Performance review template to download and edit

Employee performance reviews are an integral part of managing your team, essential for employee growth and company productivity.

Everyone has their own style of managing their employees, but constructive feedback is a crucial part of management and a difficult one to learn.

If you get the balance of your performance appraisals right, you can encourage those that need it and also reaffirm to your top talent how valued they are.

This will help to retain your talent and nurture others for short and long-term growth.

In this article, you’ll learn about what makes a strong employee performance review and some of the common pitfalls to avoid.

Plus, you can download our performance review template, which covers three main types of review: a simple review, 30/60/90 review and a 360 review.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

What is a performance review?

A performance review is a regular checkpoint to review progress and assess set goals and objectives in line with the overall organisation goals.

Performance conversations offer a reflection on the past period of work.

 They provide an objective assessment of what went well, and what might need adjusting in terms of team or individual performance.

They also help teams to negotiate any roadblocks and issues, enabling workers to discuss any obstacles, regroup and refocus.

A good performance review helps you and your employees to look outside any usual Quarterly Business Review (QBR) or company goal setting to ensure that your employees have the skills needed to succeed in their role.

The review also allows you as a manager to track your employees’ progress and to see where they might need additional support.

According to a survey, 73% of Gen Z workers are likely to leave an organisation if they don’t receive frequent feedback from their manager.

A performance evaluation is essential for business success because it helps to create a meaningful conversation between workers and management. 

However, as a manager, you can also rely on reviews to give constructive feedback in a templated way.

This can protect both parties – it’s objective rather than behaviour or personality based and should make the type of feedback consistent across all colleagues.

Key elements of an effective performance review (and how to include them)

Performance reviews can evolve over time, but certain key elements should always be included.

This enables consistency across the board, providing clear expectations for employees and maintaining the integrity of reviews.

Setting clear meeting objectives

Setting clear objectives for a performance review means defining what you’ll be discussing in advance.

This provides transparent parameters for the conversation, and allows your employee to prepare properly by completing a self-review in preparation.

This helps determine a structured framework for the performance review in advance.

Without clear objectives, the performance review has the potential to venture into irrelevant territory.

This can undermine the integrity of the review process, and make it difficult to take later action based on the outcomes of the review, impacting employee success.

Your main objectives should include discussing previous goals and whether they have been met, strengths and weaknesses, completing a rating sheet for past performance across a range of metrics, and considering future development for your employee.

Measuring employee performance

Your employee’s efficiency is often measured based on how well workers meet predetermined targets and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

Indeed, this is a strong, objective way to gauge job performance.

But other metrics, such as certain ‘soft skills’, are equally as important.

For example:

• Autonomy: can your employee use their initiative and work independently without constant guidance?
• Problem-solving ability: are they a problem announcer or a solution hunter?
• Punctuality: do they consistently start work on time, or are others required to cover lateness?
• Collaboration: do they work well or is there friction with others?

Taking a well-rounded perspective on employee performance enables you as a manager to assess more than just the hard numbers, which can be beneficial in engaging different types of employees and finding ways for them to work in the best ways for their unique personality traits.

Providing constructive and balanced feedback

1-2-1s can feel intimidating for you as a manager, especially when you’re tasked with providing some negative feedback.

Likewise, your employees might be nervous heading into these meetings and will have a tendency to react sensitively if this type of news is not delivered delicately.

And yet, it was determined back in 2014 employees don’t mind genuine constructive criticism, with 92% of Harvard business survey respondents agreeing that “Negative feedback, if delivered appropriately, is effective at improving performance.”   

So, what are the best practices to provide balanced feedback? 

One of the most popular styles of delivering negative feedback is the sandwich method.

This is the act of ‘sandwiching’ two positive pieces of feedback, around one constructive (negative) suggestion. 

For example, “The data you compiled for Mary’s report had useful insights, but I noticed that you didn’t submit the report by the agreed deadline.

You clearly put a lot of effort into the report as it had useful data. In future, how can we ensure meeting deadlines whilst maintaining the high quality?”

One thing to keep in mind with the sandwich method is to not overcompensate with too much effusive praise before slipping in a statement such as “You were late, but it’s okay”.

Also, try not to use accusatory statements such as ‘you were late’, but instead, say “the report you produced didn’t meet the deadline”.

It’s important not to avoid having difficult conversations and the best way to do this is to be clear and direct in your delivery.

Agreeing on clear goals for improvement

Towards the end of your performance reviews, look towards the future and consider what success would look like in the next review period. 

Setting clear goals defines the boundaries for expected performance, under performance and exceeded performance.

This helps both you and your employee to be on the same page about progress prior to the review, making rewards negotiation or improvement plans easier.

How to conduct a successful performance review

As you get ready for the review, make sure you are prepared and ready for the meeting.

Preparing for the review

The first place to start gathering information is to talk to your employee’s peers and co-workers as they will have the best understanding of how your employee is doing.

To avoid any peer bias, ask for evidence to support any of their claims for negative or good feedback. Especially for negative reports, these must be evidence-based to remain objective.

In a 360 review, all the peers who work directly with the employee will complete the same review to allow a full comparison of their performance.

Being prepared gives you a framework or agenda and enables you to gather your thoughts in advance of the meeting itself.

If you need to ask more questions about a certain task, for example, you’ll know what data is available and can use the meeting time efficiently. 

Structuring the meeting

During the meeting, follow these steps:

1. Start by welcoming the employee and setting expectations for this review.
2. If this isn’t your first review with this employee, it’s worth discussing the goals that were set last time, and whether these were met or even exceeded. Make sure to include both highlights and suggestions for improvements.
3. If this is a first-time performance review, you can rely on other goals that may have been discussed during the hiring or onboa​​rding process.
4. Ask for the employee’s feedback. They may provide answers to some of your concerns, or bring up totally new topics that you didn’t even consider. It’s important to gather their opinions on what skills they would like to develop and how you can plan for their development.
5. Finally, it’s time to set goals in preparation for the next review, which should be scheduled there and then to ensure it’s not forgotten about.

Following up after the review

Employees are 2.7 times more likely to feel engaged in the workplace if they receive regular feedback from managers. 

So, don’t forget to follow up after the review to ensure that your employee understands everything that was discussed and that they take action on what was agreed.

Some employees excel with minimal input while others will need plenty of hand holding. How you offer feedback will be different for each employee adjusted for their personality types.

But, as a starting point, these are a few suggestions for how you can follow up:

• Send an email or create a report directly after the performance review. Use detailed notes that can be referred back to in the future and guide the employee on next steps.
• Create deadlines to check in on goal progress before the next review period.
• Build regular feedback loops by rewarding good work or providing coaching and development.
• Use automated data platforms to deliver KPI feedback regularly.

Types of performance review

There are five popular types of performance reviews that you’re likely to encounter:

1. Simple performance reviews
2. 30/60/90
3. OKR
4. 360
5. Rating scale

Simple performance reviews

Simple reviews are the foundation of most other review types, and they can be performed at any time.

These standard reviews have space to highlight overall employee performance, including areas of success and where to improve.

But just because they are simple, it doesn’t mean this type of performance review isn’t useful.

In fact, working with a structured feedback system helps you to communicate clearly and focus on specific examples to guide and engage your employees.

They’re also a helpful tool for providing feedback that goes deeper than a weekly check-in, offering a formal process for systematic skills reviews.

By providing opinions and planning for future development, you can use simple performance reviews to genuinely guide your employees towards long-term career growth.

Time-based performance reviews

Time-based reviews, also known as 30/60/90, are typically used when new employees are onboarded or begin their probation periods.

You’ll use the same template sheet across each monthly review, and ideally, you will look for increasing ratings across all categories.

This type of review is especially helpful for a new employee so you can review areas where they dip, or don’t improve.

You can use this as a foundation to see where they might need extra guidance to settle into their role.

Time-based reviews are also useful when putting an employee on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP).

If an employee has been underperforming, 30/60/90 reviews can identify the exact shortfalls and outline what changes need to be made in order to take the employee off their PIP.

OKR reviews

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are structured frameworks that work well for results-driven roles like sales or marketing team members.

Like the name suggests, this type of performance review establishes measurable goals in advance and the results of the previous period.

Whether the goals were hit and why (or why not) should be discussed during the performance review so that they can be adjusted for the next period.

OKRs are often used for employees in commission-based roles where hitting targets directly correlates to increased earnings.

For example, salespeople might have targets of 10 leads generated and three conversions per month.

OKRs are a great tool to document targets, see patterns and determine the goalposts for commission-based roles.

Since they are largely focused on “hard skills”, understanding and comparing team members’ performances through these documents can make them useful when deciding who is internally promoted. 

360 reviews

360 reviews allow for all types of colleagues who work directly with an employer to give feedback, not only the manager.

This gives a holistic, rounded view of the employee’s performance, and includes multiple perspectives and opinions.

For example, Jessica might have worked with the employee on a marketing campaign and Phil may have worked with them on a documentation and admin project.

Thanks to natural strengths and weaknesses, it’s likely that both Jessica and Phil had different experiences working with the same colleague.

By using a 360 review, they can each give feedback about their area of expertise, praise their colleague’s strengths, and provide constructive feedback.

360 reviews are also useful in revealing grudges or validating points of view.

When an employee is underperforming, it usually shows up in more than one peer review.

Similarly, 360 reviews can reveal poor managers who might otherwise get away with not doing their job properly, or not treating their staff well.

Rating scales

Rating scale reviews can be standalone or integrated into other performance review types to provide a data-driven perspective.

It’s a great tool to see how employees improve or regress over time with particular skills, and should help you to identify what training and development opportunities that your team members will need.

You’ll rate how well your employee is performing in several categories on a scale between one and four.

With one referring to underperformance, two needing improvement, three exceeding expectations and four exceeding expectations, your team members will know exactly what they need to work on after each review.

This is a sliding scale so it may be subjective, but the aim is to anchor each rating with real-world examples to justify your views and help your employee to understand.

Rating scale reviews can be combined with other reviews and our simple review and the 30/60/90 templates both include a rating scale.

Performance review template

We’ve put together a selection of the most popular performance review templates for you to download.

Choose from a simple performance review, 30/60/90, and 360 review for your team.

You can combine any of these templates with KPIs and other targets, to provide a well-rounded performance review.

Simple and 30/60/90 performance review templates

The simple performance template is also the foundation for the 30/60/90.

The difference being on the time-based review document, there is provision for completing at 30 days, 60 days and 90 days.

At the top of the template, you can complete the employees’ details, department and date of the review.

Next, is a section to complete their overall performance, including areas of success and areas for improvement.

This should be a summary at a glance that offers a concise overview about the employee’s performance.

Completing this will help you to consider overall how well (or not) they are doing in their role.

The next main section covers the core critical areas to be reviewed.

Combined, all these areas should offer a full view of your employee’s performance, so you can see their strengths and weaknesses.

This will also highlight areas of attention for improvement, or additional review.

Assess each area below on a rating scale of 1-4, where 1 is unsatisfactory, 2 means improvement is needed, 3 meets expectation, and 4 exceeds expectations.

The core areas are as follows:

• Quality of work: think about whether the employee performs their full range of duties outlined in their role description and if the standard of their work meets organisation requirements.
• Is consistent: following on from the previous question, is the quality of their work consistent and do they perform consistently?
• Problem-solving ability: can your employee find solutions to roadblocks and challenges, or do they turn to you as a manager before proactively finding and testing solutions?
• Takes initiative: is this employee able to be proactive in their work and their core role? Do they seek to find solutions or better processes outside their core role?
• Is independent: can your employee complete work by themself or do they require input and support from other colleagues and yourself as their manager? 
• Works well with others: how well does your employee interact with their colleagues? Are they a team player and do they show empathy and consideration for others? This isn’t about a preference to work alone, but having the ability to cooperate and help others.
• Communicates effectively: can your employee clearly convey their feelings, their needs and requirements in an effective way without alienating others? Are they respectful and considerate when dealing with their peers? When briefing others, do they clearly and effectively convey what is required?
• Has integrity: does your employee demonstrate honesty by taking ownership of their own mistakes, do they celebrate other team members, do they show respect to the company by being truthful about time off, and do they behave in the same way when they think no one is watching?
• Is punctual: does the employee get to work on time and meet deadlines effectively?
• Works to full potential: does your employee meet the minimum requirements of their role, or do they always try and go the extra mile? Do they seek to improve, or do they just coast along?

There is also a section for comment and feedback where you note anything specific for each area.

For any exceptionally high or low scores, try to include examples to justify the scoring.

Download your 30/60/90 and simple performance review templates.

360 review template

The 360 review should be completed individually by the employee’s manager, their direct reports, direct peers and anyone who worked on a significant project with the employee.

The aim is to collect performance reviews from everyone who has direct contact with the employee to demonstrate a full and clear picture of their performance in their team and the company.

A 360 is a powerful performance review as it can remove individual bias and highlight toxic peers or even bad managers.

The review consists of the following four questions that should be answered by each individual reviewing the employee:

• How effective are they at their role overall? From their perspective, and direct experience, do they think the employee is meeting the requirements of their role?
• Where are they succeeding? From direct interaction with the employee, where are the areas that they are excelling in their work. What are the specific things they have done well while working with the person reviewing, or what the person reviewing has directly observed (not to include any hearsay or second-hand information).
• Where can they improve? In their opinion, are there any areas where your employee would benefit from development? Again, this should be from direct experience and using examples. Think about both “hard” skills like technical abilities and “soft” skills like communication.
• Any other notes and comments? This section should be used for anything that wasn’t covered by the other three questions but is noteworthy. For example, the person reviewing might want to make a personal comment about how they find working with the employee. Or highlight an example of work that is worth celebrating.            

Download your 360 performance review template.

Common performance review mistakes to avoid

Whether it’s your first or 50^th time conducting a performance review, there are some common mistakes that even the most experienced manager could fall into, including:

Focusing too much on negatives

The single most important rule of performance reviews is that balanced is best.

By focusing too much on negatives, you risk demoralising your staff, leading to long-term disengagement or churn. 

Instead, build trust with your employees by framing negative feedback constructively, with real-life examples that are relevant to their role.

This should help workers to approach reviews with a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset, and take the action to improve their results.

If an employee is significantly underperforming in their role and you are struggling to find any positives, then you should evaluate their suitability to conduct their role and start formal proceedings.

Part of that process would be to issue a Performance Improvement Plan.

Being vague with feedback

Vague feedback can be received poorly and it isn’t helpful to an employee.

Try not to use evasive language and communicate clearly, even if parts of your feedback are negative.

Direct feedback benefits the employee by addressing the issue head on, and gives them a clear path for improvement rather than wondering about next steps.

This benefits both the employee and the company long-term.

Use direct and structured actions in your suggestions for improvement, back up your statements with real examples, and avoid “you” statements.

For example, instead of saying “you’re not getting it”, you could say “I think we see things differently on this project, let’s try to unpick that to better understand how to move forward.”

This helps managers to step away from emotional language or be personal, and instead allows you to focus on the work.        

Being specific with feedback means using goals set in any performance review are relevant and timely.

Research shows that when feedback is delivered more regularly, it is less likely to be personality-based and more likely to be work-focused.

Ignoring employee input

Likewise, it’s important to remember that a performance review is also an opportunity for your employee to provide feedback and a chance for them to have their say.

Valuing employee feedback has tangible benefits to an organisation, with a worker 12 times more likely to recommend their employer when leaders respond constructively to the sharing of workplace issues. 

Help employees feel listened to by:

• Encouraging participation, such as asking directly: what’s your opinion?
• Providing different channels for feedback, such as anonymous surveys and 1-2-1s
• Creating a company culture where feedback is publicly acted on

Not following up on action plans 

Most performance reviews will end with a list of future actions for both employee and manager, some to be completed immediately and some before the next review.

But failure to follow through with these plans can make the whole review feel redundant and pointless. 

After all, performance meetings are not just retroactive reviews, but proactive planning time for the future.

By following up effectively, managers can improve their employee engagement and satisfaction, which can be impactful factors in retaining the workers that you have invested time and money into training.

Action this by setting time aside to make changes, talking to executives and following up on progress to show your employees how you follow through on plans made and value their development.

How often should you conduct a performance review?

76% of companies conduct performance reviews once per year.

However, more frequent feedback has been proven to engage employees at all levels, with 80% of employees who say they have received meaningful feedback in the past week are fully engaged.

While weekly check-ins can be unrealistic and potentially micro-management, it can be helpful to perform more regular reviews instead of one large formal sit down.

Annual reviews are now considered as a last century practice. 

In general, best practice is now to hold performance reviews approximately once every three to six months.

This solves the problem of recency bias, in which managers often focus only on the last six weeks or so in their evaluation, and helps to get issues solved faster, building greater trust and relationships between team members.

Final thoughts: Improving employee performance with reviews

Many managers can feel that they don’t have time for performance reviews alongside their day-to-day tasks.

There is a lot to prepare on top of your other priorities.

However, when done effectively, performance reviews can engage and re-engage staff across all departments and industries, working as a positive tool for the feedback cycle.

Download our free performance review templates to help structure your next round of reviews:

• Download your simple performance review template.
• Download your 30/60/90 performance review template.
• Download your 360 performance review template.

Improve employee performance by setting trackable goals, and take advantage of the ability to reshape targets in real-time as organisational needs transform.

With a 360 feedback process, managers, teams and individuals get access to unbiased insights and data-driven decisions. 

You can also use tools such as performance management software to help guide this process, make it more efficient and maximise you and your team’s productivity.

Find your performance management solution with Sage.