Designing and Running Performance Reviews

This resource was developed by Bright + Early.

Performance reviews don’t need to be punitive, scary, or focused only on someone’s shortcomings. At their best, they are forward-looking conversations that focus on growth, clarify expectations, celebrate wins, and make plans for the future.

While ongoing feedback is key, structured reviews play an important role in looking back, setting goals, and supporting fair, well-informed decisions about promotions, compensation, and other career opportunities. They also ensure you have a record of someone’s performance, should you need it.

While most organizations conduct formal performance reviews once or twice a year, managers should be giving regular, real-time feedback, check-ins, and support towards the goals set in them. With regular communication, reviews shouldn’t contain any surprises. 

Designing Performance Reviews

If your organization is designing performance reviews for the first time, you’ll have to decide on a number of things. 

• Timing. How often should reviews be scheduled? Large organizations will often do one formal performance review per year, but smaller, fast-moving organizations may want to schedule them semi-annually or quarterly. 
• Review format: Will reviews be top-down, with only feedback from managers? Will you include a self review/assessment to encourage reflection? Will you collect upward feedback from reports about their manager? Is feedback from peers, board members, or other stakeholders important?
• Length: The review process can be delayed or go sideways if team members can’t find the time to complete it, especially if the process is lengthy, the completion window is short, and/or the organization is in a particularly busy season. If reviews are happening more often than annually, you may want to design a shorter, more agile process that takes less time to complete. If you are collecting feedback from peers, board members or other stakeholders, you may need to allow extra time for those to be completed, as well.
• Privacy and Anonymity: If you are including peer (or other non-manager) feedback, will it be anonymized? Generally, this is recommended. If you are not using a tool or software that does this automatically for you, consider having managers review peer feedback before writing their own review, paraphrasing it or incorporating wider themes. Additionally, it’s very important to communicate to employees and review-writers if and how their feedback will be anonymized, and who will view or have access to the raw feedback. Trust is essential to receiving quality feedback in reviews. 
• Tools: There are many helpful tools and software programs that can be programmed with your roles, questions, and competencies, and take care of review reminders, anonymization, and more. Many general HRIS (Human Resource Information System) software programs also have a performance review module included. For small or scrappy organizations, reviews can be run more manually via Google Forms or similar programs; just be sure to limit (and communicate) who will have access to them, and prepare for more administrative time.

Review questions can be designed on a rating scale (which is easier to analyze and compare), as open questions (which allow for examples and detail) or a mix of both, which is recommended.

When designing rating scales, you can use as few or as many points as you wish; shorter formats, like a 3-point scale, can be helpful for quick and simple feedback, while a 5-point scale can be used to capture a more nuanced picture. 

Example rating scales:

• 3 point scale for general performance: Does Not Meet Expectations /Meets Expectations /Exceeds Expectations
• 4 point scale for rating a values-aligned behaviour: Never/Sometimes/Often/Always
• 5 point scale for rating a specific skill: Beginner/Learning/Competent/Advanced/Expert

Open question examples:

• “What accomplishments are you most proud of this year?
• “What is one skill you would like to grow next?”
• “What are some ways this person lives our organizational values?”
• “What are some ways this person contributes to a collaborative culture?”

Running Performance Reviews

Preparing Managers

A good performance review starts well before the process launches. Managers should be trained not only on how the review process works, but also on how to have constructive, motivating, and sometimes challenging conversations. This includes knowing how to frame feedback, how to use the career progression framework as a reference in their reviews and conversations, how to understand and avoid bias in the review process, and how to help their reports set the right goals and next steps. Consider hosting a training for managers, as well as giving them some written documentation on the process, as well as managing feedback conversations in general. 

Preparing Staff

It’s also important to communicate clearly with employees about what reviews will mean for them. They should know when reviews will happen, how the process works, how the information will be used, and who has access to it. This transparency helps reduce any anxiety they may have about the review, encourages real feedback, and ensures the process feels fair and predictable to them. Consider having a written guide to how the review process works, what they can expect, and how to write great feedback, especially if writing peer or upward feedback is involved. If you’re launching a newly designed process, consider hosting an employee training session on how it works.

Calibration

Some organizations also use a calibration process. Calibration meetings bring managers together after reviews are written (but before they are delivered) to discuss their evaluations, compare ratings, and ensure that similar performance is assessed in similar ways, regardless of team or department. These discussions help reduce discrepancies caused by individual manager style or bias, and they reinforce shared definitions of what constitutes “meets expectations” or “exceeds expectations.” This is especially recommended if you’re launching a new process or have a new management team. 

Delivering Reviews

Reviews should be delivered by the employee’s direct manager, in a private setting. There should be a chance to go over the feedback together, an opportunity for the employee to ask questions or seek clarification, and some time to set goals, plans and next steps. Be sure to share a copy of the review with them afterwards. Some organizations will also share a copy of the review beforehand, so the employee has the opportunity to process it and come prepared with questions. However, if there is feedback you’d prefer to deliver in person, or that requires additional context, sharing it during the meeting may be the best option.

Setting Performance Plans and Goals

A great outcome from the review process is setting each individual’s goals, and reviewing any they may have set already. Goal setting should be a collaborative process between the team member and their manager, and take the following into account:

• Their job description, job level, and how different competencies and expectations apply to it. Are there any gaps?
• Alternatively are there any areas where they are already excelling or especially interested in? 
• Do they want to grow to the next job level? Are they missing any skills or competencies to reach that?
• Do the goals connect to the overall organizational mission, vision and goals? Not all goals need to connect directly, but this is something to keep in mind. 

Goals should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Timebound. For example, “Get better at communication” isn’t a great goal; it’s not very specific or measurable. A goal like “Complete training on public speaking by May” would work much better. 

Bright + Early is a friendly and forward-thinking HR consultancy providing embedded HR support as well as custom policy work, people programs, and compensation consulting for nonprofits and other values-driven organizations. If you’re looking to build your own career frameworks and performance management systems, they can help.