How to conduct a performance review: a step-by-step guide for managers

The review form is due, and the box on the screen is empty. You're trying to sum up a whole year of someone's work in a few fair sentences, and the easiest material to reach for is whatever happened last month.

A useful review starts long before the form opens. It draws on notes kept through the year, expectations the employee already knows, and examples you can point to. The form itself only collects what you already have.

Key takeaways

• Keep short notes through the year, so recent weeks don't crowd out earlier work.
• Assess results and behaviors together: what the employee delivered and how.
• Back every rating with an example you can name.
• Have the employee and the manager assess separately before comparing.
• Add peer or 360-degree feedback when it fills a gap the manager can't see.
• Nothing in a review should be news. The main feedback should have come up during the year.
• A review feeds decisions about development, pay and promotion, so it has to hold up when someone asks why.

What is a performance review?

A performance review is a formal check-in between a manager and an employee. It looks back at performance over a set period and records what happens next.

Formal reviews often happen once or twice a year and may include a self-assessment, a manager assessment, and feedback from colleagues. Nishma Kamdar, Global HR Business Partner (HRBP) at Tellent, puts the core of it simply:

Why performance reviews matter

A review gives managers a set moment to recognize someone's work and agree on what comes next. It also shows employees how their work is being seen: what to keep doing and where they can grow.

Recognition is where specifics count. Eurofound's European Working Conditions Survey 2024 found that just over two-thirds of employees surveyed agree they get the recognition they deserve for their job. A review is a scheduled chance to recognize work in detail: what the person did and what it changed.

The review should end in decisions: a development priority, a change in responsibilities, or input to a pay or promotion discussion. Those decisions are only as good as the evidence behind the review, which is why the preparation matters.

What to prepare before you write

The best reviews feel familiar to the employee, because the main feedback has already come up in one-to-ones, project conversations, and check-ins. The review pulls those threads together.

Keep short notes throughout the year. Record wins, missed expectations, useful feedback, and examples while they're fresh. A note after a project closes or a one-to-one takes a minute and saves you from reconstructing the detail later. Capture what happened, when, and why it mattered:

Notes are your main defense against recency bias, when the last few weeks crowd out earlier work.

Write down expectations. Define what good performance looks like for the role, share it at the start of the review period, and make sure the employee knows what they're assessed against. If expectations change during the year, document the change and the reason.

If you haven't kept notes

Many managers open the form with nothing on file. Rebuild the year from what exists before you write a word:

• Go month by month through your calendar and one-to-one notes.
• Check project trackers, goal updates, and shared documents for outcomes and dates.
• Search messages and email for feedback, thanks, and escalations.
• Ask 2 or 3 close collaborators for specific examples.
• Ask the employee to list their main achievements and challenges before you draft.

Working month by month keeps the last quarter from taking over. Where you can't find evidence, say so in the review instead of filling the gap with an impression, and start the notes habit now so next year's review doesn't begin the same way.

How to write a performance review step by step

With notes and expectations in hand, you're ready to write. The review itself follows 6 steps that turn your evidence into a clear, fair assessment the employee can act on.

1. Gather your evidence and examples

Start with your notes, the employee's goals, and any relevant performance data: project outcomes, metrics, colleague feedback, and documented conversations from the review period.

Then look for examples that explain each assessment. If you give an "exceeds expectations" rating, name the projects that went beyond the brief and the impact they had. If someone didn't meet expectations, identify where the gap appeared and when you discussed it.

A few strong examples that show a pattern will do more than a long list of vague observations.

2. Look at results and behavior together

Start with the goals: what did the employee deliver? Then look at how they got there.

Results show whether someone met their targets. Behavior shows whether they got there in a way that helps or hurts the team. A salesperson might hit every target and leave rushed handovers for colleagues to fix. Someone else might miss a target while handling a difficult project well, helping colleagues and making steady progress. Either way, the number alone misses the context.

Pay attention to patterns in how someone works: whether they share information early, ask for help when they need it, document their work, and recover from setbacks.

3. Apply the rating criteria

A rating only works if managers and employees know what it means. Your company's scale probably defines each score. If it doesn't, ask HR before you rate anyone. If nothing exists, write your own definitions first and share them with the employee.

A 3 might mean someone consistently meets expectations. Then you need to know what moves them to a 4: exceeding goals, or also showing collaboration, initiative and resilience under setbacks. Without definitions, managers fill the gaps with their own interpretation, so share the scale at the start of the review period, when employees can still act on it.

If HR runs a calibration session, where managers compare ratings across teams, bring the evidence behind each rating. That evidence is what gets discussed, and it matters most when ratings feed into pay, bonuses, or promotion decisions.

4. Let employees self-assess separately

Ask the employee to complete their own assessment before they see yours, and do the same yourself. Nishma describes how Tellent runs performance reviews by having employees and managers submit them separately, so neither can see the other's assessment before submitting. 

The two versions rarely match perfectly, and the gaps are where the conversation starts. An employee may highlight a project you overlooked or add context you didn't have. You may have spotted a pattern they hadn't noticed.

These differences aren't problems to smooth over. They're the reason you asked for a self-assessment in the first place. The meeting becomes a chance to compare evidence, test assumptions, and reach a fairer view than either of you could alone.

5. Add peer or 360-degree feedback when it helps

Managers see only part of someone's work. Colleagues may know more about how the person communicates, handles pressure, shares information, or works across teams. Peer or 360-degree feedback can fill those gaps, especially when an employee works across several teams or has a new manager.

Choose people who have worked closely with the employee and can speak to specific projects or behaviors. A few close collaborators will usually tell you more than many distant colleagues. Ask specific questions: "How does this person communicate?" works better than "What do you think of this person?" Tell participants up front how the feedback will be used and shared.

6. Write comments people can act on

Describe the situation, what happened, and the action you want next. Vague feedback leaves the employee guessing. Here are some examples:

Keep praise specific too: a concrete example tells the employee what to keep doing and shows you've been paying attention. When you flag a problem, add the impact: "You missed 3 sprint deadlines, which pushed the release back and left the design team waiting."

How do you avoid bias when writing a performance review?

Notes and examples help, but every manager has blind spots. Here are 5 well-known rating biases to check for:

These checks won't remove bias entirely. They make it easier to spot before a rating is final.

What should a performance review template include?

Staring at an empty review form? Start with 4 questions:

1. What did this person achieve during the review period? Use goals, projects, and results as evidence. Note the main outcomes and whether expectations were met, exceeded, or missed.
2. How did they work? Look at the behaviors behind the results: how they communicated, collaborated, and handled setbacks.
3. What should they keep doing? Highlight strengths, skills or approaches worth repeating.
4. What should they focus on next? Agree on a priority, a development goal, or a behavior to work on during the next period.

How do you turn the written review into a conversation?

The written review sets up the meeting. Use the time to compare perspectives, review examples, and agree on next steps.

Start by asking the employee what they think, and give them room to disagree or add context. If their self-assessment differs from yours, ask them to explain their reasoning. The difference may show something you missed.

Then walk through the examples behind your assessment. Explain why a strength mattered. If you've flagged a problem, make sure the employee understands the impact and what needs to change.

Record the actions you agree on, each with an owner and a date where that makes sense. Make every action checkable, such as "Complete the stakeholder communication course by end of Q2". Something should change afterward: a new responsibility, a skill to develop or a behavior to adjust.

What if the conversation gets hard?

Some reviews go harder than others: the rating is lower than the employee expected, they disagree with your examples, or the problem is serious.

• They disagree. Ask what evidence they'd add before you defend yours. Change a rating only if the new evidence justifies it, and record the reason. If you still differ, note where and agree what you'll both check next.
• The rating is lower than they expected. Go back to the expectations you shared at the start of the period and the examples you noted. If the feedback is new to them, treat that as a signal to give it earlier next cycle.
• The issue is serious or persistent. Say what the gap is, what impact it has and what improvement you expect by when. Involve HR before the meeting if the situation could lead to a formal improvement plan or a dispute.
• They get upset. Acknowledge it, slow down, and offer a short break or a follow-up conversation instead of pushing through the agenda.

How do you know your review worked?

A completed form only shows that you finished it. Check whether the review helped. After the meeting, ask the employee:

• Was the feedback specific enough to act on?
• Do you know what to focus on next?
• Did you feel heard?

If the answers are no, change what you do before the next cycle. If the form itself gets in the way, because questions repeat or it takes too long, tell HR. They own the form and can change it.

Working in Europe: what should managers know?

Performance reviews create records about people, and in several European countries the way they are run is regulated. HR or legal counsel owns most of this, but three points affect how you write and run a review:

• Employees can ask to see what you wrote. Under GDPR, employees can ask for a copy of the personal data an employer holds about them, and appraisals are typically included. Write comments as if the employee will read them, and keep comments about other people out of an individual's review.
• Employee representatives may have a say in the process. Works councils in Germany and the Netherlands, and the CSE in France, have rights over parts of how reviews are run, such as assessment criteria, data processing and evaluation systems. If you want to change the form, the rating scale, or the tools, ask HR first.
• French employees must be told how they'll be evaluated. In France, employees must be told about evaluation methods before they're used, and the results are confidential.

A review that leaves a paper trail may also matter in a later dispute, so write comments you could defend. HR teams can find the country-by-country detail in the companion guide (link to be added).

How can Tellent HR Grow help managers with performance reviews?

A review feeds decisions: what someone should develop next, whether a pay or promotion change is justified, and where a retention risk might be building. Those decisions are easier when you can see the context behind a rating: goals, previous feedback, the employee's own view and earlier reviews.

Tellent HR Grow keeps review templates, self-assessments, manager assessments and 360-degree feedback in one place, with reminders and electronic sign-off. Review outcomes can become development plans with actions and owners, and previous reviews and employee records carry into the next cycle through Tellent HR Manage. Engagement surveys in Tellent HR Grow add context between review cycles.

Conclusion

Back to the empty box on the screen. It looks different when a year of notes sits behind it, the rating scale means the same thing to everyone, and two separate assessments are ready to compare. The review then works as evidence for real decisions about development, pay and promotion.

You don't need to change everything at once. Pick the change that removes the most guesswork in your process, whether that's notes after every one-to-one, a rating scale with definitions, or a shorter form, and run this cycle with it. Better people decisions get built from small habits like these, one review at a time.