Employee evaluation forms are documents that give structure to your employee management and feedback process. These may be used regularly for annual performance reviews or as needed for performance improvement.
Having a well-structured performance review template is important to ensure that you hit all necessary points for improvement while avoiding any issues of discrimination. Besides that, it allows you to record the conversation a supervisor has with their employee regarding performance.
To help you out, we’ve created downloadable employee performance evaluation forms that you can customize and use for your hourly workers, salaried workers, managers, and executives.
Downloadable Employee Evaluation Forms
You may use slightly different templates depending on the specific role or type of employee, from a simple employee review form to a more advanced performance evaluation template. Click through the tabs below for free downloadable templates for hourly workers, salaried workers, managers, and executives.
Reviews for hourly employees should focus on items that specifically relate to their jobs. Some examples may include punctuality, attendance, customer service success, and percentage of tasks completed.
We recommend using one of the following performance review templates (three-point scale, five-point scale, or yes/no scale) for hourly employees.
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Three-point Scale Performance Review Template
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Five-point Scale Performance Review
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Yes/No Scale Performance Review Template
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Performance reviews for salaried employees can differ from hourly employee reviews. Include more open-ended questions and additional categories, as their work may be more nuanced than some hourly employees. You may also want to relate the employee’s performance to the organization’s key performance indicators.
We recommend using one of the following performance review templates (yes/no scale or self-review employee evaluation) for salaried workers.
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Yes/No Scale Performance Review Template
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Self-Review Employee Evaluation Template
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Performance reviews for managers should primarily focus on the success of the manager’s direct reports—focusing secondarily on individual and company goals. Certain traits, such as leadership, development, coaching, and communication, should be measured, as well as tangible items like issues resolved or project completion percentage. Many of these reviews may also include space for peer comments.
Specific examples of performance traits can include:
- Overall Team Performance: This can be measured across industry standards or against other departments or work groups within the company.
- Development of Team Members: Have employees grown in their jobs or been promoted to new jobs under the manager’s leadership?
- Communication: How well does the staff respond to the manager’s communication style? Is it easy to understand, allowing the team to move quickly to make decisions?
- Company Values: Are company values easily on display with the manager’s behavior?
- Leadership: Do employees follow the manager because of their job title or because of their management skills? Do subordinates trust the manager has their and the company’s best interests at heart?
We recommend using one of the following performance review templates (three-point scale, four-point scale, or five-point scale) for managers.
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Three-point Scale Performance Review Template
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Four-point Scale Performance Review
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Five-point Scale Performance Review
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Executives are typically measured by the key performance indicators of the company. These indicators can include items like company growth, profitability, and customer retention rates. Besides key performance indicators, another good evaluation process is 360-degree feedback.
360-degree feedback is a performance management tool that allows a person to review feedback from many levels of the organization, including subordinates, peers, managers, and customers. This type of tool can be used for all employees—but is especially beneficial for employees at the highest levels of the organization to get feedback on their interpersonal and leadership skills.
We recommend using the 360-degree feedback template below for executives.
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360-Degree Feedback Evaluation Form
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Key Sections to Include in a Performance Review Template
When deciding what items should be on your performance evaluation form, ask the following questions:
- Who is performing the review? Depending on the relationship between the employee and evaluator, different questions or attributes may be measured. Some options for evaluators include managers, subordinates, and peers.
- What skills are you evaluating? Your company may be interested in a straight evaluation of goals or a broader evaluation of values or competencies. What you are evaluating will determine much of the content in your form.
- What kind of rating skills do you want to use? Many companies use a number system to quickly compute overall ratings. Common scales are three-point and five-point ratings, but other ratings, such as yes or no, are used as well.
Some key areas should be covered on all performance review forms. These include:
While the employee and manager’s name is essential for every evaluation form, you may also consider adding a unique identifier. Examples include badge number, employee identification number, and file number.
Having another piece of personal information on the form not only allows you to account for an employee name change but will also help you input this information into your performance management system. Other personal information you should include is the date of review and job title.
There are multiple ways to tangibly rate an employee’s performance. We recommend a point scale system, which will allow you to judge a worker’s performance from low to high based on numbers. The most common scales are three, four, or five points.
| 3-Point Scale | 4-Point Scale | 5-Point Scale |
|---|---|---|
| 1 - Below expectations 2 - Meets expectations 3 - Exceeds expectations | 1 - Poor 2 - Average 3 - Above average 4 - Excellent | 1 - Does not meet expectations 2 - Meets expectations sometimes 3 - Meets expectations 4 - Exceeds expectations sometimes 5 - Exceeds expectations |
Some employers may prefer reviews written in long form, where the employee and manager may answer a list of questions or provide a written response to how well they believe they or their employees have performed throughout the year. These performance forms may make it harder to compare employees, but it does allow the opportunity to get more in-depth responses.
Employee evaluation forms should include a section for milestones and improvements, as this will help direct your employee toward a particular objective. If you are not currently using a performance management system, include the employee’s objectives for the period that you are evaluating. This is crucial to ensuring you grade your employees on stated performance objectives in the next review.
The best performance management systems do more than record annual reviews. They allow for feedback, intermittent check-ins, goal setting, and more. Consider using BambooHR to create and track employee work goals.
Having a place in your employee evaluation form for signatures is important for both sides to document the conversation. This helps avoid any issues or confusion in the future. The signatures do not indicate agreement with what was written but simply represent an acknowledgment that the employee has received the form and had an opportunity to discuss the contents.
For more information on how to perform employee reviews, check out our guide to performance management.
What to Avoid When Filling Out Employee Review Forms
When conducting employee reviews and filling out the performance evaluation template, there are a few things you should avoid.
| Avoid | Instead |
|---|---|
| Only giving negative feedback | Give the employee both positive feedback and areas to improve. |
| Not elaborating on your score | Be sure to leave comments after each rating that back up your decision. |
| Overrating an employee as a motivational tool | Be honest in your evaluation of the employee’s performance, and if motivation is an issue, make suggestions for improvement. |
| Not following up | Make sure you circle back with the employee on any improvements listed on the review form. |
You also want to avoid bias when filling out the employee review forms. Make sure your answers are based on performance only and not how you feel about the employee as a person. When bias creeps into any part of the employee process (from hiring to evaluations), your company can be vulnerable to legal issues.
Employee Evaluation Forms Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
One of the most important reasons to use a performance review template is to avoid legal hazards. When you use an objective template, you’re more likely to avoid discrimination and rating employees differently for subjective reasons. Templates also help you back up your review with evidence, further reducing the chances of a discrimination charge.
Absolutely. As your performance review process changes, you add more employees in different roles, and the culture of your company changes, you’ll need to update your performance template for employees. Set a reminder to at least check in on them annually.
Write as much as is necessary and nothing more. Make sure you convey enough information to the employees so they understand where you’re coming from and how they can improve. Also, be sure to avoid any subjective or derogatory comments. While you’ll have a discussion with the employee, they may go back and look over their review multiple times. Make sure it’s something that leaves them with positive reinforcement.
It depends on many factors. Is your business fully remote? Are you a very small team? Do employees often interact with one another? Here are some common types of reviews and a brief description of each:
- 360: This review is often the most comprehensive and best used when your employees routinely work together. For each review, you’ll pick about three colleagues to provide some insight and answer a few questions about the employee you’re reviewing. Then, take those comments and either use them directly as part of the peer feedback or make them more anonymous and integrate them into your review.
- Objective: This more modern review approach evaluates employees based on joint objectives determined during the last review cycle. You’re only looking at the major objectives for the employee—things like completing the rollout of a new product or having fewer than five customer complaints per week. This type of review isn’t always recommended, as it focuses only on big-picture items and not day-to-day work.
- Graded: Most of our templates follow this. It’s best used when you can grade an employee on objective criteria. You must train reviewers on how you expect your grading system to work. Some companies want all employees to have five points, while others consider three as the median.
Then it’s time to update your processes. Employees need guidance; one way they get that is through regular performance reviews. If you’re not giving employees feedback, they don’t know if they’re doing a good job and will seek other options.
Bottom Line
Employee evaluations can be an integral part of employee management and a company’s overall success, as they help tie an employee’s performance to the company’s success. Using employee evaluation form samples or performance review templates makes tracking company goals and employee performance over time easier.
