Performance Review Resources

What This Page Covers

• Common performance review mistakes that create HR and legal risk
• How to structure clear, defensible performance feedback managers can stand behind
• What to include in reviews to support pay, promotion, and termination decisions
• When to run performance reviews and how often they still make sense in 2026
• A practical checklist HR can use to spot gaps before reviews are finalized

An effective performance review process helps HR provide structured feedback to employees, identify areas for development, recognize achievements, and guide career growth.

Using these tools, which focus on process guidance, documentation standards, and risk awareness, you’ll be better positioned to run consistent, defensible performance reviews.

Click to jump ahead:

• What is a Performance Review?
• What is the Purpose of a Performance Review?
• Performance Review Process
• Post-Review Development Plan
• How to Write a Performance Review
• Performance Review Examples
• Performance Review Tips

What is a Performance Review?

Performance reviews are, at their core, a communication channel between employees and their supervisors. While primarily focused on evaluating employee performance and setting ongoing expectations, performance reviews should also give employees a chance to share their impressions of, and expectations for, their work situation.

Ideally, that communication increases cooperation and understanding between supervisors and employees, thus enhancing both work performance and the work environment. Those enhancements are reflected in better customer service, more engaged employees and improved organizational performance.

Many organizations still rely on annual performance reviews to document expectations, support pay and promotion decisions, and create a defensible record of performance. At the same time, more HR teams are pairing those reviews with regular check-ins throughout the year to avoid surprises, address issues sooner, and keep feedback tied to day-to-day work. The formal review remains a critical moment, but it works best when it reflects conversations that have already been happening.

What is the Purpose of a Performance Review?

Whether conducted as an annual formal evaluation or a weekly check-in, performance reviews give employers and employees periodic opportunities to assess how well the employee’s efforts match with near- and long-term goals.

They also provide a chance to adjust goals to ensure they continue to align with any changes in the organization’s strategic priorities.

In addition, performance reviews guide the development of training plans to maximize the employee’s strengths and address any skill or knowledge gaps that might hold them back.

Finally, while most organizations have now separated performance and compensation discussions, the performance review should correlate with merit pay and targeted bonuses based on performance and with promotions.

Performance Review Checklist

• Apply consistent performance standards across comparable roles
• Document performance accurately, completely, and on time
• Use clear criteria that managers can explain and defend
• Acknowledge both accomplishments and performance gaps
• Set specific goals and define next steps
• Align review outcomes to pay, promotion, or corrective action decisions
• Finalize, document, and secure employee acknowledgment

What Goes Wrong Most Often in Performance Reviews

• Managers document conclusions instead of observable behavior
• Feedback comes as a surprise at review time
• Standards shift between employees doing similar work
• Reviews are completed but never referenced again
• Performance issues are discussed verbally but not documented
• Review language conflicts with later pay or termination decisions

Performance Review Process

While many organizations are rethinking review cadence and feedback frequency, performance evaluation still follows a defined process that requires preparation and consistency.

Preparing for the Performance Review

Here are preparation steps HR teams often reinforce with managers ahead of performance reviews. While many apply most directly to annual or semi-annual reviews, they also provide a useful framework HR can reference across different review cadences.

1. Review and update the employee’s job description. Job descriptions should be reviewed at least once a year and whenever duties change. As part of a formal review, HR should expect managers to confirm the description is accurate and aligned with current responsibilities. A fair evaluation depends on shared understanding of the role. If responsibilities have changed since the last review, the description should be revised and shared before feedback is delivered.
2. Assess whether job functions still align with organizational needs. HR teams should periodically prompt managers to revisit why a role exists and whether its tasks still support short- and long-term business goals. This includes identifying responsibilities that no longer add value, need to be adjusted, or should be emphasized differently.
3. Revisit how performance is measured. Performance should be evaluated against established, agreed-upon expectations that employees understand. Where possible, those expectations should include defined outcomes and timeframes, generally no longer than 12 months. Many organizations document these measures as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) or Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).
4. Assess training and development needs. Performance goals should be fair but appropriately challenging, and HR should expect managers to identify where additional skills or training are required. When goals include development activities, progress should be reviewed and future needs clarified, including timelines, expectations, and access to resources. Training goals must be realistic alongside day-to-day performance expectations.
5. Reinforce objectivity and consistency. Performance assessments should reflect actual performance, not anticipated potential. HR plays a key role in reminding managers to set aside personal preferences, bias, or favoritism that could distort evaluations. This is essential not only for fairness, but also to reduce legal risk.
6. Encourage preparation and documentation. Managers should come to reviews with notes that capture key discussion points, whether for a formal evaluation or an informal check-in. Even brief documentation helps ensure consistency and supports follow-up.

Conducting the Review

For practical guidance on how managers should conduct performance review conversations, see How to Conduct an Employee Performance Review: A 5-Step Guide.

This linked resource covers setting the right tone, structuring the conversation, and handling challenging performance topics.

Post-Review Development Plan

Whether addressing a problem area or preparing the employee to take on additional responsibilities, formal development plans are critical to increasing an employee’s value to the organization and the organization’s ability to achieve strategic goals.

That’s why identifying an employee’s training and development needs is among the most important dividends of a well-designed performance review process.

Often organizations think about employee development primarily in the context of a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) focused on addressing job- or behavior-related performance deficiencies.

Here, however, we focus on development plans’ value as a tool to encourage and enable good performers to improve on the high-quality work they’ve been doing and to take on new responsibilities.

They are also a key to retaining your best workers. Surveys show that employees see career development as one of the most important reasons to keep working – and working hard – for any organization.

And, when they don’t see a commitment to helping them gain skills needed to advance their careers, your employees are open to offers from competitors who are investing in learning and development.

Whether it comes out of a continuous performance management process or a traditional annual assessment, a development plan has specific objectives:

• Identifying long-term (5+ years) goals/career objectives
• Setting short-term (1 – 5 years) goals and career steps that will help achieve long-term goals
• Agreeing on specific steps (classwork, cross-training, project assignments, etc.) that will help achieve short-term goals
• Prioritizing those steps
• Setting firm target dates for completion of each action step.
• Defining specific tasks and schedules to accomplish each step.

Many of those goals, steps and tasks will be shared across teams, of course, but most need to be laser-focused on the individual employee.

Development Personalization

Personalization is moving out of the realm of business-to-consumer commerce and into almost every arena of human activity. For HR, this trend means empowering employees to find the best path to mastering skills needed to do their jobs.

That translates into a need for customized training that focuses on the specific requirements of a job and individual employees’ specific skills and skill gaps.

That can be tough for small HR departments. The good news is that there are a growing number of technology solutions that can help even the smallest HR team develop and implement flexible, personalized programs.

When those are tied closely to continuous evaluation and feedback, training plans can adapt more quickly to changing job requirements — and become more relevant to employees.

How to Write a Performance Review

Written performance reviews should always include a few paragraphs explaining the manager’s general assessment of how the employee is doing.

It works best when managers are given appropriate latitude within defined documentation standards. The assessment requires a general judgment on performance during the past year and a call to action for the future.

The written review should clearly document performance expectations, development direction, and the basis for future employment decisions.

Remember: Be careful with superlatives – since managers want people to have an even better year next year.

A Performance Improvement Plan should be implemented if there is substantial doubt about the desirability of the employee’s continued service.

Performance Review Questions

Like a good interview, performance review questions should never ask for Yes or No responses. Similarly, don’t lead the employee by indicating that you are looking for a particular response.

Questions need to be straightforward and focused on getting the employee to describe their responsibilities, challenges, and performance in their own words.

In addition to asking about performance, the questions should explore what skills the employee thinks they need to improve, either to do their current job satisfactorily or to prepare for additional responsibility.

Here’s an example of a written questionnaire you can use to determine how an employee understands their responsibilities and how well, or poorly, they think they are fulfilling those responsibilities.

For annual reviews, especially, the answers to these questions provide a framework for the conversation between supervisor and employee.

Sample performance review questionnaire

[Name of Organization] Performance Evaluation Questions

From time to time, it is our practice to hold performance reviews.

These reviews are not intended as “report cards” – rather, they are a chance for us to evaluate together where you have been, how you are doing and where you are going.

Part of what makes these reviews valuable is your preparation. The more thought you put into the process, the more you get out of it.

Please evaluate the following questions.

1. What are your job responsibilities, as you understand them?
2. Rate and evaluate how you are doing in each area.
3. What aspect of your performance are you most pleased with?
4. What aspect of your performance do you think you need to work hardest on in the coming months?
5. What skills do you want to improve most on and how do you plan to do it? What help do you need?
6. What is the one thing you are happiest about in your current work environment?
7. What is the one thing you are unhappiest about and would like to change?
8. How are we doing in satisfying your needs?

Optional additional question:

• Are there any specific professional aspirations, hopes or ambitions that I should be aware of as your supervisor?

Performance Review Examples

HR teams often need examples to sanity-check tone, specificity, and defensibility before reviews are finalized. Rather than duplicating sample language here, this guide points to a dedicated resource with performance review examples and common review comments organized by performance area and role.

For sample performance review language, see 5 Employee Performance Review Samples & 72 Example Comments.

Manager Preparation for Performance Reviews

Performance reviews can create legal and employee relations risk when managers are unprepared or inconsistent. This guidance focuses on the behaviors and preparation that reduce those risks.

Performance appraisals serve six functions:

• Evaluate an employee’s status
• Encourage or change behavior
• Set goals
• Serve as a basis for rewards or corrective action
• Serve as a basis for training and development plans
• Create a detailed record of job requirements and performance

Effective and legal reviews all share these key components:

• Consistent standards
• Complete and accurate documentation
• Open communication
• Honesty and fairness

Ineffective performance reviews can cause:

• Perceived unfair treatment
• Low morale
• Bad relationships between the employee and supervisor
• Mixed messages
• Gaps between what the employee thinks and what the supervisor thinks

A successful performance appraisal is finished when:

• An employee has been rated using clear and fair standards
• Accomplishments and improvement needs have been acknowledged by both parties
• Goals have been set
• How the goals will be reached has been established
• Key points have been documented by the supervisor and signed by both parties