How to Write Your Performance Appraisal

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Writing your own performance evaluation is sometimes more difficult than writing someone else's! In today's business world, however, many human resource plans require that you do just that. Here are steps to help you write an accurate performance review and still promote your best self to the organization.

Things You'll Need

• Job description for your position
• Goals document for the year
• List of accomplishments for the year
• A quiet time and private place to focus

Instructions

1. 

   SET GOALS IN JANUARY
   Meet with your manager to agree upon appropriate goals for the upcoming year.

2. 

   POST YOUR GOALS
   After your goals for the year are set, don't just file them away. Post a copy of your goals on a bulletin board on your desk. Mark your calendar on a quarterly basis to meet with your manager briefly to discuss your progress and determine if goals need to be realigned or re-prioritized.

3. 

   MEASURE PRODUCTIVITY
   When establishing your goals for the year, make them measurable. Depending on your position, this may be easy or it may be difficult. If you're producing physical products, quantity is easy to measure. If you're providing a service, you may have to be more creative and measure productivity by success with the customer (internal or external).

4. 

   TAKE NOTES
   Just as you would do for anyone you supervise, keep notes throughout the year of accomplishments for which you were responsible. Make note too of personal or department-wide achievements to which you were a major contributor. If you are able to be objective, you should also identify efforts that didn't go as smoothly as they could have and note what you have learned and will apply the next time the situation arises.

5. 

   EVALUATE INITIATIVE AND INNOVATION
   Initiative is a great way to prove your value within a department or company. Mention projects that you took on that were above and beyond your usual duties. Recount any suggestions that you made that have been implemented in your department or company. For instance, if you recommended that a split shift would be more beneficial to serving the customer or increasing production, be sure to include this in your performance evaluation.

6. 

   COMMENTS FROM OTHERS
   Now's the time to present all those "thank you" emails, letters, or cards you've received throughout the year from internal or external customers. These will weigh heavily in your favor in your performance evaluation, and will let your manager know how others perceive you.

7. 

   NOTE STRENGTHS and WEAKNESSES
   Cover your strengths in the position. Make note of areas that could use improvement, and suggest steps you have taken to strengthen those areas (more training, mentoring, proofreading work, etc.).

8. 

   EVALUATION
   When your manager asks for your performance evaluation, you'll be ready. And when you actually receive your evaluation, your work in preparing your performance evaluation and in pointing out your contributions to the company will have made your manager's job easy.

9. 

   SET GOALS FOR NEXT PERIOD
   After you have received your performance evaluation, take time with your manager to set measurable goals for the next evaluation period.

Tips & Warnings

• Be sure to click on the links around this page for more information about performance evaluations!

Resources

• How to Write Employee Evaluations