GWork vs. Betterworks: What’s the Difference?

If you’re evaluating Betterworks and stumbled on GWork, you might be wondering how they compare. Short answer: they solve different problems. Which one you need depends on where your strategy execution is breaking down.

What Betterworks Does Well

Betterworks is a performance management platform with OKR tracking built in. It connects goal-setting to feedback, reviews, and employee development. Founded in 2013, it serves mid-market to enterprise teams and has built a solid reputation in the HR tech space.

Core features:

• OKR creation, alignment, and progress tracking with milestone breakdowns
• Continuous performance management and review cycles
• 1:1 meeting tools, feedback flows, and manager effectiveness dashboards
• Anonymous employee surveys and pulse checks
• AI-powered coaching suggestions for managers
• E-learning content access and development planning

Pricing: Two tiers (Mid-Market and Enterprise), starting around $7/user/month with custom enterprise quotes.

What users like (from verified reviews): The structured goal-setting framework lets you set multiple milestones within primary objectives. Monthly progress notes create good documentation. The interface makes switching between list views, charts, and dashboards easy. Adoption tends to be high because the UX is clean.

Common complaints: Navigating between individual and team goals can be confusing. No reminders as goal end-dates approach. Limited AI assistance for actually creating OKRs (AI coaching exists, but it’s advisory, not generative). Integration with third-party tools could be deeper. Smaller teams sometimes find the platform more complex than they need.

What GWork Does

GWork is strategic implementation technology. We don’t track goals or run performance reviews. We focus on a different problem entirely: getting strategic priorities to show up in daily operations.

Think of it this way. Betterworks helps you set the goal “Improve customer retention by 15%.” GWork helps you figure out which specific daily behaviors need to change across your teams to make that happen, then reinforces those behaviors inside existing workflows until they stick.

Betterworks tells you the retention goal is at 60% progress in the quarterly check-in. GWork tells you that 3 out of 7 regional teams haven’t adopted the new client follow-up process, and shows you which ones are still running the old playbook.

The Core Difference

Betterworks is a system of record for goals and performance. It captures what you’re aiming for and whether people reported progress.

GWork is a system of action. It changes what people do on a daily basis to make the strategy real.

A Concrete Example

Say your CEO announces “Customer-first culture” as a strategic priority for 2026.

With Betterworks: HR creates a company-level OKR. Departments create aligned OKRs. Managers discuss in 1:1s. Quarterly, everyone reports progress. The dashboard shows 70% alignment. But when a customer calls support, the experience is the same as last year.

With GWork: You identify the 5 specific behaviors that would make “customer-first” real (like proactive check-in calls within 48 hours of onboarding). GWork reinforces those behaviors inside the tools your support and success teams already use, every day. Within 30 days, you can see which teams adopted the new behaviors and which haven’t.

Betterworks tells you the OKR is on track. GWork tells you whether the work actually changed.

When to Choose Betterworks

• You need to replace or upgrade your performance review process
• Managers need better tools for 1:1s, feedback, and coaching
• You want OKRs connected to individual performance evaluations
• Your main challenge is goal visibility and alignment across the org
• You’re in a mid-market organization (500-5,000 employees) looking for a comprehensive HR platform

When to Choose GWork

• Goals are set and tracked, but nothing is changing on the ground
• Strategic priorities keep stalling at the implementation layer
• Training and communication aren’t translating to new daily behaviors
• You need to prove that a strategic initiative actually changed how 300+ people work
• Your execution breakdowns happen between strategy definition and frontline action

Can You Use Both?

Yes, and many organizations should. Betterworks handles the goal-setting and performance management side. GWork handles the behavior implementation side. They’re complementary.

The gap between “goal defined” and “goal achieved” is where most strategies die. Betterworks sits at the definition end. GWork sits at the implementation end. Covering both closes the loop.

If you want to understand this gap more deeply, we break down the difference between behavior measurement and engagement metrics and why tracking the wrong thing keeps organizations stuck.

Try GWork

90-day pilot. One strategic priority. One team. Measurable behavior change within 30 days.

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