How to Write a Good Performance Review

Raise your hand if you love having your performance appraised. Gotcha. Whether you find them mildly annoying or downright tortuous, this fact remains: As long as jobs exist there will be regular (or irregular) opportunities for bosses to review staff growth. That said, if you're finally in a position to be the person behind the desk writing and delivering them, you may want to do unto others what wasn't done to you: Give reviews that send employees out the door feeling good about everything--including the suggestions you offer for improvement. Sound like mission impossible? Not if you craft your words as carefully as you craft the work that got you to your management level. Do it right and you'll find yourself working with some very loyal direct reports.

Things You'll Need

• Last year's goals and objectives
• Legally vetted review template
• Self-review from each direct report

Instructions

1. Pull copies of goals and objectives given to every employee the year before. Ask each staff member to review herself based on these criteria. Not only will each of your staffers have a substantive framework from which to write their evaluation, but also the list may trigger forgotten incidents and benchmarks that occurred during the year. Make sure you let each person know that these self-generated appraisals are required, not suggested.

2. Filter the information on each report's self evaluation. Some people tend to be self-deprecating or modest when it comes to blowing their own horns. Others may have healthy opinions of themselves and fill their self-drafted analyses with everything but a cape and Krypton. Effective bosses never let such influences negatively affect the review they write.

3. Consult files or records you keep on each person you're reviewing. This is the best way to recapture the memory of something (good or bad) that might have taken place six months earlier. Throwing hand-scribbled notes into a manila file might not have the same panache as high-tech e-file notes, but spontaneous communications about specific incidents take just a moment to write and can do much to help you recall noteworthy incidents.

4. Avoid using inappropriate language by requesting the standard template your company has conceived exclusively for corporate performance reviews, then use it as a base. Universal questions level the playing field and help you evaluate staffers using identical criteria. Additionally, legal counsel has likely vetted template verbiage before it was adopted. Use qualitative and quantitative evaluatory phrases in your review. Qualitative questions ask how one feels about situations, tasks or relationships. Quantitative questions refer to measurable, provable accomplishments, like numbers of sales made during the year.

5. Percolate each appraisal once it's written. Put it aside for at least one day, then re-read it to be certain you communicated your satisfaction and dissatisfaction in non-accusatory terms. Savvy bosses have been known to strip an employee's name from each and ask someone outside the firm to react to the language. You may be surprised to learn that an innocuous comment comes across as a rebuke. If you have time for this extra step, you'll be happy you did it. Thank your friend by offering second eyes on the performance reviews he writes.

6. Conduct individual performance reviews at neutral, public sites. A casual restaurant offers an excellent environment to discuss performance pros and cons. Both of you can focus on the task at hand without being subjected to ringing phones, email triggers, interruptions from colleagues and other such distractions. Once you have discussed the evaluation, give a copy to the employee. When you return to the office, set up an appointment to meet a few days later--after he has had time to digest the feedback.

7. Make good on your commitment to meet with the employee again at the appointed time and place. Discuss points that may be troubling to the reviewed employee. Set new goals and objectives for the year ahead based on mutual agreements arising from the review. Have the employee sign off on the evaluation. If a raise, title change or departmental transfer was offered as a measure of good performance, make the necessary arrangements immediately.