A Guide to Writing Employee Performance Reviews

For most managers, writing up employee performance reviews can be an overwhelming task. While performance reviews are an absolutely essential part of a feedback process to improve employee performance and a standard workforce management practice, writing up the reports can be time-consuming.

To help you streamline and optimize this workforce management process, here are five need-to-know tips on how to improve your writing while making sure your reviews are accurate, professional, and most importantly, improve employee performance.

Before you dig in, get a free demo to learn why Beekeeper is the employee app that improves internal communications and employee engagement.

1. Start with the Positives

Every employee will have done something since the last review that you’re proud of or is an accomplishment to that individual. While there may be minimal exceptions to this rule, it’s important to start your review on a positive note, helping the employee feel valued by the company while allowing you to focus on what helps to generally improve employee performance.

For this, and the remainder of your review, you can use the formatting guides found on sites like State of Writing and Resumeriterreview.net to help you structure your documents in a professional and coherent way. You could also run employee surveys to collect employee feedback to improve employee performance reviews.

2. Refer to the Previous Review

In the last workforce management review, you will have made goals or set targets for that individual to achieve in order to improve employee performance. The next step is to address these intentions so you can see how far the individual has progressed and whether they have accomplished, or even exceeded the goals you both agreed to.

Tip: When writing your review, it doesn’t need to be the length of a dissertation. Instead, keep it to one page by tracking your word count with online word count tools, or by editing, proofreading and then condensing using online guides and tools.

You’ll also have the chance to offer employee surveys which can find out how effective your performance meetings are and how they can be improved. You can offer this employee survey at the same time as the reviews to help them become more streamlined.

3. Record Constructive Feedback

Based on the comments made in the section above, you’ll then be able to address employee satisfaction regarding their role and start to brainstorm ways to improve employee performance. This is also where you can deliver constructive feedback and suggest solutions.

Don’t forget that you can also highlight the things that an employee is good at (referring back to tip #2), in which you can set a goal to continue this or take it to the next level. It’s imperative that the feedback in this section is received in a positive and constructive manner.

During the workforce management review, you can also offer the opportunity for employee feedback on their role and how they view the business.

4. Highlight Unfulfilled Goals

Of course, while some goals may have been achieved, others may not, and this will need to be addressed in the review. You will need to identify why these goals haven’t been met and what you can do to address them this time. In some cases, they may not be relevant anymore.

You can call on writing guides to improve your writing skills for more comprehensive goal setting, allowing you to actively improve employee performance.

If you, or your employees, feel like there’s a lack of communication in these areas, or room for improvement in the reviews, or the business itself, you could create more employee surveys and administer them via a team app to identify and rectify any problems. Collecting employee feedback here is essential so you can make sure your goals and intentions are positive and beneficial to your business.

5. Setting Future Employee Performance Goals

With all the information you’ve spoken about above, you can now start thinking towards the future. This means setting goals for your employee to aim for while discussing how they can be monitored and tracked throughout the next 12 months. Remember to remain positive and encouraging for the best results.

When you’ve finished writing your performance review (perhaps adding your employee surveys here to find out how well your employees think they are doing, since employee feedback is essential to your success), be sure to check it thoroughly, a process made easy with proofreading tools, to ensure it’s free from mistakes and of high quality.

Streamline Workforce Management and Improve Employee Performance

As you can see, conducting and recording an employee performance review doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task. Follow this simple outline, and you can maximize employee productivity and the quality of your business’s reviews. Using a team app like Beekeeper, you can improve and automate workforce management and operational processes, such as employee surveys, so you can focus on implementing results faster and boosting employee performance.

Download our Real Time Employee Feedback Checklist to discover how to collect employee feedback with a team communication app.