How to Write Job Performance Reviews

Performance reviews are often used as a tool for evaluating employee raises, potential layoffs, productivity metrics and job security. Therefore, job performance reviews naturally create stress on the part of the manager reviewing an employee and the employee being assessed. With review, planning and inclusion of detail, managers can create job performance reviews for their employees that foster increased productivity, ensure clarity of goals and simultaneously lower the stress of the review process.

Things You'll Need

• Computerized or paper performance review form Notebook Pen

Instructions

Write an Effective Job Performance Review

1. Read your employee's self-assessments. Many companies include a self-assessment section of written performance reviews to be completed by the employee who is being reviewed before assessment by the his manager. Encourage your employee to highlight his accomplishments in this section. For companies that do not include a self-assessment section, ask each of your charges to send you an email listing their accomplishments for the period in question.

2. Assess your employee's list of accomplishments for accuracy. Make sure the employee has detailed the roles she took during the quarter or year in each project. Make notes of wording in the self-assessments that may not accurately reflect the contributions the employee made.

3. Conduct an impartial review of your employees' accomplishments from the past performance period. Review major projects, and note the roles each employee played in each project's completion, even if the contribution was relatively minor. Consider moments during the review period when your employees shone, helped their peers, trained others or pleased a client. Note each instance with the date in your notebook.

4. Review your employees' growth over the time frame in question. Line up the dates of their most notable accomplishments, and try to identify trends in growth. Ask yourself if the employee's accuracy or quality level increased or decreased with time. Compare your employee's current levels of performance to his last performance review, if one exists. Identify and note in your notebook the areas of growth, problems and regression.

5. Create a metric for your department to ensure that employees are judged on the same standards. Make a list for each area or heading in which you are asked to assess employees. Decide before you begin assessing employees what constitutes superior, good, fair and subpar (needs improvement) levels of performance. Try to attach specific accomplishments or proven work traits to each level and for each area to eliminate bias or inconsistent grading.

6. Use descriptive language and concrete examples of the traits you attribute to the employee, whether positive or negative. For example, mention that an employee "completed training for Susan in 6 hours rather than the standard 8" instead of merely saying the employee "trained Susan quickly." Transform abstract nouns, like "motivation" and "team mentality," into precise language backed with verifiable facts.

7. Assess the uniqueness of this particular employee. Ask yourself what would be missing from your team if this employee were to leave. Assess the attitude and personality this member brings to the group, including creativity, high-level logic, cooperative solutions and independent thinking. Consider how the department has changed since this employee's arrival, and ask yourself if any positive or negative changes can be attributed directly and verifiably to this employee's presence.

8. Ensure that goals have been clearly communicated to your department and your employees. Hold employees to failed standards and unfinished goals only where those have been clearly expected and measured.

9. Outline goals for the future that are specific and attainable within the next review period. State the period for achieving each goal you lay out for the future. Ask yourself what the employee would have to accomplish in order to receive higher and lower ratings. Put these assessments in straightforward language in the appropriate section of your review.

10. Sign and submit your performance review. Provide copies of your review to your human resources department, your supervisor and your employee at the appointed time. Keep a copy of each performance review for your own records.

Tips & Warnings

• Spell-check and grammar-check your performance review to avoid errors. Compare your completed review for an employee against past written reviews to ensure there are no factual contradictions.

• Avoid racist, sexist, or other intolerant statements or suggestions in your performance reviews. A good rule of thumb is that an uninitiated reader should not be able to tell the sex, age or race of your employee beyond their names and the use of feminine or masculine pronouns. Avoid comparing your employee to another on the team in your performance review, opting for objective assessments independent of others' work. Avoid negatively charged, hurtful statements in your performance reviews. Do not use sarcasm, attempts at humor or biting wit in your performance reviews.