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Discover how to create a custom employee performance review template that covers all key elements for a thorough evaluation. Plus, get a free downloadable employee review template you can easily customise in Adobe Acrobat.
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The benefits of employee performance review templates
Different types of templates to review employee performance
What to include in an employee performance review template
What not to include in a template for an employee performance review
Creating and using employee performance review PDF templates
The value of performance reviews goes far beyond evaluations. These templates offer a structured, consistent way to assess employee performance, helping to ensure fairness and equality across the board. By standardising the process, they eliminate bias, clarify expectations, and create a clear path for continuous feedback and improvement.
On a broader business level, performance review templates serve as a powerful communication tool between management and employees. They simplify the review process while providing a documented record of performance that can be used for tracking progress, setting goals, and making informed decisions about promotions and professional development. By aligning individual goals with the company’s objectives, they help ensure that everyone’s contributions drive overall success.
Explore how these templates improve performance management in key areas:
Consistency and fairness: Ensure all employees are evaluated with clear, pre-defined criteria.
Streamlined Communication: Foster open discussions and feedback between managers and teams.
Goal Setting: Align personal development with broader business objectives for mutual success.
Performance appraisal templates are a tool for managers and/or supervisors and employees to communicate, provide constructive feedback, have discussions about career growth and clarify job expectations. You should customise an employee evaluation template to suit your communication styles and organisational culture. For example, you can design review templates to include questions and criteria to —
Employee review templates are also an effective way to give and receive feedback from your employees so you can get the best out of your working relationships and role expectations.
Review templates help to provide focus and a clear structure to follow during a performance review. Your employee review template should outline specific performance criteria and goals for your employees in their roles within your organisation. This helps both the person conducting the performance review and the employee, focus on the review at hand and provides clarity to an employee on what is expected of them.
Performance review templates help to identify areas where employees excel and areas where they may need improvement. This information can be used to develop targeted training and professional development plans to improve an employee’s skills and competencies.
Employee evaluation templates should include sections for setting goals. Goal setting at work helps to promote motivation, focus and accountability. Goals may be set to align with an individual’s future career path with the company. They may also include goals for individuals that align with organisational objectives. Any goals set in employment should be SMART — specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
Performance appraisals often form the basis for awarding promotions, bonuses, pay increases and other rewards and employee benefits. Using a template helps to provide a structured approach for assessing your employees' contributions to your organisation and then determining the appropriate compensation or recognition for everyone.
Performance reviews are important HR templates to have. You can use them to document employees’ performance over time because a completed employee performance review records an employee’s achievements, areas for improvement and goals set during each review period.
Employee performance reviews are not currently required under legislation in either Australia or New Zealand. However, there is extensive employment legislation in both countries that covers fair work and employment relations.
Performance review templates can help to ensure that employee evaluations are based on job-related criteria and free from bias or discrimination. They can provide a record and documentation of an employee’s performance and professional development during their time working with your business.
If you haven't got a dedicated HR team to review the wording in any performance appraisal templates you develop or customise, consider engaging an HR consultant to review the wording of the template you plan to use for performance reviews before use.
There are several different types of employee performance review templates that organisations can use and adapt. Often organisations create and customise templates for employee performance reviews that combine elements of different types of performance reviews, depending on their organisational needs and goals, the nature of the employment and the roles within it and the focus of the review.
Some common examples of different types of employee evaluation templates include —
Traditional employee performance review forms will typically provide a basic structured format for managers or supervisors to assess an employee’s performance. Sections will usually cover the employee’s information, goals/objectives, performance ratings, strengths, areas for improvement and overall comments.
A 360-degree performance review template will gather feedback from multiple sources in addition to the employee’s manager or supervisor to get a range of perspectives. This may include peers, subordinates and other employees in an organisation. 360-degree employee evaluation templates often include a combination of rating scales and open-ended to assess the employee’s performance from each person contributing feedback.
Templates for goal-based or KPI performance reviews will usually focus on the employee's individual goals and objectives and any key performance indicators that are aligned with the employee’s performance with any organisational objectives. They will include sections to review progress towards measurable goals, accomplishments, challenges faced and future goals.
Competency-based review templates are used to evaluate and assess an employee’s performance against specific competencies or skills required for their job. They will usually include sections for evaluating how well the employee demonstrates each competency and to provide examples that support and illustrate the employee’s work.
Templates for self-assessment performance reviews allow employees to evaluate their performance before the review meeting. They will include sections for employees to reflect on their accomplishments, challenges, areas for improvement and development goals.
Employee review templates that are behaviour-based assess an employee’s performance based on specific behaviours or competencies relevant to their employment. Behaviour-based review templates may include descriptions of behaviours and examples of how well the employee demonstrates each behaviour or rating scales that evaluate performance.
Open-ended or narrative performance reviews ask managers or supervisors to provide feedback in descriptive or narrative form. These templates can provide space for managers to give qualitative feedback on an employee’s performance overall or they can be broken into sections for descriptive feedback on aspects of an employee’s role or workplace requirements. They allow for more detailed commentary on the employee's strengths, weaknesses, contributions and areas for growth.
Performance review templates can also be customised to be role-specific. For example —
Create an employee performance review template that includes sections to effectively assess your employees’ performance, provide constructive feedback and set goals for improvement and the future.
A performance review template should be customised to suit your organisation’s goals, the roles and positions of your employees, your performance management processes and your overall organisational culture.
Regularly review and update your performance review template to ensure that it remains a relevant and effective tool to evaluate the performance of your employees and encourage professional development, growth and improvement.
To get started, sections to include in an employee performance review template typically include —
Start with basic details such as the employee's name, position, department and review period. Performance reviews are usually held quarterly, six-monthly or annually.
Include space to record the reviewer’s name and title.
Provide an overview of the purpose of the performance review. Emphasise how evaluating performance regularly is important for individual employee development and organisational success. Explain your performance review processes.
Define the key performance areas or competencies relevant to the employee's role. These may include —
Allow space for comments or feedback under each performance criterion. Ask for specific examples to support observations and assessments.
Establish a clear rating scale for each criterion to evaluate performance. This could be numerical (e.g., 1-5, with 1 being unacceptable and 5 being excellent) or descriptive (e.g., Unsatisfactory, Basic, Proficient, Outstanding). Provide definitions in your template for each rating level to ensure there is consistency in evaluation.
Dedicate a section to highlight your employee's strengths and achievements during the review period. Acknowledge and appreciate their contributions to your team and organisation.
Identify specific areas where your employee can improve or develop further. Provide constructive feedback and actionable suggestions for growth.
Set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals for the upcoming performance period collaboratively with your employees. Goals should align with the employee's career aspirations and your organisational objectives.
Review any training, skill development or career advancement opportunities that could benefit your employees. Identify resources or support available for their professional growth.
Offer an overall written summary of the assessment, backed with supporting evidence of your employee’s performance. Write this positively, constructively and based on the feedback and comments provided and an average of the rating scales you have used.
Outline the next steps, including any follow-up meetings or check-ins to monitor progress on goals and address any concerns or challenges.
Provide space for the employee and the manager or supervisor conducting the review to sign and date the performance review document to indicate they acknowledge the feedback and future work goals discussed.
Certain elements should be avoided when creating an employee performance review template. Being mindful of these helps ensure the review process remains fair, objective, and constructive.
Here are a few things to exclude from your employee performance review template:
Employee performance reviews should not focus on personal characteristics such as age, gender, marital status, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion or spiritual beliefs. Reviews should focus on job-related performance, skills and behaviours at work, not personal characteristics.
Generalised or unsubstantiated claims should not be included in performance reviews. Reviews should be based on specific observable and measurable performance and outcomes with concrete examples to support feedback and assessment.
Reviews of employees should be objective and based on measurable criteria, not personal opinions or feelings. Avoid language or assessments that could be perceived as discriminatory or unfair.
While constructive criticism is valuable in performance reviews, it should always be balanced with actionable suggestions for improvement. Avoid language that may feel threatening or overly critical. The goal is to provide feedback that empowers employees to grow and succeed.
Unrealistic performance goals or expectations can demotivate employees and create unnecessary stress. Ensure that the criteria you use in your performance review templates are clear, fair, achievable and aligned with the employee's role and responsibilities.
When it comes to creating and using employee performance review templates, PDFs offer several benefits. Some of these include —
When you send and share PDF documents, your original formatting and layout will be retained. Your employees, managers and supervisors can all open and complete PDF employee performance review forms that are going to look the same on any device or system. You can create PDF performance fillable forms with set fields for your staff to fill in and complete.
PDFs can be easily accessed and viewed on various devices. This makes it convenient for both managers and employees to open and review performance review documents any time, anywhere. Your PDF review form can be opened in browsers and Adobe Acrobat applications, including the free Adobe Acrobat Reader for mobile and computers.
You can start an employee review template PDF from scratch in Adobe Acrobat. Or it’s easy to convert various document formats to and from PDF format. PDFs can also be integrated with other HR software systems or document management platforms. This helps to streamline your performance review process and manage data seamlessly.
PDFs can be encrypted and password-protected to ensure sensitive and confidential employee performance data is kept confidential and secure. You can protect a PDF from unauthorised access and unauthorised edits or changes.
Managers and employees can request signatures in PDFs and sign PDFs electronically that can be validated and authenticated as genuine.
Along with customising the content of performance review templates to fit with your organisational and employee goals, employee performance review templates can be customised with your branding elements.
Are you ready to create and customise a performance review template for your organisation?
Download our free performance review PDF template to get started.
