An employee performance review should make a judgement understandable: what was expected, what happened, which evidence was checked and what happens next. The form below gives the manager and employee a place to record each part. The CIPD describes performance management as a regular, two-way discussion about progress, objectives and support. Use the written review to capture that discussion rather than replace it.
Copy the field prompts for your own role and review period. The service coordinator example is fictional and illustrates how a completed entry might read; it is not a record of an actual employee. Follow your organisation’s process for ratings, approval and retention. Keep medical or other sensitive personal details in the appropriate restricted process, not in a general performance form.
Employee performance review template
Role and period. Example: Service coordinator, January to March. Discussion held in April. Your entry: Name the role, period covered, people taking part and date of discussion. If the employee changed roles during the period, split the assessment so each set of duties is judged against the expectations that applied at the time.
Agreed standards. Example: Respond to assigned enquiries within the team’s agreed time frame and leave case notes that show the issue, action and next owner. Your entry: State each job-related expectation, how it was communicated, when it applied and the record that can show whether it was met. For work that cannot sensibly be counted, describe an observable outcome or decision.
Changes during the period. Example: A revised response deadline was explained at a February check-in and applied from March. Earlier work is assessed against the previous deadline. Your entry: Record any change in duties, priorities, measures or available resources, its effective date and how the employee was told. Do not assess earlier work against a later rule.
Observed work and evidence. Example: The enquiry log shows which assigned cases were answered within the applicable deadline. A case-note review identifies a clear handover in one case and an escalation that should have happened sooner in another. Your entry: Name the records reviewed, the period they cover, how examples were chosen and any limits in the evidence. Distinguish an observed result from an interpretation of it.
Manager’s assessment. Example: Enquiry handling met the agreed standard. The delayed escalation needs attention, but one access interruption was outside the coordinator’s control. Your entry: Explain the judgement against each standard. Identify good work as well as concerns, and separate employee decisions from system failures, changed instructions or other dependencies.
Employee’s account. Example: The employee asks for a clearer escalation trigger and points to the access interruption. The manager checks the access record and amends the draft; the remaining concern stays in the assessment. Your entry: Record the employee’s response, corrections requested, evidence checked and any point still disputed. Acknowledgement that a review was received should not be presented as agreement with its contents.
Next actions and status. Example: The manager will provide the team’s escalation guide before the next check-in; the employee will apply it to relevant cases. Both will examine those cases together. The revised review remains a draft until the required consistency check is complete. Your entry: Give each action an owner, a check-in point and a way to tell whether it happened. Record who can see the revised document and what approval remains.
Check the standard before judging the result
Begin with expectations the employee could have known during the period. “Be more responsive” leaves the reviewer to decide afterwards what counted as enough. A useful response-time standard identifies which enquiries count, the applicable deadline and any exclusions. A useful quality standard says what a complete case note contains. The measure still needs judgement: a quick reply that leaves the customer without an owner may not fulfil the purpose of the work.
Keep a dated record when a measure changes. The EEOC advises employers to communicate changed performance standards, apply standards consistently and use factual examples. In the fictional example, the March deadline does not govern January work. If the manager reassigns someone from routine enquiries to a temporary project, note which original duties were paused and what replaced them. Otherwise a missed target may describe a change in assignment rather than a problem with performance.
Not every role has a useful numerical target. For an analyst, the expected work might be a recommendation that states its assumptions, sets out workable options and reaches the decision-maker on time. For a coordinator, an escalation might need a named owner and a clear next action. Write the standard in terms that can be checked against the actual work without pretending every judgement is a count.
Make evidence specific enough to discuss
An evidence field should identify a record or an observable example, rather than repeat the conclusion. “Communicates well” gives the employee little to confirm or challenge. A dated handover showing the unresolved issue, owner and next action gives both people a starting point. Use the same level of detail for a concern. Say which case was affected, what decision was expected and what the record shows.
Explain the reach of the evidence. If the manager checked only cases selected from one week, the sample may miss work done under different conditions. If an incident was unusually memorable, check whether it represents the wider review period before giving it substantial weight. Records, agreed check-ins and finished work can all help, but collecting more material is useful only when it answers a relevant question. Avoid copying unnecessary customer or personal information into the form.
Give the employee the draft and time to respond before finalising it. Their account may identify a missing record, a changed instruction or an error in the manager’s description. Check the point and show what changed. If disagreement remains, record it plainly. The review can contain a manager’s assessment and an employee’s different view without falsely presenting them as a shared conclusion.
Account for arrangements and support
A review may need to show which assignments and scheduled working time were included in a measure. It seldom needs the private reason for an agreed arrangement. Record the practical effect on the work being assessed and use the organisation’s restricted process for sensitive details. The same approach helps when access, training, approvals or staffing affected a result: record what was unavailable, when it mattered and who could resolve it.
Context does not erase a valid standard. It helps identify the part of an outcome the employee could control. In the example, the manager checks the queue-access interruption separately from the later decision to hold a case after access returned. The next action then addresses the decision point, while the manager owns delivery of the guide. A promise of “more support” is too vague to check at the next conversation.
Check consistency before finalising
Before the review is marked final, use the organisation’s approval process to check whether its reasoning matches the evidence. The EEOC recommends checking appraisal systems for potential discriminatory patterns and whether comparable work receives comparable ratings. The aim is a defensible explanation of each judgement, including any relevant difference in duties or circumstances.
- Standard: Was each judgement tied to a job-related expectation that applied during the stated period? Are changes dated and communicated?
- Evidence: Do the examples support the assessment and cover the period fairly, including work that went well?
- Context: Were changed duties, dependencies and agreed arrangements considered without unnecessary personal details?
- Response: Could the employee correct the draft or record a disagreement, and can both people see the revised version?
- Next step: Does each action have an owner, a check-in point and a clear way to assess progress?
If a check finds a gap, investigate the relevant record and amend the draft before approval. Retain the correction history according to the organisation’s process. For a broader discussion of fair evaluation practices, see the site’s guide to inclusive performance reviews.