Finding the right words can be challenging — especially when it comes to performance reviews. Managers have to strike the delicate balance between acknowledging successes and giving constructive feedback on areas of improvement. In this guide, you’ll find best practice examples of performance review phrases, broken down by common themes seen in employee performance reviews. Think of this as a series of templates — they’re generic phrases that you can build on to reflect individual employee traits and overall performance by adding in your own specific examples.
People’s communication and interpersonal skills can vary widely, so it’s important to specifically highlight how an employee’s ability to communicate supports their success in their role — whether by deepening relationships with team members, managing difficult customers, or providing clear direction and constructive feedback to direct reports. When evaluating employees on communication skills, make sure you consider their ability to promote clarity, specificity, and collaboration.
Teamwork and collaboration skills are essential for a high-performance and employee engagement. Good team relationships not only increase job satisfaction and psychological safety for the individual, but they also make the whole team perform better too, supporting greater knowledge sharing and innovation.
“When an employee makes their coworkers’ work better, they’re bringing value to your company as a whole,” said Daivat Dholakia, Director of Operations at Force by Mojio, a GPS fleet-tracking app.
Evaluating how well employees have set and met their goals is a core part of the performance review process. As much as possible, managers need to tie what employees did to its outcome on the business. Linking the two clarifies to employees how their actions are helping advance the organization’s goals and agenda.
“I like to use phrases that home in on key positive traits of the employee that are benefitting our business, then back them up with specific examples,” said Ravi Parikh, CEO of RoverPass, a SaaS company that helps individuals book campsites. “If I can tie it to a clear outcome, I do.” Parikh offered this phrasing as an example: “Your implementation of chatbots on our websites contributed to a 21% rise in online sales this past year.”
Evaluating your employees’ creativity and problem-solving skills during the performance appraisal process means considering how they generate ideas, approach new challenges, and use their problem-solving ability to complete tasks.
During times of change — like a merger or acquisition, layoff, or economic instability — adaptability is vital for keeping your employees motivated, engaged, and performing at their best. It’s what helps your people adjust quickly to a new work environment, maintain their work ethic during trying times, or proactively learn new skills to help them overcome new challenges.
Time management skills and dependability are a key component of a well-oiled, productive team. When evaluating this skill in performance reviews, it’s important to consider how well your employees manage their time in their individual tasks, as well as how this impacts the wider team’s goal accomplishment and employee engagement.
Leadership and management isn’t just about evaluating how well your leaders lead. Instead, it’s just as much a chance to see how readily your individual contributors will support and mentor their colleagues, show initiative with decision-making, and take the wheel on team projects or company-wide initiatives.
Getting the words right in a performance review means your employees have clear, specific information on what they’ve done well, what they need to improve, and critically, how they can get there. But beyond saying the right things, there are a few key rules of thumb when it comes to what to avoid saying in a performance review.
You’d be surprised how often ambiguous wording slips into our written and verbal communication. This is even more true in business settings — we’re at greater risk of speaking or writing in vague terms because using jargon or clichés is so common.
Dholakia said this is why he avoids the term ‘team player,’ for instance: “It’s a meaningless term that doesn’t say anything concrete or specific about how the employee collaborates with others.”
For greater clarity and specificity during performance reviews, avoid business jargon, acronyms, or team-specific cultural references that might confuse a team member. Instead, opt for simple sentences and specific details that clearly point to next steps.
Use words like ‘always’ and ‘never’ sparingly, if at all. It’s rarely accurate that an employee always or never does something. If an employee is often late to work, avoid saying,“You’re always late” or, “You’re never punctual.” Rebecca Southern Mills, HR consultant and founder of Simplecated, said managers should provide more accurate and specific feedback, like, “You’ve been late to work at least twice a week for the last six months.”
Because managers and their direct reports should have open communication and exchange regular feedback, “nothing in a performance review should ever come as a surprise to a team member,” said Arron Grow, PhD, CEO at management consulting firm AP Grow and author of performance management, which includes mid-year and annual reviews, but also regular check-ins, like one-on-ones; affirmations, like sharing everyday praise; and a consistent culture of feedback.
Balancing all of these essential feedback processes requires you to match the specificity and clarity of your feedback with compassion, sensitivity, and empathy so that your employees feel recognized for their successes, understand their opportunities for growth and development, and understand what to do next to perform at their best.
While this might seem like a tall order, Lattice is here to help. If you’re a manager, download our free workbook, Preparing for Performance Reviews as a First-Time Manager. And if you’re an HR leader looking to enable your managers, request a demo to see our continuous feedback features in action.
