Performance Review Procedure template

2. Roles and responsibilities

• Managers: prepare, conduct, and document reviews for their direct reports on schedule, and raise performance problems when they happen — not at review time.
• [HR/name/role]: owns this procedure, runs the calendar, calibrates ratings across teams, and reviews documentation before anything goes in a personnel file.
• Employees: complete the self-assessment, attend prepared, and raise disagreement through the channel in this procedure rather than by refusing to participate.
• [Name/role]: files completed reviews and tracks that every scheduled review actually happened — a review cycle with gaps is a consistency problem waiting to be discovered.

3. Review cycle and cadence

Formal reviews happen [annually / semiannually] in [month(s)], with informal check-ins [quarterly / monthly] so nothing in the formal review is ever a surprise. New hires get a review at the end of the [introductory period], and an off-cycle review can be triggered by [role change, sustained underperformance, or return from extended leave — never by an employee's protected activity].

The criteria are set in advance: performance against the job description's essential functions and the [number] goals agreed at the last review, using the rating scale at [reference]. Same scale, same criteria, for everyone in comparable roles.

4. Preparing for the review

1. 1Pull the job description, last review, and agreed goals — the review measures against these, not against a manager's recollection of them.
2. 2Collect specific examples from the whole period, positive and negative, from [notes, metrics, project records] — recency bias is the most common preparation failure.
3. 3Draft the rating against the published criteria, and write the narrative first: if the examples do not support the rating, change the rating, not the examples.
4. 4Send the self-assessment to the employee [X days] before the meeting and book [45–60 minutes] in private.
5. 5Calibrate draft ratings with [HR/name/role] across the team before any meeting happens, so the same performance gets the same rating regardless of who the manager is.

5. Conducting the review

1. 1Open with the purpose and the rating — do not bury the conclusion behind twenty minutes of pleasantries.
2. 2Walk through the examples behind each rating, specific and behavioral: what happened, when, and its effect — "the [project] delivery in [month]" rather than "attitude".
3. 3Hear the employee's side in full, and correct anything factual you got wrong before the review is finalized — a review that survives challenge is one that absorbed the employee's evidence.
4. 4Agree [2–4] measurable goals and any development or training commitments for the next period, each with a date.
5. 5Name what happens next if performance concerns were raised — including, where warranted, that a performance improvement plan will follow under the PIP procedure.
6. 6Close with signatures: the employee's signature acknowledges receipt, not agreement, and a refusal to sign is simply noted with a witness — the review stands either way.

6. Documentation discipline

• Write every review as if it will be read aloud in a deposition — because the ones that matter will be.
• Rate honestly: an inflated review to avoid an awkward conversation becomes the exhibit that contradicts the termination it preceded.
• Describe behavior and results, never personality or anything touching a protected characteristic — and never count legally protected absences (FMLA leave where it applies, state-protected sick leave, jury duty) against an employee's rating.
• Match narrative to rating: a "needs improvement" score over a paragraph of praise reads as either carelessness or pretext.
• Finalize within [X days] of the meeting and file the signed review at [system/location] — an unfiled review protects no one.

7. After the review

Outcomes flow three ways. Goals and development commitments go into the next period's check-ins. Compensation recommendations, where applicable, feed the [separate compensation process] — this procedure decides ratings, not pay. And where the review documents sustained underperformance, the manager starts a performance improvement plan under the PIP procedure within [X days], so the review's findings become a concrete plan rather than a filed complaint.

An employee who disagrees with a review may submit a written response within [X days], which is filed with the review, and may raise concerns with [HR/name/role]. No one is penalized for disagreeing through this channel.

8. Records and review

Completed reviews, self-assessments, and written responses are kept in the personnel file at [system/location] for [period]; access follows [policy] and any state personnel-file access law that applies. [Name/role] audits each cycle for completion and rating consistency across teams and protected groups.

This procedure is reviewed [frequency, e.g. annually] and after any dispute that exposes a weakness in it. Owner: [name/role]. Next review due: [date].