Free Printable Employee Performance Review Templates (Excel / Word / PDF)

employee performance review

An employee performance review template is one of the essential documents from managing a skillful human resource at any company. It is important for the employee as well as for the employer. Because it highlights the skill and knowledge gap by identifying what is working and what’s not.

A manager who is writing a performance review for the sub-ordinate must have the proper training to evaluate the performance of the employee. In small businesses, the limited resources problem pushes the managers to perform an evaluation.

While in developed companies, this extensive task is the responsibility of the HR department.

What is an employee performance review?

An employee performance preview is a formal assessment that evaluates an employee’s work at a particular time. Moreover, it assesses the employee’s work performance, identifies strengths and weaknesses, offers feedback, and set goals for future performance. It is also known as performance preview or performance appraisal.

Most organizations used it to support decisions related to training and career development. Furthermore, it is also used for compensation, transfers, promotions, and employment termination.

Following key information should be included in your performance review;

Employee strengths

Regarding the team member’s strengths, always include feedback and praise like effective problem solving and communication skills. This way, you can determine what the employee is doing well.

Employee weaknesses

It is also important to discuss for the team member any weaknesses or areas of opportunity. The ability to work in a team setting or when and how to share ideas more effectively are included in areas of focus. This is a chance for the team member to get insight into where they have to improve.

Rating system

Your performance review should include a system in order to identify areas of improvement. This system gauges each employee’s skill level in pre-set categories. Rating employees based on standards is a common example. These standards may include consistently exceeds expectations, often exceeds expectations, and needs development. To assess the employee across different categories such as strategic mindset, communication skills, and team collaboration, you might use these ratings.

Review period

You will measure an employee’s performance relative to a set period during the performance review process. All organizations slightly do this differently. However, the common periods are annually, bi-annually, or quarterly.

Set goals

By having clear SMART goals, employees get a sense of where they can improve and what they should pay attention to in the future. Also, it assists you in clearly defining performance expectations for your employees.

What should include in an employee performance evaluation?

An employee performance evaluation includes an assessment of these skills;

  • Communication
  • Cooperation and teamwork
  • Problem-solving
  • Quality and perfection of work
  • Attendance
  • Punctuality and reliability.
  • The capability to complete goals and meet deadlines.

A review must include the position-specific competencies along with the employee’s accomplishments and contributions to their organization.

After discussing the key areas of assessment, you have to evaluate and weigh each to take an overview of the employee’s overall performance. It’s up to your company to need how to organize or format the information. Whatever the system make sure it is objective and easy to understand.

After that, arrange a meeting with each employee and discuss your findings.

Significance of Employee Performance Review Template

An employee performance review template is an important part of a performance management system. The good performance of the employee adds value to the organization and boosts the performance of the team.

The performance Clenbuterol management system motivates to align the personal goals with the goals of the team and the organization. After setting organizational goals. Employees are trained, monitored, and developed. Later, the performance of employees is reviewed and rewarded based on set goals. You may also like Job Application Form Templates.

Ways to Measure the Employee Performance

There are several measurement techniques to judge the performance of an employee. But, three approaches are widely used for the purpose. The first approach utilizes a questionnaire to rate the behavior of employees. In the second approach, the focus is to assess the several competencies of employee behavior. Both of these approaches involve the assessment by managers. In the third approach, the coworker reviews and rates the performance. This approach is also named a 360-degree appraisal approach. You may also see the Employee Profile Template.

The job performance scale approach uses a Likert scale for review purposes on questions like achieving objectives of the job, meeting the criteria, and fulfilling the requirements of a job. The job behavior scale adds some extra questions for the assessment of employees like helping other employees when they are absent or having extra work.

Measurement of the employee performance based on specific and core competencies of the job and organization is also a good approach. A very balanced approach to the employee performance review is the 360-degree appraisal. In this approach, all the stakeholders of an organization who deals with an employee give reviews such as managers, coworkers, subordinates, and customers. You may also check Hourly Schedule Templates.

How do you give constructive feedback?

Constructive criticism pays attention to giving helpful feedback supported by specific examples. This provides team members the context that they require to understand why they got the feedback they did. You should make sure to do the following in order to give effective feedback;

Inform the employee in advance

It can be tempting to launch into a feedback session and get it over with as soon as possible in case you don’t have a lot of experience giving feedback. But, in fact, the more time you provide your team member to prepare to get the feedback, the more beneficial the session will be. This is because team members who are informed in advance, without becoming defensive or passive, they can get into the right mindset to receive feedback openly.

Furthermore, before you sit down for the official conversation, make sure o let the employee know about the feedback session. In case, if it is possible them also inform the employee what the feedback will be about. This way, they can have time to prepare for the meeting and can ask any relevant questions on their end.

Communicate in a private setting

If you share constructive feedback in a group setting, it is easy for it to accidentally turn into a negative experience. Make sure you’re communicating feedback in a private one-on-one setting as type or style of performance review doesn’t matter. This also makes sure that the employee doesn’t feel targeted in a group setting.

Offer actionable feedback

Always pair your feedback with data-backed insights and actionable next steps in order to make sure it is constructive. By doing do, you make transparency around why the employee got a particular review on the basis of their work. Give particular feedback with details including;

  • What’s been working well?
  • What they can improve
  • How to get there

Document feedback in writing

You must document the feedback in writing. This can be done in a feedback tool. That way, you and the employee can measure objectives by looking back on past performance. This concerns positive and constructive feedback. A great way to increase team morale is by keeping track of the team member’s major wins while reducing impostor syndrome and burnout.

Time-oriented employee review templates:

Annual performance review

As its name implies, an annual performance review measures a team member’s accomplishment once in a year. The overall performance may pay attention to core competencies and individual objectives relative to performance management.

An annual review is an effective way to determine performance history over a period of one year. You should make sure to note down the performance review in a shared space. You and your employees review what they did over the course of the year by documenting work in a central source of truth.

Mid-year performance review

In this mid-year performance review, a team member’s accomplishment is measured bi-annually. This is an effective option for teams who want to make transparency around performance.

Moreover, team members gauge their performance and implement changes where required by receiving an opportunity to see where their performance lands every six months.

Quarterly performance review

A quarterly performance review assesses a team member’s success four times a year. This provides your employee a more consistent chance to turn weaknesses into strengths. Since you do on constructive feedback, it is essential to focus as much time and energy on positives likewise other performance review styles.

Year-end performance review

Against the financial success of the company, a year-end performance review measures a team member’s success. Alongside the assessment of long-term company goals, this review is commonly scheduled and is used frequently for operations and marketing teams. The reason behind is that their work is closely aligned with financial revenue objectives.

30-60-90 performance review

A new team member’s success is measured by a 30-60-90 day performance review. After the new team member’s first, second, and third months in the role, this method reviews the new team member against job expectations.

To provide new team members a baseline of how they’re meeting their role expectations, this performance review is a great way. Also, it makes transparency around areas where they have to pay attention to more energy and time-perfecting skills.

Guidelines for writing an Employee Performance Review

Writing an employee performance review isn’t as simple as it’s considered. There are several points on the need to keep in mind before going to write a review on any employee performance. Below are the simple tips to write a good performance review;

  1. Focus to write regular but informal feedback.
  2. Be honest in writing the review.
  3. Do it in real-time while meeting with the employee.
  4. Use tangible and only the relevant examples
  5. Only select decent and formal words chosen carefully and end on a positive note.

By following the above guidelines. A simple but realistic and honest review of any employee can be written in a very short time.

Employee performance review templates help small companies to eliminate the need of having a full-time HR team for the evaluation purpose. This template can perform an annual reviewing task efficiently.

This simple employee performance review template helps the real-time reporting system that enhances collaboration. Also, this employee evaluation form template is easy to use, and results can be stored for analysis purposes.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

How do I conduct an employee evaluation?

Here are six pieces of advice on how to conduct an employee evaluation that benefits you and your employee;

  • Make all the feedback ahead of time.
  • Keep your remarks comprehensible and precise.
  • Give your employees a copy of the completed evaluation form.
  • Retain employee review meetings a two-way discussion.
  • End your conversation with the advice of focus on the future.

How can I write a self-assessment performance review?

Writing a self-assessment is not as easy as you think. This is because analyzing oneself may be difficult especially when it is submitted to a supervisor for review. Following are the tips that will help you how to write a self-assessment performance review;

  1. The main purpose of self-assessment is to highlight your accomplishments and recollect milestones in your professional development. You should point out your particular tasks and projects that highlight your best work. While explaining the accomplishments, describe its impacts on the whole business.
  2. Don’t just highlight your achievements, also be honest. Being honest means you have to pint out your weakness that you have improved. Moreover, also discuss the past failures that taught you valuable lessons.
  3. Next, during self-assessment don’t stagnate. You should list your goals and objectives for the coming year while writing the self-assessment. It will show that you are not content to settle. However, it’s significant to commit to improving and educating yourself.
  4. While describing the accomplishments also attach the hard data. It will show that what you have done throughout the year is really beneficial.
  5. When writing the self-assessments employees should always be professional.

What are the top goals for a performance review?

There are three top goals for a performance review;

  • To encourage be on time.
  • To motivate for paying attention to completing a task.
  • To encourage leadership.

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