55 Examples of a Performance Appraisal

John Spacey, April 19, 2023

A performance appraisal is a formal process of documenting and communicating an evaluation of an employee's performance in a period of time. This has three basic flavors. For high performing employees, a performance appraisal rewards performance by documenting it in clear and glowing terms without a critical component. For regular performance, the tone of the appraisal is completely positive but not glowing with some gentle and constructive recommendations for improvement. For low performing employees, a performance appraisal is direct and clear that performance did not meet expectations. The following are illustrative examples.

Closed more sales than any other salesperson in the firm on a national basis.	Leads the team by setting technical direction, clearing issues and solving problems while supporting others.
Consistent top performer who delivers a great deal of value.	A solid contributor who delivered to expectations and commitments
Met the minimum requirements of the role. Customer service skills require improvement.	Failed to meet the requirements of the role with inappropriate behavior towards customers on three separate occasions.
Arrives on time for meetings.	Meeting attendance is sporadic and unpunctual.
Prepares for meetings.	In future, prepare a meeting agenda for your meetings.
Communicates clearly and effectively with stakeholders.	Work to adapt your communication style for executives and non-experts.
Articulates complex information in an intuitive way.	Work to simplify your explanations with visuals and plain language.
Maintains open and direct communication with team.	Fails to communicate in a timely and open manner.
Clears issues and incidents in a timely manner.	Left issues open for an extended period of time without meaningful progress.
Incorporates feedback into decision making.	Makes decisions without consultation, input or communication.
Fails to make timely decisions.	Develops and uses data in an effective way to improve decisions.
Work to improve decisions with data and testing.	Makes timely decisions in an environment of uncertainty.
Defers decisions to the team without guiding the process.	Adheres to process and policy in a professional and diligent manner.
Fails to adhere to process and policy.	Anticipates possible issues and develops contingency plans.
Demonstrated ability to clear issues and achieve productivity without direction.	Work to clear issues and be productive in a self-directed manner.
Excellent grasp of strategy and the big picture.	Work to focus more on the details of project planning and execution.
Demonstrated impressive productivity, consistently delivering beyond expectations.	Delivers a high throughput of high quality work.
Improve your work throughput to deliver more value each week.	Improve the quality, thoroughness and polish of your deliverables.
Failed to achieve a reasonable level of productivity.	Uses time effectively to achieve objectives.
Work to use time in an effective way to deliver to commitments.	Failed to deliver to schedule and commitments.
Submitted three projects late.	Generally submitted all work and completed action items ahead of schedule.
Responds to communications in a timely way.	Work to improve your response time to emails and other communications.
Failed to respond to client emails and return client calls on several occasions.	Approaches each project in a constructive and collaborative way that contributes to the creative culture of the team.
High individual productivity. Work to support others and contribute to collaborative efforts.	Collaborates well with a highly engaging presence. Work to deliver action items independently in a self-directed way.
Work to reduce the overhead of meetings to achieve meeting objectives in a timely manner.	Project issues were not sufficiently communicated.
An agent of change who drives strategy forward and clears issues.	Adapts to change with an open and flexible approach.
Work to align your efforts to strategy to drive change forward.	Friendly, positive and collaborative.
Work to improve relationships with team members and stakeholders.

For low performing employees, a performance appraisal can play a role in giving a sufficient indication that an employer may terminate employment. This is not a time for ambiguity but also shouldn't be negative -- state the low performance in a matter of fact way without sounding preachy or disgruntled about it. For example, "meeting attendance was unacceptably low" is better than "was constantly missing meetings without an notice whatsoever."

Documentation of low performance is highly specific. For example, "three important action items were not delivered to schedule" is better than "work was delivered late."

For low performing employees, a performance appraisal may be accompanied with a performance improvement plan that maps out exactly what needs to be done to recover.

Generally speaking, it is not a good idea to be critical of high performing employees. They are often self-improving with high self-awareness anyway. If there is a section of your appraisal template such as "areas for improvement" fill it with something like "N/A" or "Continue to do what you've been doing."

More about performance appraisals:

Employee Performance

Employee Performance Management

Performance Appraisals

Performance Expectations

Performance Improvement

Performance Issue

Performance Management

Performance Management Process

Performance Metrics

Performance Objectives

Performance Review