How To Do an Employee Review: Examples and Template

Employee reviews are integral to the process of managing and documenting employee performance across an organization. By conducting employee reviews on a regular basis, your team can drive improvements to help ensure you have workers with the skills and motivation you need to achieve business goals. You’ll also be better equipped to quickly pivot as priorities shift, and your documented support will help individuals improve performance.

If managers across your organization have come from varied companies, they’ve likely followed different employee review processes in prior roles and may have their own preferred approaches. However, implementing a standardized process that includes templated performance review forms can be helpful for completing consistent, unbiased reviews across all team members.

Whether you’re looking to start developing a formal employee performance review process or improve the one you already have in place, learn about best practices for completing detailed review forms and conducting successful reviews.

Table of contents:

• How to conduct an employee review
• Employee review examples
• Performance review template

How to conduct an employee review

Conducting an effective employee review requires careful consideration and preparation. By taking a thoughtful approach to preparing for reviews, sharing feedback, and setting goals, you can drive improvements across the organization and help workers reach their full potential.

Consider the following steps:

1. Prepare
2. Create a comfortable environment
3. Provide feedback
4. Discuss improvement and growth opportunities

1. Prepare

Given rapidly evolving business priorities and in-demand skills, a lot can change between employee review sessions; recalling all details about an individual’s performance can be daunting. Adequately preparing for employee reviews can help ensure that review forms include the most relevant information about a worker’s performance and that individual performance discussions are clear, concise, and impactful.

Some steps you can take to effectively prepare for an employee review include:

• Maintaining an ongoing, written record of past performance, including individual employee milestones, achievements, and areas for improvement to avoid starting from scratch when it comes time to write reviews
• Developing and implementing a standardized employee evaluation or performance evaluation template
• Scheduling training sessions for managers who conduct employee evaluations and individuals who will receive evaluations
• Reviewing goals set during previous reviews or onboarding to evaluate progress
• Setting aside time to write thorough employee evaluations
• Encouraging team members to complete self-evaluations
• Gathering input from others with whom the individual engages with, including customers, peers, and direct reports (if applica)
• Scheduling review meetings with advanced notice to avoid surprises and allow time to prepare  

2. Create a comfortable environment

While a standardized employee review form provides a written record of worker performance, employee review meetings are just as important—if not more—than written evaluations. Review forms can help outline talking points and ensure the conversation stays on track. Performance discussions give managers and direct reports the opportunity to have a two-way discussion to align on performance and goal setting.  

Because performance reviews can be stressful for workers, creating a comfortable environment is important. Consider the following tips:

• Scheduling face-to-face meetings either in-person or, if your team works remotely, via video call
• Finding a quiet, private space, such as a conference room, for review discussions
• Providing time for workers to share their feedback, self-assessments, and thoughts on overall performance
• Engaging in active listening by repeating individuals’ statements and asking follow-up questions
• Encouraging team members to ask questions about your feedback
• Working collaboratively toward determining next steps and future goals

3. Provide feedback

Whether your organization conducts employee reviews annually, twice a year, or quarterly, the process is a formal way to gather and share worker performance data and metrics. However, taking a proactive, ongoing approach to feedback can help avoid surprises during employee reviews and reduce worker stress as a result.

A survey of 1,000 full-time U.S. workers from Workhuman found that 93% of respondents have a good understanding of where they stand with their performance. Among those who don’t know where they stand with performance, 60% report feeling constantly stressed at work.  

Here are some best practices to provide effective feedback during employee review conversations:

• Following on on feedback shared during recurring one-on-one check-ins
• Tying feedback to the job description and previous goals
• Highlighting quantifiable performance data and specific examples
• Identifying both accomplishments and areas for improvement
• Using clear and objective language
• Focusing on performance and outputs, not the specific individual

4. Discuss improvement and growth opportunities

Whether or not the worker achieved previously set goals, defining new objectives is a key to continued growth—both for the individual and the business overall.

After discussing the employee performance review form and the team member’s self-evaluation in detail, work collaboratively with each individual to discuss improvement and growth opportunities rather than simply assigning goals. This approach will help individuals feel a sense of ownership over goals and next steps and, therefore, be more motivated to achieve them.

Individual objectives will vary depending on a worker’s role, department, and overall performance. If the employee review shows that the individual is underperforming, goals may be related to addressing performance issues and improvement opportunities. On the other hand, if a team member is exceeding expectations, objectives may be designed to help the worker continue to grow in their role or build skills to qualify for a promotion.  

Improvement opportunities for an underperforming worker may include:

• Taking a professional development course to build core skills and passing a certification
• Implementing and following a process to ensure deadlines are met
• Responding to emails or other communication methods within a set period of time

Growth opportunities for workers who meet or exceed goals may include:

• Working on stretch assignments to further build skills
• Completing talent assessments and development courses to identify and develop more advanced skills
• Mentoring or managing another team member

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Employee review examples

No matter the type of feedback you share during employee reviews, using concise, objective phrases and sharing specific, measurable examples can help you clearly articulate key points to workers and minimize bias. This approach can also help you focus specifically on critiquing the worker’s performance, rather than the individual as a person.

Positive comments to acknowledge strong performance

Highlighting worker accomplishments during employee reviews can boost motivation and encourage individuals to continue making positive contributions to the team. By sharing detailed examples, you’ll help team members better understand their strengths and how their work impacts the overall business.

Another benefit is that positive comments can be passed along to the human resources team and other stakeholders to make the case for raises, promotions, and other forms of recognition for strong performance.

Some examples of effective positive comments include:

1. Sarah is an SEO manager at a marketing agency. “Sarah has a deep understanding of SEO trends and best practices and consistently exceeds expectations in her role. She takes the time to learn about each client’s specific goals and develop SEO strategies to drive positive business outcomes. Sarah’s clients have seen website organic traffic increase by an average of 20% year over year and she regularly receives glowing reviews from clients.”
2. John is a recruiter at a financial services firm. “John goes above and beyond to support an engaging candidate experience and ensure the organization has talent with the skills we need to achieve business goals. In recent months, he has identified and implemented new technology to streamline the recruitment process, including an automated talent sourcing tool and an AI-enabled chatbot to improve candidate engagement. As a result, our average time to hire has already decreased by one week and our cost per hire has decreased by 15%.”

Constructive criticism to address areas for improvement

Constructive criticism is equally as important as positive feedback. Pointing out areas for improvement can encourage workers to identify next steps to develop their skills or correct certain behaviors. In addition to sharing specific examples and data, avoid using subjective phrases such as “I think” or “In my opinion,” or sandwiching constructive feedback between positive comments, as this approach may make your points come across as less important.

A few examples of constructive criticism comments include:  

1. Alex is a sales representative at a technology company. “Since the last review period, Alex has fallen short of expectations for their role. They have closed three new deals in the past quarter, which puts them off track for their annual goal of 20 closed deals. Alex has also received feedback from prospective clients related to lack of responsiveness and product knowledge. During the review meeting, we will discuss next steps for improvement, such as additional product training and possible opportunities to shadow top performing sales representatives on the team.”
2. Drake is a project manager at an engineering firm. “During the past quarter, two critical projects that Drake oversaw were delivered late and exceeded budget. Although Drake knew the projects were off track a few weeks before the deadline, he didn’t communicate this to team members or stakeholders ahead of time. As we discuss goals for the next review period, we’ll focus on steps to improve time management, prioritization, and proactive communication.”  

Examples of SMART goals for the next review period

Each time you set performance review goals with team members, following the SMART framework can help ensure goals are clear, provide direction to workers, and maximize impact.

SMART stands for goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. In the absence of such criteria, goals may be vague, which can lead to workers being unclear about expectations. Leaders and workers may have challenges with determining whether goals were achieved when the time comes for the next review period.

When discussing and setting SMART goals with team members during performance reviews, keep each individual’s job description and overall responsibilities in mind, as well as the company’s goals.

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SMART goals for underperforming workers may include:

1. Complete a time management course, pass the course evaluation, and meet all assignment deadlines by the end of the quarter
2. Update project management software or tracking documents at the end of each week to show progress toward assignments, milestones, and goals
3. Improve communication and speaking skills by presenting in team meetings once each quarter

Examples of SMART goals for average or top performers in specific roles may include:

• Talent acquisition manager. Decrease total average hiring time by one week in the next six months.
• Sales manager. Hold sales team members accountable for increasing the number of scheduled demos by 10% in the next 90 days.
• Customer support specialist. Decrease the average time to resolve your specific support tickets from 72 to 24 hours by the end of the year.

Performance review template

A performance review template can help ensure managers across your organization review team members on an objective, standardized scale.

In addition to sharing positive and constructive comments, effective performance review templates often have a rating system to evaluate workers on specific skills, competencies, or criteria. For example, a performance review rating system may range from one to five or include ratings from poor to excellent.

Before implementing a new performance review template, consider scheduling a training session to set expectations, walk managers through the rating process, and answer any questions.

Once employee reviews are complete, also schedule a follow-up meeting to collectively review and calibrate feedback. One manager may rate a specific competency as good, while another manager may rate a different employee with similar performance as excellent. Calibrating feedback can help all managers align on ratings, improve review accuracy, reduce bias, and objectively reward high performance.  

While employee review processes and goals vary across organizations, consider the following template as inspiration when developing or updating review forms for your team.

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Engage a performance management expert to improve your review process

When conducted effectively, employee reviews can help organizations discover skills gaps, recognize top performers, identify opportunities for ongoing worker development, and drive employee engagement and motivation, among other benefits. Rather than managing the process on your own, consider engaging an outside expert to help maximize the results of your employee review process.

Skilled independent performance management professionals are available on Upwork to share and implement best practices to ensure your employee review process is as impactful as possible.

Simplify the process of engaging experienced performance management specialists by searching for one-on-one consultations or fixed-price projects on Project Catalog™. Book a consultation or select a project that aligns with your employee review goals so you can begin working with an expert right away. Browse available performance management services on Project Catalog and get started now.