An employee performance review reshapes their career and journey in the firm. These reports focus on every key point mentioned related to the employee performance.
It boosts their confidence when the information is apt. But shatters the same if written poorly. A great performance review report must be objective and backed by evidence.
Reporting managers gather these proofs from the performance review platform like uKnowva. There, managers get each employee’s performance datasets without bias or manipulation.
However, when the company grows, managers often don’t have time to write a proper review. But that is unacceptable as it will adversely impact employees in the long run.
The review must be on time to avoid any rift between the management and the employees, especially while considering performances. To achieve that, pay heed to the 6 effective writing techniques below.
These techniques help you cover all the points generally, which as a reporting manager, you must add in the review letter. Such strategies will automatically improve your superior-subordinate relationship.
6 Tips For Writing Effective Performance Review Reports/Letters:
Know key elements to add to the report.
Every employee you supervise must have different KPIs to meet. Some KPIs, like communication skills, punctuality, or discipline, might be common. While other OKRs and KPIs might be mutually exclusive.
You must clarify expected goals and behaviour in the performance review.
If you’re unsure, take the help of the uKnowva PMS tool your firm uses. From there, you get the right info on the earlier KPIs you have set for your employees.
Performance reports must be future-focused.
Do not keep rambling about the previous performances in this review. Strike a fine balance between performances achieved and expected targets for the next period. Make sure you appraise your employees for previous performance but don’t overdo it.
The performance review platform comes to use here. Take help from the employee dashboard. Check what predictive analyses are drawn from those reports based on the employee-centric data. Incorporate those from points for future performances in the report.
Be mindful that each employee will have a separate report. Don’t just talk about the overall team performances in the individual’s performance review.
The big picture must show how each employee is valuable and contributes to the firm and the team. How they can continue to do so in the future to remain employable and be more important to the team.
Performance review must be free from bias and derogatory remarks.
Ensure you do not disregard anyone while writing this effective performance review report. Even if your employees have underperformed, there might be a reason. You must find that cause as the reporting manager and work on it promptly.
If employees are not refining or chiselling their work attitude after several warnings or suggestions, there will be other measures. However, you must not use rude words in the performance report.
You have to be informative and a bit descriptive. But never discriminatory or derogatory. You must show employees they have potential and skills, backed by the evidence.
After all, they were hired in the first place because of their skill set by HR professionals. If they ended up underperforming, there could be multiple reasons. The culture must not be fit for them. Or they are not involved in the job as was expected.
Such statements can be used in the performance review report to give factual or neutral statements. Otherwise, if you use remarks like "useless, non-productive, and good-for-nothing," these negatively impact the reader's mental health.
Employees are already very sensitive nowadays. If you give them such remarks in the review, they will end up losing trust and would want to switch jobs.
That would be a greater loss to the firm – especially if the employee has performed well previously or has been loyal.
Gather the employee performance data from the HRMS platform.
Gather your team member’s performance data from the HRMS platform to be factual and free from bias. The uKnowva HRMS has all the information for the registered active employees. If your firm uses it, the entire performance review will be flawless for you.
It will highlight the most useful and productive hours of each employee reporting to you. It also shows the predictable behaviour for the next period of each employee. Then, it will show you how many of them are the most punctual and disciplined in the system.
Besides that, you also overview the total projects covered by each employee and the hours they took to complete. The performance review will be super factual and evidence-based using this platform.
Suggest key areas to your employees for improvement.
Add your suggestions to make the performance review report more effective for your employee. For these suggestions, you must also be a good judge of character. Besides that, take help from the HRMS platform.
It will have more details on the key areas your teammates must improve for better performance. This could be an individual- or team-level suggestion. However, if your subordinates report to you often, you know their weaknesses and strengths.
It will be easier to give them the right suggestions in the report this way. Ensure that these suggestions are related to their job roles. Do not detour from giving non-relatable suggestions.
Do not be vague about these suggestions. Write down how these suggestions will add more value to the employees’ job roles or activities. Employees will have no confusion after reading the suggestions from different perspectives then.
Don’t forget to add feedback from other teammates in the report.
Each performance report must be holistic for the employee. It needs comments and feedback from others too. Because an employee is not only working with you. They have a growing list of peers, colleagues, clients, or stakeholders they talk to to get work done.
A client testimonial will add more value to the review if your employee collaborates with them directly. So, ask your employees or teammates to review each other properly.
Tell them to be wise and mature when they rate and review each other for maintaining this performance review. It would be easier to appraise the most deserving candidate this way.
Each member’s performance report will be highly objective and free from bias after receiving a 360-degree review.
Conclusion:
There is no perfect way to write the most effective performance review report. But with the 6 strategies above, there will be more transparency, clarity, and fact-based reporting for each employee’s performance.
These reports later can be forwarded to the management to get the approval of the appraisal for each employee. Moreover, employees know what qualities they’ve mastered and which ones they need to work on from these objective reports.
