As this can be a nerve-wracking time for employees, it is vital that those conducting the performance review do so in a comprehensive and positive way. The more in-depth, the more good that can come from it and certainly getting your performance review comments and phrases right make a big difference.
What to Include in your Performance Evaluation
Positives and negatives
Bad performance reviews can lead to low productivity, decreased morale and the chance the employee will leave. This means that it is important to balance the negative comments with some positive constructive feedback.
Performance reviews are there to identify areas of improvement, but highlighting examples of good work or strengths is key to maintaining a good relationship with your staff.
Goals and outlooks
As many businesses are very busy, there sometimes isn’t enough time to check in with all of your employees on a personal basis. Although they are getting the work done as a team, you might not be sure how they are progressing individually.
Take the time during a performance review to set out some personal goals with the employee and talk about their role in the wider scheme. This will give them something to strive towards over the course of the year.
Good constructive feedback
Although you don’t want to fight your staff on every negative aspect of the performance review, you should give them the opportunity to respond to your suggestions.
This may reveal other issues in the business as well as opening the lines of communication with this particular employee. They will certainly respect you more if you give them the chance to provide continuous feedback on their own performance.
Sample Performance Review Phrases
The saying, “Always choose your words carefully” is applicable not only during inter-personal communication but it holds true in a corporate context as well, especially during sensitive matters like performance reviews. A performance review needs to be a balanced affair where as a manager or supervisor you are required to state the obvious, and communicate an effective feedback to the employees. The secret is to craft your performance review comments in such a manner to be specific and short and succinct without sounding on the edge.
Heres a comprehensive list of example phrases, comments, and constructive feedback examples as ideas and inspiration for your next performance review , performance self appraisal, 360 peer review, or just offering continuous feedback as part of employee performance and development.
These example performance review phrases can be use when writing comments in a positive or negative feedback context.
Communication Skills
While covering the communication skills of the employee, you may use the following phrases:
- Effectively communicates his/her point of view and expectations
- Effectively manages communication at all levels (lateral, upward, or downward flow of communication)
- Effectively manages and facilitates meetings and group discussions
- Promotes action/task oriented meetings
- Effectively enforces company values and polices without evoking negative reactions
- Effectively communicates with clients
Achievements
While writing down the employee’s achievement highlights, you may use the following types of phrases:
- Achieved and exceeded the original set goals of “X” by a margin of “Y%”
- Accomplished optimal levels of performance with great sincerity in areas such as…
- Showcased great team player abilities in executing …..
- Excelled and consistently improved at developing strategies/programs by delivering stellar performance in …..
- Improved his or her overall productivity levels by “X%”
- Showcased proactiveness in various activities both within and outside the project
Coaching/Training Abilities
While listing down the coaching or training abilities of the employee, you may use the following phrases:
- Offered guidance and support to colleagues/peers by….
- Displayed a genuine interest in listening and addressing the problems shared by employees
- Displayed strong training abilities by using sound training techniques to solve XYZ problems
- Offered to provide continuous training in XYZ domain
- Garnered great support and respect from employees for lending a patient ear to their problems and concerns.
- Created opportunities for employees in areas pertaining to…..
Interpersonal Skills
While jotting down pointers pertaining to an employee’s interpersonal skills, you may find these sample phrases helpful:
- Builds effective working/professional relationships with…
- Understands the needs of peers and offers a helping hand to…
- Promotes synergy within the team by….
- Follows and abides by the company culture and inspires the same amongst peers
- Builds on understanding and mutual reliance
Administrative Abilities
While covering the administrative abilities of an employee, you may use a couple of these phrases:
- Developed successful strategies pertaining to administrative tasks such as….which produced amazing results
- Consistently worked towards improvising and examining the effectiveness of XYZ administrative tasks
- Effectively devised better procedures to perform XYZ tasks flawlessly
- Established effective systems for retrieving lost data
- Improved the existing administrative support systems by…
- Effectively maintained and organized documents to avoid duplication
Innovation Skills
While listing down your inputs regarding an employee’s innovative abilities, you may use the following phrases:
- Tries to innovate even under adverse conditions
- Looks out for innovative solutions
- Contributes towards innovative strategies
- Fosters a spirit of innovation within the team
- Actively participated in innovation events by …..
Collaboration Skills
Here are a couple of phrases which you can use to describe an employee’s collaborative abilities:
- Encourages team bonding activities
- Brings new ideas and techniques to promote collaboration within the team
- Harbors and builds strong relationships with the team members
- Displays a cooperative and harmonious nature
- Proactively shares expertise with the rest of the team
Delegation Abilities of Employees at a Senior Level
While writing about the delegation abilities of an employee, you can use the following examples:
- Encourages team members to solve issues at their end
- Encourages and empowers employees to lead by example and provides all the required resources to achieve the same
- Helps team members to gain visibility
- Delegates thoughtfully by matching with an individual’s strengths
- Delegates with precision and clarity
Attendance
Here are a few sample phrases to describe an employee’s attendance record:
- Is punctual and consistently on-time to meetings
- Arrives at meetings on time and is always prepared
- Attained perfect attendance over X period
- Schedules time-off according to company policy
- Completes deadlines as promised
Process Improvement Skills
Here are a couple of phrases which you can use as example while listing down the ability of an employee process improvement skills:
- Displayed consistent overall improvement and growth
- Has an innate ability to think of various types of methods of improvement
- Accomplished amazing results by displaying marked improvement in….
- Can consistently plan on the go towards improvement
Customer Experience
Here’s a examples of how to describe Customer Experience competency:
- Works effectively with clients
- Builds strong rapport with clients he/she interacts with
- Has a pleasant and friendly tone over the phone
- Consistently drives effective customer experience strategies
- Is empathetic towards customer issues
- Is direct, yet helpful in dealing with customer concerns
- Displays an effective cadence when working with clients on projects. Is effective, not overbearing
- Can handle difficult customers with grace
Learning Skills
Listed below are some of the examples of how you can jot down the learning ability of an employee during his or her performance review:
- Displays keenness towards learning new methods/techniques/skills
- Is a rapid learner and adapts rapidly as well to changing situations
- Quite open to share his or her learning experience with the peer group
- Encourages and promotes a learning culture in the team
Creative Abilities
Here are a couple of examples on how you can state the creative abilities of an employee:
- Ability to think out of the box in the most challenging situations
- Ability to think of alternatives such as …..which produced brilliant results
- Constantly strives to experiment to drive results
- Has initiated and executed creative ideas such as……
- Looks out for new approaches and ideas
Management and Supervisory Skills
Listed below are some of the phrases that you can use to describe the management and supervisory abilities of an employee:
- Consistently provides support to the team
- Promotes one on one communication with the team members to …..
- Provides the team with the required resources to achieve results
- Provides support to the team during times of organizational transitioning
- Provides timely feedback to employees
- Gives credit and recognition to deserving team members
- Always available to lend an ear and support to team members
- Ensures that employees understand their roles and responsibilities clearly
Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Skills
Here are a couple of phrases which you can use while describing the problem solving abilities of an employee:
- Capable of developing creative solutions
- Look out for creative solutions with a practical approach towards problem solving
- Understands and effectively solves problems instead of focusing on the symptoms
- Posses the ability to propose options in times of need
- Quite resourceful by showing skills to turn problems into opportunities…
Productivity and Time Management Abilities
While describing an individual’s productivity and time management abilities, you may use the following phrases:
- Consistently delivers beyond expectations
- Exceeds the normal standards of output delivery
- Substantially contributes towards the continued growth and operation of the organization
- Is an important pillar of success for the department
- Always meets deadlines consistently
- Displays respect towards the time of others
- Maintains the schedule of meetings
Potential of an Employee
Here are a couple of examples on how to jot down the potential of an employee:
- Is capable of taking up a higher role with additional responsibilities
- Is capable of being entrusted with bigger assignments and projects
- Can enhance his or her skills further by participating in various classroom or external training programs
- Has the potential to learn new and additional skills for future career advancement
While you can certainly follow the listed feedback examples while writing performance reviews or performance appraisals, you must ensure that you support each of your phrases with a relevant and specific example or data rather than assumption.
Byron Conway
byron@employeeconnect.com
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