Performance Review: Sample Questions and Common Mistakes

«Performance Review» is a phrase that fills many HR professionals with dread. They have to create surveys, engage employees in them, compile numerous Excel spreadsheets, and analyze the results… In this article, we discuss why Performance Review is criticized and the main mistakes managers and HR professionals make, and share useful survey and report templates.

Criticism of Performance Review (PR)

Performance Review is a series of regular meetings between an employee and their manager to discuss performance, set goals, and establish a development path. These meetings help identify employees’ strengths and areas for growth, which is essential for building a successful career and achieving company goals.

The primary purpose of a Performance Review is to gather information
for management decision-making. The cost of making the wrong decision
is too high for a business.

How much does one employee cost?

Even this objective, however, is not always considered a compelling reason to conduct an assessment. Why do so many companies abandon Performance Reviews?

According to McKinsey and Harvard Business Review, companies mistakenly believe that PR:

Is useless for leaders. Most managers surveyed believe that Performance Reviews do not help them identify top performers.
Demotivates employees. Only 14% of employees surveyed agree that Performance Reviews inspire them to improve.
Is time-consuming. Fifteen Fortune 500 companies abandoned PR because of the time it requires.
Is inferior to regular feedback. For example, Adobe replaced annual PR with continuous employee feedback.

All this indicates only that PR is being conducted incorrectly. Let us examine the main mistakes HR professionals and managers make when organizing the employee performance assessment process.

Mistakes in Conducting Performance Reviews

Incorrect Delegation

It is fundamentally wrong for department heads to shift responsibility for Performance Reviews to the HR department. Performance Review is a tool and process of regular management. The manager should be the primary stakeholder in conducting the assessment.

Tip 💡 Involve managers in Performance Reviews and define responsibilities from the outset: what the team lead will be responsible for and what the HR department will handle. HR should act as a methodology expert who assists with conducting Performance Reviews, analyzing results, and organizing 1−1 meetings.

Conducting Performance Reviews Once a Year or Less Often

The main reason people experience stress when exchanging feedback is not a lack of professionalism, but a lack of regularity. If employees receive feedback only during a Performance Review, it will naturally put them in an unfamiliar and stressful situation.

Tip💡 The solution lies in building a feedback culture where employees and managers openly discuss issues, provide regular feedback, and establish expectations for the future. Make feedback a natural part of the workflow, and employees will no longer feel stressed when a new Performance Review cycle is announced.

Lack of a Safe Environment

Sometimes managers and employees see HR not as an ally who highlights strengths and areas for growth, but rather as a member of a hostile clan who covertly compiles files on them in order to dismiss them. Under these circumstances, neither managers nor employees will see any value or benefit in Performance Reviews.

Tip💡 Run a PR campaign for Performance Reviews. Explain that it is important for employees to receive feedback, recognize their strengths and areas for growth, understand their prospects within the company, and have transparency in management decision-making. Make it clear that the purpose of a Performance Review is not to dismiss people, but to foster their professional growth.

Long Questionnaires and Too Many Participants

An infrequent Performance Review is often accompanied by a 50-question survey for every employee in a 30-person department. After question 15, people simply start selecting ratings at random. Such an exercise provides no value.

Tip💡 Reduce the number of questions, but conduct assessments more frequently. For example, run a Performance Review every three months and combine the assessment with quarterly planning.

Questionable Choice of Questions

Questionnaires are often created without considering the specifics of an employee’s role, which leads to questionable results. Questions should be relevant, carefully considered, and designed to identify key issues and opportunities. Surveys also often contain questions that are too varied and insufficiently clear. As a result, employees find it harder to provide reliable answers, while HR professionals struggle to analyze the results quickly. Below are examples of how to create a questionnaire that is easy to complete and convenient to analyze.

How to Write Questions for a Performance Review

Use scale-based questions for most of the questionnaire and include only one or two open-ended questions. This will produce clearer analytics. For scale-based questions, always explain what each rating means so respondents can provide the most accurate answer possible. To make questions easier to understand, they can also be phrased as statements.

Explaining the Scale Makes the Survey Clearer and Faster to Complete

Examples of Performance Review questions:

1. Consistently achieves excellent results in their area of responsibility
1-3 — Performance is often below average.
4-6 — Performance is generally average and occasionally good.
7-8 — Performance is generally good and occasionally excellent.
9-10 — Performance is generally excellent.

2. Is engaged in their work, cares about the team’s goals, and is genuinely committed to the outcome
1-3 — Is not engaged in their work and is indifferent to the outcome.
4-6 — Is minimally engaged in their work and is not concerned when results are not achieved.
7-8 — Is engaged in their work and cares about the team’s goals and results.
9-10 — Is highly engaged in their work and is genuinely committed to the outcome.

3. Respects and values every employee’s opinion, even when it differs from their own
1-3 — Does not respect or consider the opinions of other employees.
4-6 — Generally does not value or consider the opinions of other employees.
7-8 — Respects and tries to consider every professional opinion expressed by colleagues.
9-10 — Values colleagues’ opinions and actively consults the team on various matters.

4. Thanks colleagues and provides them with constructive, developmental feedback
1-3 — Almost never provides feedback to colleagues.
4-6 — Provides feedback to colleagues very rarely.
7-8 — Periodically thanks colleagues and provides constructive, developmental feedback.
9-10 — Frequently thanks colleagues and provides constructive, developmental feedback.

Find more example questions in our free template 👇

Survey and Report Templates

How to Conduct a Performance Review

Lack of Automation

Using Google Forms and Excel and recruiting respondents through chat places an enormous burden on HR. Human resources are limited, so we recommend focusing on methodological support and resolving the issues identified during Performance Reviews.

Tip💡 Use the Appraise platform to automate Performance Reviews. It lets you launch an assessment in two clicks and obtain advanced feedback analytics for every employee.

How to Automate Performance Reviews

There are many employee assessment platforms on the market. But how do you choose one that is suitable for Performance Reviews? Here is what to consider.

Automatic Respondent Selection

This feature significantly reduces the time required from HR and the manager. In Appraise, respondents are selected automatically based on the organizational structure: the employee being assessed, their manager, colleagues from the department, and direct reports, if any.

What the Organizational Structure Looks Like in Appraise

Managers can add and edit respondents themselves if they want to account for cross-functional relationships.

Flexible Questionnaire Builder

In addition to methodologically sound assessments, HR professionals and managers need to create their own forms and questions for specific employees.

For example, in Appraise, you can create several questions to assess each competency,
with the results combined into an average score. In the questionnaire builder, you can choose any scale from 0 to 10, add a «Cannot answer» option, and allow users to leave comments.

Appraise Questionnaire Builder

Tracking and Reminders

It is important to track assessment completion and send reminders to those who have not completed their questionnaires. Appraise can send push notifications by both email and messenger.

Configuring Push Notifications in Appraise

Clear Reporting

There is no point in automating PR if the assessment results are presented as Excel spreadsheets. In Appraise, assessment results can be compared across assessment cycles and respondent groups: self-assessment, manager, colleagues, and direct reports. All of this can be exported as a ready-to-use presentation with comments and recommended next steps.

Implementing Performance Reviews is not easy. However, by following our recommendations, you can launch an assessment quickly and eliminate the hassle.

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