 2026 Review Cycle — 6-person team, 12 events in the cycle

Sample numbers from a real run

Staff profiles created	6
Events tagged to staff members (owned or supported)	12
Self-assessments collected	6
1-on-1 meetings transcribed and summarized	6
Development goals tracked in Task Manager	11
Days from kickoff to all reviews shared	21

You kicked off the Q2 cycle on April 21 with a team-wide email the Email Agent drafted — 6 personalized versions, sent in 10 minutes. Jess, your lead coordinator, submitted her self-assessment noting the Rothman corporate dinner (280 guests, tight AV turnaround) as her strongest event but flagging vendor communication as an area she wants to improve. When you prepped for her 1-on-1, Starch surfaced three Meeting Notes from post-event debriefs where her name came up, plus two Gmail threads where she handled a last-minute catering substitution and a venue access dispute. You walked into the call with actual evidence, not impressions. Her review rated her 4/4 on execution and 2/4 on vendor negotiation — fair, specific, and backed by events she remembered too. Her development goal: lead one vendor kick-off call solo per month for Q3, with a check-in task set for July 1. All 6 reviews were shared by May 12. You ran the whole cycle without a spreadsheet, an HR platform, or losing a week of your life to it.

Measurement

How you'll know it's working

Percentage of team members who received a written review with documented goals (target: 100%)

Average days from cycle kickoff to reviews shared (your Q2 benchmark: 21 days)

Open development goals per team member at 90-day check-in (signals follow-through, not just intention)

Self-assessment completion rate before the first 1-on-1 (below 100% means the process broke down early)

Staff retention rate quarter-over-quarter (for a 6-person agency, losing one coordinator mid-season is a material problem)

Comparison

What this replaces

The other ways teams handle this today, and how the Starch version compares.

Lattice or Leapsome

Purpose-built performance review platforms with great structure, but priced for companies 5–10x your size and require a dedicated admin to configure — overkill for a team of 6 coordinators running on Gmail and Google Drive.

Google Docs + Sheets (current state)

Free and flexible, but you end up with 6 separate docs, no evidence gathering, no goal tracking, and reviews that live in a folder nobody checks again until next year.

Notion (standalone, no Starch)

Good wiki and database tool, but you're still manually pulling feedback from emails and meeting notes — the evidence gathering that makes reviews credible doesn't happen automatically.

BambooHR

Solid HR platform with performance modules, but it's designed around formal HR workflows (job levels, compensation bands, approval chains) that don't map to a boutique event agency where everyone wears three hats.

On Starch RECOMMENDED

One platform — meeting notes, project management, task manager all running on connected data. Setup in plain English; numbers stay current via scheduled syncs and live agent queries.

Try it on Starch →

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

My team uses HoneyBook and Airtable to track events — can Starch pull data from those for performance context?

Yes. HoneyBook is reachable through Starch's browser automation — no API needed. Airtable is available from Starch's integration catalog; the agent queries it live when your app needs the data. That means you can pull a list of events each coordinator touched directly from your existing project tools rather than rebuilding it manually.

We don't run formal 1-on-1s — feedback is mostly ad-hoc after events. Can this still work?

Yes, and that's actually a more common starting point than a structured process. Tell Starch: 'Build me a lightweight post-event debrief template that captures one thing each person did well and one thing to improve. Log these by staff member over time.' After 3–4 events per person, you have enough material for a real review conversation without ever running a formal monthly check-in.

Does Starch store our review notes and staff feedback securely?

Starch stores your data in its platform. It is not SOC 2 Type II certified today — that's worth knowing if you're handling sensitive compensation conversations or if a client contract requires it. For most small event agencies keeping internal team notes, this isn't a blocker, but it's an honest answer.

I want to track whether development goals from last review actually got done. Is that possible?

That's exactly what the Task Manager integration is for. Each committed goal becomes a task with a due date and priority level. Prompt Starch: 'Every first Monday of the month, show me a summary of open development tasks for my team, grouped by person.' You get a monthly nudge without a separate system to manage.

Can Starch help me write better feedback — not just organize it?

Yes. Once you've got your notes and the Meeting Notes summary from the 1-on-1, tell Starch: 'Draft a written review for Jess based on these notes. Her role is lead coordinator. Use direct, specific language — no corporate HR-speak. Highlight what she did well on the Rothman event and be honest about the vendor communication gap.' Starch drafts; you edit. The goal is that the first draft is 80% of the way there.