Performance Review Meeting

Anxiety is high when performance reviews roll around in the office. But did you know, according to a global survey from OfficeVibe.com, that 95% of employees agree that receiving feedback is a good thing? Moreover, the same study reported that 83% of employees want feedback, whether positive or negative. Without a doubt, feedback is critical to help employees grow, improve, and get recognized. Ultimately, it leads to higher employee engagement and lowers the attrition rate. Using a performance review template is the easiest way to kickstart your performance reviews; which one should you use though? 👇

Which types of performance review templates are there?

One way to improve the performance review experience for both reviewer and the person being reviewed is to have a clear process and format set up around how the review is conducted. Depending on the type of review you wish to hold, you can tweak your performance review template to adapt it.

Here are some of the most common performance review types:

• Annual performance review template
• 6-Month Review
• Quarterly Review
• 90-Day Review
• Self-performance review template
• Manager performance review

Some companies may choose to do one extensive review at the end of the year and just focus on regular 1-1 meetings to share feedback and check in with their employees.

Performance Review Framework

While the framework for performance reviews has remained the same, how it is delivered has varied, especially with more and more companies working remotely.  Managers have combined asynchronous and synchronous options. For example, an employee who is doing a self-performance review may choose to do it asynchronously. Once it’s filled out, he/she can have a video call with their manager to review and discuss the responses.

If you're wondering, 'where can I find a free employee performance review template', you don't need to look any further. Our meeting templates cover all types and are available for your team to use and collaborate on.

What's Included in a Free Performance Review Template

These templates have a basic performance review structure that covers achievements, areas of improvement, future goals, and feedback. You can always perform another role-specific review, which covers more qualitative data to support this one. But for almost everyone, this template gets the job done; it’s straightforward but leaves room for flexibility. Sections can be deleted, changed, or added quickly to support your team’s process.

Wondering how to request a performance review via email? Once you've opened the performance review template, you can invite the individual you're reviewing to the document, and they'll receive an email notification letting them know they have been invited to contribute. Or, you can copy and paste the following template into your email and send it directly to them. 👇

Employee Performance Review Template

Type of Performance Review

Here, you can identify the type of review to give everyone context. For example:

Quarterly Self-Performance Review

Details of the Review

These are basic but critical details. For example:

• Employee Name: Grace Mendoza
• Department: Marketing Team
• Review Period: Q1 2021
• Date of Review: April 30, 2021

Ideally, the date of review is as close to the review period. This ensures that the information and insights are up to date and accurate.

Overall Performance

This template focuses on achievements and areas of improvement. From the manager’s perspective, this might be purely quantitative. How many articles did the employee write? How many clicks did the ads generate? If the team is using the OKR system, include the specific numbers here. However, it’s crucial to provide a qualitative review as well. There are things like behaviour, energy, and attitude that can’t be measured but just as important, even though some leaders may beg to differ.

Achievements

Example:

• Completed 12 blog posts for the quarter
• Increased organic traffic to the blog by 20%
• Successfully lead a fun remote team building activity for the marketing team

Areas to Improve

Areas to improve can be tricky to write or say verbally in the meeting. Always phrase it in a constructive way and avoid sounding judgmental or accusatory. As an example:

Avoid saying: Does not know how to follow SEO guidelines

Try saying: Learn more about best SEO practices

Future Goals & Expectations

This section ties everything in together. If the employee is excelling in something, you can suggest they add a new skill as a goal. Or, if there are areas of improvement, you can work together on building a plan, such as providing more training or offering them to attend conferences or workshops to help expand their knowledge on a specific topic.

Feedback

Include all relevant feedback here from the people involved in the review. Did they do something exceptional? Try to be as specific as possible. You want the employee to know that it’s not a generic message to every employee.

Using a performance review template helps streamlines the review process and allows the reviewer to fairly assess each employee in the same way. In some companies, both the manager and the employee fill out this template separately and then join together to discuss the assessment, either synchronously or asynchronously. Conducting a performance review in this way allows for an objective and unbiased review thanks to the input from both sides.

Ready to run your employee performance review meeting? Or, prepare for another upcoming meeting? Check out our other free templates to help improve the way you run your meetings.👇

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