How to Write an Annual Employee Performance Review

Every year Supervisors, Managers, and Directors are faced with the daunting task of writing annual employee performance reviews. Once you get the hang of writing them you will find that they are pretty easy to do.

Most annual employee performance reviews come in two sections. The first is based on actual statistics and data. This part is not subjective. They didn't meet the goal, met the goal, or exceed the goal.

You should have everyone's yearly stats gathered before you sit down to write these reviews. You might want to keep a folder for each employee and put review information in it throughout the year. This will help writing the review that much easier to do.

The second half of the review is usually more subjective and has to do with their soft skills and leadership skills. It lets you score them on how they upheld the company values and goals too. You can list their participation in company committees, team building events, extra training, volunteering situations, and anything else that affects their value to the company.

Be sure you give extra credit to everyone for similar situations; otherwise, you can be accused of favoritism. Throughout the year gather phrases that you can adapt to use in your employees annual reviews. Ask other leaders in your company if you can see some that they have written with the names and any identifying information taken out so you do not know who they are. This way you can see their style and borrow some of the phrases they use that catch your eye.

Most people follow the age old rule of 2 positives and 1 negative. You start with a positive remark. Then add in the negative remark but always end with another positive remark.

For example, if writing about an employee that takes a lot of calls but rarely recaps the conversation before ending the call, you might say something like this: Employee consistently exceeds the average monthly goal of calls taken but has trouble remembering to recap the conversation before ending the call. With proper training employee will be even more of an asset to our organization then he already is.

Remember to read through the reviews to look for errors. Make sure that you do not mention any other employees in the review and that you have the correct employee name and employee number included. Once you are confident it is complete you can submit for approval to your boss or to your HR department.