50 Employee Evaluation Comments that Boost Performance

The Power of Positive Employee Evaluation Comments

It truly can’t be understated how much employees want to know when they’re performing well. According to a survey from Gallup, 67% of employees who received regular positive feedback were fully engaged in their work, compared to 31% of employees who had managers that focused on what they needed to improve.

Sage also found that high-performing teams shared positive feedback six times more than average-performing teams, showing that there’s a positive connection between positive feedback and employee engagement and performance.

While it’s not enough to only give positive feedback during performance reviews, these studies show that managers need to talk to employees about their strengths and what they bring to the table as much as they do what they need to improve.

Not only that, but as with all feedback, positive feedback needs to be personal and specific enough so that employees understand exactly what they did well. If it’s neither of those things, then this can leave employees feeling confused, or worse, that their manager is simply going through the motions and doesn’t care about their efforts.

Discussing Areas of Improvement in Performance Review Meetings

While it’s important to give positive feedback about an employee’s performance, managers do have to help their employees to improve. However, this is understandably difficult to do correctly. Managers have to convey the importance of an employee’s need to improve their performance while keeping their feedback detached enough from the employee so it doesn’t feel like their personality is on trial. Employee evaluation examples given here will guide you to give appropriate feedback during the appraisal.

The most important thing to remember is that managers should focus their comments on the behavior, not the employee themselves. This helps to avoid employees going on the defensive and seeing this negative feedback as an attack on who they are as a person. In addition, managers should be as specific as possible about the behavior that needs to be improved, and if appropriate, the effect that behavior has had on others.

Managers should also ensure that they reaffirm their belief in the employee’s strengths and abilities to demonstrate that they know the value that person brings to the team, even if they do need to improve their performance. It’s also important that once they’ve made their comment, managers ask the employee to discuss the situation with them, so employees feel like they’re part of a discussion rather than being told what they need to fix.

Here’s an example of what this could look like:

A Sample evaluation comment:

“John, I want to address your attendance. You’ve been struggling to turn up to work on time, which I’ve noticed has a detrimental effect on your schedule for the rest of the day. I know you’re a fantastic payroll assistant and you always hand in your tasks on time regardless of your tardiness, but I definitely think you need to work on your attendance. What do you think?”

Understand Employee Support Channels

When managers look to use performance reviews to boost their employees’ performance, they need to remember that their employees have entire lives outside of work that need to be taken into consideration.

With 83% of US employees suffering from work-related stress, employees may be dealing with a myriad of physical and mental health issues that may not be apparent when evaluating their performance. Unfortunately, because it’s not clear what an employee is dealing with, managers often forget that an employee’s drop in performance might be because of personal issues.

For instance, in 2018, stress caused sleep deprivation in 66% of employees. A lack of meaningful sleep is known to reduce employee productivity, focus, and performance, and can often be an explanation for a myriad of performance issues in the workplace. Employees frequently turning up late, working at a slow pace, being unable to focus, or even not engaging in meetings can all be a result of sleep deprivation caused by stress.

Because of this, it’s extremely important for managers to understand what employee support channels are available to them if their performance is suffering due to a physical or mental health issue. As a HR manager, you need to make sure that managers have the contact details for your employee support programs, or they understand where they need to refer employees if they’re struggling with things that are affecting their performance.

Employee Evaluation Examples and Comments that Help to Boost Performance

With all of that being said, here are 50 employee evaluation comment examples that your managers can use in their next performance evaluation meetings. It’s worth noting that these examples aren’t intended to be used verbatim, but rather as an inspiration for discussing performance with their employees.

Time Management

Positive Performance Review Comments Examples

• You consistently hand in work to agreed deadlines, which helps to keep the entire department on schedule
• You’re able to complete urgent tasks with the same high-quality and detail that we often see from your regular duties
• You exceeded our expectations by completing your work ahead of the deadline without compromising on quality
• You consistently plan meetings to ensure that they don’t run over their allotted time, which helps us all to stay on track with our work
• You’re always mindful of your coworkers’ deadlines and time constraints, and ensure that you don’t interrupt their concentration unless it’s urgent

‘Areas of Improvement’ Performance Review Examples

• You sometimes choose to prioritize easy tasks ahead of urgent ones
• You appear to struggle to estimate how long it will take you to complete tasks, meaning you regularly run over your agreed deadlines
• Since deadlines have become tighter, your work has decreased in quality to ensure you can hand it in on time
• You don’t appear to be using our scheduling tools to help you plan your tasks, which may explain why some appear rushed and others are handed in early
• You appear to struggle to delegate tasks as part of your projects, which means projects are rarely completed on time

Productivity

Positive Performance Review Comments Examples

• You volunteered to take on additional work for [project] to ensure that it was a success
• You’re extremely detail-oriented and ensure you do your due diligence with research without it impacting the quality of your work
• You’re well researched in industry trends, and you consistently apply this knowledge to ensure that our projects perform well
• You’re not afraid to suggest new processes and practices that will help the team be more productive
• Your work consistently exceeds our expectations with your clear focus on customer needs and company goals

‘Areas of Improvement’ Performance Review Examples

• Your work has recently been lacking in detail and doesn’t conform to company standards
• You rarely offer to take on additional tasks that are needed from you by your coworkers and department
• You don’t work at a consistently high enough standard, which puts additional strain on other departments
• You work at a consistently slow place, leaving you to rush to complete tasks before the deadline which is detrimental to the standard of your work
• You’ve been spending a significant amount of time talking to your coworkers instead of completing tasks

Attitude

Positive Performance Review Comments Examples

• Your coworkers speak highly of you and your willingness to share your knowledge and help, even when you’ve got tight deadlines to work to
• You’re appreciated around the office for brightening everyones’ day and making people smile
• You perform well under pressure, and your calm demeanor during stressful situations helps all of us to perform better
• When you disagree with others, you do so in a way that’s respectful, graceful, and minimizes offense
• You have an infectious can-do attitude that has helped numerous projects succeed, even when circumstances were against you

‘Areas of Improvement’ Performance Review Examples

• Your negative attitude towards our current project appears to have reduced morale on the team
• When things go wrong, you struggle to take any responsibility for your actions and place the blame on others
• You don’t take other peoples’ ideas and opinions into consideration when you’re planning projects or working on tasks
• You struggle to speak up and voice your opinions when you’re working in a team
• You regularly interrupt people in meetings, which is having a negative impact on the morale of your colleagues

Proactivity

Positive Performance Review Comments Examples

• You’re always the first person to sign up for new training and development courses
• You’re always working to exceed the goals we set during our performance review meetings
• During the development of [project], you campaigned for [feature] to be included despite it not being in the original plan, which was a massive success with our customers
• You regularly highlight and come up with solutions for inefficiencies in our internal processes
• You come up with creative solutions to problems you face during your job without compromising on company values or ethics

‘Areas of Improvement’ Performance Review Examples

• You rarely sign up for any new training that might benefit you and your knowledge of your position
• You don’t seek out new training or development opportunities despite discussing the need for them in previous performance review meetings
• You rarely meet the goals that we set together during performance review meetings, and don’t suggest ways that you think you can improve
• You tend to avoid projects and tasks that require you to conceptualize out-of-the-box solutions
• You don’t contribute to the discussion when we are working together during the planning stages of a new project

Attendance

Positive Performance Review Comments Examples

• You’re never late to a meeting, which helps everyone to stay on schedule
• You always arrive to work on time, and you make sure to call ahead with plenty of notice if you can’t come into work
• You make sure that you keep to your schedule as closely as possible, but you’re also willing to be flexible if needed
• You regularly arrive early to work so you have time to set up before you need to start attending to your tasks
• You regularly offer to cover shifts for your coworkers in case of emergency

‘Areas of Improvement’ Performance Review Examples

• You struggle to turn up for work on time, which has a detrimental effect on your schedule for the rest of the day
• You show up late to meetings, which is disruptive and inconsiderate to your colleagues
• You regularly exceed your scheduled lunch break, and this usually results in you struggling to hit your daily deadlines
• Over the last few weeks/months, you have regularly been in breach of the company’s attendance policy
• When you’ve had to call to report that you cannot attend work, you’ve breached the company’s attendance policy by not giving enough notice