Performance Review Template

A free performance review template for US small businesses. Use it for an annual review, a 90-day review for a new hire, or a mid-year check-in. It rates the work in ten core areas on a simple 1–5 scale, records strengths and what to improve, and sets goals with dates. It also gives the employee room for their own self-assessment and comments.

What you get

A seven-page PDF and an editable Word file, sized for US Letter paper:

• Pages 1–3: the blank employee evaluation form to print and fill in.
• Pages 4–6: the same form completed for a fictional plumbing company, so you can see what good answers look like.
• Page 7: step-by-step notes, fairness and retaliation checks, and record-keeping rules, with links to the sources.

Page one records the employee, reviewer and review period, and the type of review. It also holds the ratings table, where you tick a box from 1 to 5 for each area and write an example beside it. It ends with the overall rating and the strengths. Page two covers areas to improve, a goals table (goal, measure, support and target date), training and development, and the reviewer’s summary. Page three is the employee’s page: a self-assessment to fill in before the meeting, comments on the review, the next review date and signatures.

The Word version is the blank form with editable placeholders, so you can rename the rating areas to fit the job.

What a good performance review includes

• The whole period, not just last month. Keep short notes during the year so the review isn’t based on memory.
• A rating and an example for each area. “Books 30–40 calls a day” explains a 4 far better than the number alone.
• The same scale for everyone in the same job. It’s fairer, and it’s easier to defend if a decision is ever questioned.
• Strengths first. Most reviews should spend more time on what’s working than on what isn’t.
• Two or three areas to improve, each written as a behavior or result, not a personality trait.
• Goals with a measure and a date, plus the support you’ll give.
• The employee’s view. A self-assessment and a comments box make the review a conversation.

How to write a performance review

1. Two weeks ahead, give the employee page 3 to fill in, and book 30 to 60 minutes somewhere private.
2. Collect what you know about the whole period: your notes, sales or job numbers, customer feedback, and earlier check-ins or write-ups.
3. Tick a rating for each area against what the job requires, and write one real example per row. Use the last row for something specific to the job, and cross out any area that doesn’t apply.
4. Write the strengths, then the areas to improve. Read the employee’s self-assessment before you finish.
5. In the meeting, start with the strengths, go through the ratings, and listen. Agree the goals together.
6. Let the employee add comments, then both sign. Give them a copy, file the original, and put the next check-in in your calendar.

Completed example

The example is an annual review of an office and dispatch coordinator at a fictional plumbing company. She’s rated “far exceeds” for reliability, teamwork and customer service. She gets “meets” for job knowledge, initiative and following policies, with a short example on every row. The strengths section notes she cut the time from finished job to invoice from five days to two. The areas to improve are specific: job notes that miss parts, and leaning on the owner for estimates. Her three goals each have a measure, the support the owner will give, and a date, with a 90-day check-in booked. Her self-assessment and comments are filled in too.

Performance review examples: what to write

The comments are what make a review useful. Short, factual examples work best:

• Strength: “Trained the new receptionist in two weeks and wrote the phone script we now all use.”
• Meets expectations: “Knows the scheduling software well; still learning the estimate tool.”
• Area to improve: “Job notes sometimes miss the parts used, so 6 invoices were redone this year.”
• Goal: “Record the parts used on every job note before closing the call. Measure: no more than 1 invoice redone per quarter. Check January 15.”

Avoid labels like “great attitude” or “not a team player”. They tell the employee nothing they can act on, and they’re hard to back up later.

Employee self-evaluation form

Page 3 works as a stand-alone employee self-evaluation form. Hand it out before the meeting and ask the employee to answer three questions in their own words: what went well, what was hard and what would help, and what they want to learn or work toward next. Read it before you finish your ratings. Gaps between how you and the employee see the year are the most important things to talk about.

Annual reviews and 90-day reviews

An annual review looks back over the whole year and sets goals for the next one. A 90-day review is shorter and looks forward: is the new hire settling in, and what do they need? Many small businesses do both, a 90-day review for new hires and an annual review for everyone. For an employee who is struggling, a review is not the place to start a formal process; use a performance improvement plan instead.

Before you give a low rating

Rate the work, not the person, and leave out anything about age, health, pregnancy, religion or other protected traits. Pause and get advice before a low rating if the employee has recently complained about discrimination or harassment, asked for an accommodation, or taken protected leave. The EEOC lists a performance evaluation that is “lower than it should be” as one example of possible retaliation. If an employee links a performance problem to a medical condition, you don’t have to raise an accurate rating. But you should talk about a reasonable accommodation, according to EEOC guidance under the ADA.

Not sure how to handle a tricky review, or what your state requires? That’s what hrsupport.io is for: HR answers for your state, with the law behind every answer.