Performance evaluation time can be a trying experience for companies. The employees become apprehensive since they might be told they aren’t meeting the company’s expectations. Meanwhile, the managers are stressed out because they can’t seem to come up with an accurate summation of an employee’s overall performance and productivity.

Writing performance review is not a piece of cake for some supervisors. Many have difficulty in choosing the right words and phrases to convey their sentiments to the workers. If you’re one of the supervisors who needs to write an appraisals- then how do you know what performance review phrases to use for the evaluation? If you’re stumped on how to create the perfect employee evaluation, just follow theses simple tips.

Elementary statements

As a rule, don’t use these overly generalized comments like the following:

  • Tom is honest
  • Jenny is helpful
  • Kurt comes on time
  • Michael is dependable
  • Jeff is unreliable

These statements are not just simplistic, they also appear to be mere opinions because they are not supported by examples. To strengthen the preceding statements you can beef them up with examples why some employees are like that. A little support can turn these statements into substantial performance evaluation phrases.

  • Tom returns office supplies he doesn’t use
  • Jenny goes out of her way to help the new hires
  • Kurt show up on time and doesn’t leave early
  • Michael follows instructions well
  • Jeff has difficulty keeping deadlines

Biased terms

Words, by themselves, have degrees of meaning. Just what do you mean by “cheerful”, “industrious”, ”lazy” and “outspoken”?  Like above, it’s better to use a phrase or even a sentence in place of a single descriptive word. Your biases may play into how you write performance appraisals and you should make every effort to avoid being biased with your staff.

Even terms like “good job”, “bad job” or “mediocre job” can raise speculations about the specific degree of performance you want to describe. How does the company rate a bad job from one that is mediocre or bad? How does this rating differ from one company evaluator to another?

Extreme statements

Any “extreme statement” can be anything you describe as always happening or never happening:

  • Tom never answers the phone
  • Jenny always has difficulty with the fax machine
  • Kurt always keeps to the deadline
  • Michael is always uncooperative
  • Jeff never arrives late
  • Timmy always comes back late from lunch
  • Maggie never declines an assignment

Are you sure the employee being reviewed has always done or never done the action or personified the work trait being described? To be safe, it is better to use “seldom” or “usually” in place of those words. That way you don’t set their actions or traits in stone.

Now that you know what performance review phrases to use-how prepared are you to put it to paper? If you are not sure, don’t fret! The good news is that there are now many performance review examples available to guide managers with their employee assessments. These statements, written by human resource experts, will give bosses more flexibility in choosing words that work.

Why not let your company try using these employee evaluation examples? You will save time and money and allow your evaluators to produce more informative statements while giving your employees better feedback.