Writing Performance Reviews

Writing performance reviews can be a tough job for an employer, weighing on both positive and negative attributes of an employee. So here are some samples for performance reviews. Keep reading…

Growth of an organization depends on the performance of every individual employee. His contribution in success of the organization decides his career growth. To make an employee aware of where he currently stands and what limits he could define for himself, a performance review is important. However, writing performance reviews can be a tough job, as an employer needs to have a sane frame of mind when he evaluates his employee performance. The good and to be improved attributes have to be judged correctly in a performance appraisal, as the final review will decide the employee’s future with the organization. Here is an illustration for performance appraisal review.
 
What is a Performance Review

A performance review is not just about assessing an employee’s capabilities, but is also about maintaining a goodwill with the employee and motivate him to do even better than before. So there are some criteria preset (listed below) for an employer before he starts writing a review for his employee’s performance.

• Structuring a review for overall job performance and additional responsibilities of the employee
• Identifying employee strength and weakness
• Designing a rating scale
• Employee’s contribution towards research and development
• Technical skill set: current and updated
• Setting goals for a performance review
• Employee comments

But before reading a sample, go through these ratings defined for the sample performance evaluation for an employee working with IT industry.

Exceeds All (EA)

• Possesses excellent skill set on programming languages and testing
• Extremely time conscious and highly reliable
• Deliverance of good quality code and test reports on time
• Handling client calls efficiently
• Excellent analytical skills for problem solving
• Taking initiatives for group activities
• Excellent communication skills (verbal and written)
• Clarity in presentations delivered
• Requires no supervision
• All goals met (9/10)

Exceeds Most (EM)

• A good technical skill set
• Meeting deadlines
• Good communication skills
• Good time consciousness
• Dedicated in solving problems and quite reliable
• Taking initiatives for group activities
• Good Presentation skills
• Requires little supervision
• Goals met (7/10)

Meets All (MA)

• Skill set is good but there is scope for honing them
• Delivery code on time, but with a lot of effort and resources
• Good time consciousness, but needs to be more confident about taking initiatives
• Required to improve on verbal communication, during client calls
• Presentation skills to be improved
• Requires a little supervision
• Goals met (5/10)

Meets Some (MS)

• Skill set needs to be updated
• Code quality to be made better and reports should be concise
• Lack of time consciousness
• Deadlines to be met, yet
• Communication skills (both verbal and written) needs to be worked upon
• Analytical skills to be honed
• Lack of initiative in group activities
• Lack of presentation skills
• Requires maximum supervision
• Goals met (3/10)

Sample Review

Phrases Used in Performance Reviews

• ‘Terry has an excellent skill set for programming languages, but her untimely absenteeism has made her quite unreliable for handling critical projects. She needs to work with more dedication and focus.‘
• ‘Jake’s presentation skills are impeccable. All his presentations are concise and lucid and help the audience to understand the concepts better. The questionnaire session he conducts at the end of each presentation is something that should be implemented in every presentation.‘
• ‘Allan has an uncanny knack of solving complex algorithms. I believe his strong analytical skills and the urge to take initiative in group activities will earn him his promotion this time.‘

• ‘Edward needs to work hard on his communication skills, both verbal and written. It has been observed that most of his mails concerning project updates are incomplete, prompting the client to cross check with the management time and again.‘
• ‘Sally has been doing a good job handling client calls with ease. Her planning and scheduling techniques by making a checklist before every client call must be included in employee communication training.
• ‘Elle has been doing moderately good, but is unable to meet her deadlines without supervision. She needs to work on her skill set and communication skills.‘
• ‘Noel has not been clocking office hours regularly. This has to be taken seriously by him.‘
• ‘Mandy’s stellar contribution in the most challenging projects of Lloyd’s Banking Applications is a fact illustrating her reliability and dedication. The organization needs employees like her.‘
• ‘Daniel must avoid making silly mistakes in project reports. Every deliverance has to be quality assured.‘
• ‘Linda needs to revise her technical skill set before committing to projects with tight deadlines. Delays in project deliveries has not been perceived positively by the management.‘

Being an employer, it is your responsibility to collect all possible facts about the employee’s work, his technical and analytical skills and his work habits before you conduct a performance evaluation. And the most important point for an employer to bear in his mind is, he must have an unbiased frame of mind when judging an employee and his work. Because, a wrong performance evaluation will not only hamper an employee’s career, but also the growth of your organization, which would have been perhaps better, with the right assessment.