Emma: At the risk of sounding like just another email from your friendly HR business partner: Have you started prepping for your next review yet?

Andy: Haaaa. The answer for me always was, “Is the deadline hours away? Then, no, I haven’t started yet.” Performance reviews are kind of like tax season in that way for me. Sure, I could get started sooner, but it’s February and they’re not due until April.

Emma: I completely understand why HR sends out those perky, early-bird emails. It’s the same reason we’re sending this one. Documenting performance is important. It’s also challenging and takes time. And it’s worth it to get started early. In fact, I’d recommend getting started now and just never stop. Let’s always be prepping for performance reviews.

Andy: Seriously. One of the best habits I’ve ever cultivated was scheduling weekly 1-on-1s so I have time after each one to jot down notes on what we talked about. These notes are performance review gold. They’re basically an outline.

How to Start Early on Your Performance Reviews

Starting early is good advice for bosses who will be writing reviews about their direct reports, as well everyone who will be receiving one (or writing their own). All you’re really doing in a review is reporting what someone did, how they did, and what comes next, but excavating a year’s, or even a quarter’s, worth of hits and misses isn’t something most of us can do on the fly — let alone 4 or 7 or 10 times in a row.

This brainstorm worksheet will give you a solid starting point to write unique, specific performance reviews, as well as give you a heads-up if there are any holes you need to backfill before your review becomes official. Our brainstorm outline is below. You can also make a copy of our Google working doc here.

Report’s name:

Projects they worked on:

Key metrics

  • What is the organization measuring?
  • What have I told my team I’m measuring?
  • Are these the same things?
  • What numbers represent these metrics?
  • What are my initial thoughts on this person and their metrics?

Strengths

  • When I think of what makes this person great, what do I think of?
  • Are these part of the key metrics? How?

Feedback I’ve given them since their last review

  • What types of things have I coached this person on?
  • Have they shown any growth or improvement?
  • Are these part of the key metrics? How?

Hits

  • What successes have they had in the work, or in their interactions? What are their high-five, ring-a-gong, pop-some-bubbly moments?
  • What circumstances were at play to help them achieve each accomplishment? Consider both their personal attributes as well as environmental — teammates, deadlines, the ask, the client, etc.
  • Drawing a blank? Go back and review:
    • 1-on-1 documentation
    • Your calendar
    • Project summaries
    • Post mortem docs
    • Kudos folder
    • Your direct report and/or their peers — just ask!

Misses

  • What failures or missteps have they had in the work, or in their interactions? What are their cringey, oh shit, we gotta talk about this moments?
  • What circumstances were at play to help them achieve each accomplishment?
  • Consider both their personal attributes as well as environmental — teammates, deadlines, the ask, the client, etc.
  • Drawing a blank? Go back and review:
    • 1-on-1 documentation
    • Your calendar
    • Project summaries
    • Post mortem docs
    • Kudos folder
    • Your direct report and/or their peers — just ask!

Emma: One of the very scariest feelings for me as a boss is when I realize I haven’t been doing something I was supposed to be doing the whole time. I’ve had that stomach-drop more than once putting together an annual review — all of the sudden it’s crystal clear what we should have been working on together for the past quarter and a half, and I just never brought it up.

It’s that same sinking shame you get when you realize you have a dentist appointment in three days and haven’t flossed in over a year. Only worse because it’s another human instead of your teeth, and you’re going to surprise them with the fact that they aren’t meeting expectations.

Andy: That happened to me one year. I thought I was crushing it: I was a team leader, training new hires, acting as the go-to for questions. I was heading up department-wide meetings, had been nominated for awards by my peers. And then, during my annual review, I learned that my performance was being determined by a metric I didn’t even know we were measuring — in this case, the number of new hires tagged to my name in the recruiting software. Even though our team had met all of our hiring goals, my name wasn’t attached to as many of the reqs as other people on the team.

Emma: Hmmm, was it because you were busy training all of them?

Andy: My boss told me I was technically Below based on the metrics and that he’d bumped me to Meets Expectations based on all the other responsibilities I was taking on. I left that review in tears. I think I got a $345 annual raise, and definitely no bonus. And I was deeply confused.

Emma: The ideal performance review is full of old news. Your 1-on-1s are so candid, your working relationships so transparent, that you’re simply summarizing the main themes of your last 20 or so conversations in a handful of paragraphs. You talk through it together, everything checks out, on to business as usual.

Andy: Which isn’t to say they should be perfunctory.

Emma: Not at all! Old news still has a lot of impact. There’s often money and opportunity attached to that information. Plus, finding out where I stand, officially and in writing, is different than hearing it in a weekly conversation. Reviews are on the record. They are the de facto truth about me — if I transfer teams, if my boss quits, if there’s a company-wide re-org, reviews are where my new boss will look to learn who I am. I need this document to be accurate and insightful and not some dupe of the X number of other people on my team.

Andy: I’ll admit: if I’ve stacked 10 or 15 reviews into the same week, they are not going to be very nuanced. I’m going to start sounding like a fourth-grade teacher writing her report cards, “They’re a joy to have in class.” This is not the kind of manager I want to be, or the kind of experience I want to give to my team.

Emma: Starting early means you aren’t going to have to jam out a bunch of reviews all in one sitting — which, hallelujah. But even more crucial, you get a heads-up on any potential stomach-drop feelings with enough time to try to get ahead of it.

Andy: I know I would have felt differently if, in the few months amping up to that tear-inducing review, my manager had told me, “Hey Andy, one of the metrics we’re using in performance reviews is the requisition count tied to your name. Your numbers are really low. Let’s fix that.”

It would have been even better if he had said, “This metric doesn’t match my experience of your performance. I’m going to find a way to solve that so it doesn’t impact your performance review.” Or, even if he had said, “I know you do a lot for the team, but you’re missing the main thing: your own requisition count. How can we right your load so you’re hitting the numbers you need to be above Meets Expectations?” It probably still would have stung, but it would have stung a whole lot less.

Emma: Consider this our little nudge. Don’t delay! And also, don’t worry. As review season gets closer, we’ll share more on writing — and responding to — reviews. Stay tuned.