Employee evaluations are more than just routine assessments. They are opportunities to boost morale, ignite motivation, and foster growth. And, to achieve that, employee evaluation comments shouldn’t be subjective, generic, or not action-based.
In this article, you’ll discover 100 employee evaluation comments that will help you turn performance reviews into engines of progress. Whether you’re a manager looking for impactful feedback tools, or an HR expert with a mission to revamp the evaluation experience.
These employee evaluation comments serve as templates and examples. They provide people with a structured framework to create more helpful and constructive feedback. And how?
They offer specific, actionable language that can be adapted to various situations. This makes it easier for people to communicate effectively during performance reviews. Individuals can articulate their observations and recommendations more clearly. As a result, the evaluation process fuels with meaningful and productive conversations.
How employee evaluation comments can make or break the evaluation process
To build a stronger, more productive workforce, it’s critical to bridge the gap between vague feedback and actionable advice. Let’s take a look at how actionable, precise feedback differs from a vague comment.
Vague comment: “You need to do better with communication.”
Actionable feedback: “To boost your communication skills, become more concise in your emails and provide specific examples to explain complex ideas. Also, you could work more on active listening and empathy to understand other people’s perspectives.”
The difference is crystal clear, isn’t it?
Managers sometimes find it challenging to offer actionable feedback. And this doesn’t happen because they simply don’t care. More often than not, this occurs due to time constraints or improper training. They need to learn how to deliver constructive feedback, as well as have a clear roadmap and reliable resources to structure their comments effectively.
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Then, they’ll be able to empower employees to thrive by fostering growth and building confidence.
But why do personalized evaluation comments inspire, motivate, and transform an organization into a realm of endless possibilities?
Why it pays to provide evaluation comments people resonate with
Career growth and development don’t happen without regular and meaningful feedback. According to Gallup, employees who receive meaningful feedback are almost four times more likely to be engaged. Plus, approximately 37% of employees believe that increased personal recognition would serve as motivation to enhance their work performance.
Why? Employee evaluation comments are often too harsh, too ambiguous, or too generic. This leaves employees feeling confused, demotivated, and unappreciated.
But the biggest concern is that employee performance comments aren’t just reserved for line managers. In many companies, employees receive feedback from peers, senior managers, and training managers. Sometimes, they even need to rate their own performance in order to truly understand where their potential lies.
For these feedback conversations to offer value, it’s important to use performance appraisal comments that are phrased simply, clearly, constructively, and delivered with a dash of “human touch.”
So, we’ve created a list of helpful performance evaluation comments phrased in plain language to give you a head start on your next appraisal!
Evaluation comments your teams will find valuable
No matter your industry, the following phrases are a surefire way to build your confidence in delivering effective feedback to employees. These are 100 of the most valuable employee performance evaluation comments. These can also be customized for your own feedback conversations.
Download our employee evaluations comments list
Tailor the comments to your needs and deliver effective feedback 
Communication skills
Communication is the glue that holds people together in an organization and keeps them working toward a shared goal. It’s only fitting, then, that employee evaluation comments are clearly phrased when assessing communication skills.
Positive:
1. “You deliver instructions and explain expectations with clarity and purpose.”
2. “You listen well in meetings with colleagues.”
3. “You never interrupt colleagues when they offer opinions or suggestions.”
4. “You express your opinions clearly, carefully, and objectively.”
5. “You make arguments in a constructive and convincing way.”
Needs improvement:
6. “You can improve clarity and confidence in speaking.”
7. “You sometimes have trouble expressing your thoughts and ideas clearly.”
8. “You tend to interrupt others, making communication difficult.”
9. “You struggle with accepting and responding to feedback constructively.”
10. “You could work more on active listening and showing empathy to colleagues.”
Leadership and management skills
Employee appraisal comments are often made by leaders and managers to employees, not the other way around. However, senior employees also need feedback in order to become the best leaders and managers they can be. For example, an employee could be encouraged during the evaluation process to take online leadership courses in order to hone their managerial skills.
The following comments are useful for aspiring leaders, too:
Positive:
11. “You prepare your team with the resources and training necessary to perform well in their jobs.”
12. “You hold employees accountable for their own performance and goal achievement.”
13. “You often recognize and reward employees for positive workplace behaviors.”
14. “You successfully guide employees on ways to contribute to the company’s vision.”
15. “You serve as a role model by consistently behaving in line with the company’s values.”
Needs improvement:
16. “You sometimes have trouble leading the team well, which can create confusion or disagreements.”
17. “You can do better at explaining expectations and giving clear directions.”
18. “You need to help team members more when it comes to staying motivated and engaged.”
19. “You can improve at problem-solving and handling conflicts.”
20. “You should work on setting a positive example and demonstrating a strong work ethic for team members to follow.”
Teamwork and collaboration abilities
Comments on staff performance reviews are often concerned with teamwork, team building, and collaboration. Especially in high-innovation and project-based environments. If this describes your team, then these are the comments to use:
Positive:
21. “You make others feel competent and appreciated.”
22. “You’re always willing to help others in their tasks.”
23. “You often share knowledge and ideas with other team members.”
24. “You trust and support other team members to take ownership of their tasks.”
25. “You’re great at building positive relationships with others on your team.”
Needs improvement:
26. “You sometimes find it hard to work well with the team, leading to disagreements.”
27. “You should improve communication to build better relationships with your peers.”
28. “You tend to focus more on personal goals rather than team goals.”
29. “You can work more on appreciating various viewpoints and fostering inclusion.”
30. “You rarely share knowledge and ideas with other colleagues.”
Time management and delegation skills
In today’s crazy, fast-paced world, many employees fail to effectively manage their time through time-saving strategies like delegation and prioritization. Here are some time management comments for employee evaluation:
Positive:
31. “You never run out of time to complete tasks.”
32. “You prioritize your tasks in order of importance and urgency very well.”
33. “You never arrive late for meetings.”
34. “You delegate tasks to colleagues who have the skills and time to complete them.”
35. “You consistently meet deadlines.”
Needs improvement:
36. “You find it hard to manage time well, resulting in missing deadlines or rushing work.”
37. “You have trouble prioritizing tasks in order of importance and urgency.”
38. “You usually delay tasks, leading to rushed and lower-quality work.”
39. “You can do better with organizing and planning to get more things done.”
40. “You should give some tasks to others to handle workload more effectively.”
Creativity and innovation
Margaret Heffernan once said: “For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate.” Here are a few employee evaluation comments for assessing the behaviors and abilities that lead to innovation:
Positive:
41. “You often find new and novel solutions to problems.”
42. “You are curious and seek different perspectives.”
43. “You are always willing for experimentation.”
44. “You strike the right balance between rules and standards and creativity and exploration.”
45. “You frequently share new ideas in team meetings.”
Needs improvement:
46. “Your work is technically good, but it needs a more creative approach to stand out.”
47. “You usually give solutions that are too standard and not unique.”
48. “You often seem stuck and unable to find new ways to solve problems.”
49. “You don’t like to try new things and experiment.”
50. “You struggle to adapt and think of new ideas in team meetings.”
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Administrative skills
Administration is important in every business and every industry. These skills are often easily measured. This makes it possible for employees’ performance evaluation comments about administrative skills to be clear and simple:
Positive:
51. “You maintain an organized filing system.”
52. “You frequently find more efficient ways to sort and organize documents.”
53. “You capture and sort information in an organized and efficient manner.”
54. “You never lose or misplace documents or files.”
55. “You rarely make errors when capturing data.”
Needs improvement:
56. “You must work on improving your filing system organization.”
57. “You should discover more efficient ways to sort and organize documents.”
58. “You must refine your approach when capturing and sorting information.”
59. “You often misplace documents or files.”
60. “You could work on reducing errors when handling data.”
Achieving goals
Every company has a strategic vision that is cascaded down to each and every employee’s own performance goals. When employees don’t achieve their goals, the company can’t realize its vision, either. This makes work evaluation comments about achievement super important:
Positive:
61. “You consistently work hard to achieve your performance goals.”
62. “You willingly request the training and support necessary to achieve your goals.”
63. “Your performance is in line with your peers.”
64. “You never fail to meet your performance objectives.”
65. “You always deliver the desired results when goals are realistic.”
Needs improvement:
66. “You should boost your efforts in achieving your performance goals.”
67. “You must proactively seek more training opportunities and support to achieve your goals.”
68. “You consistently underperform in comparison to your peers.”
69. “You often fail to meet your performance objectives.”
70. “You don’t deliver the desired results, despite the fact that goals are realistic.”
Problem-solving skills
Has there ever been a business without a problem to solve? The likely answer is NO. So, all employees need problem-solving abilities in order for the company to continuously grow and improve. We’ve listed the most important problem-solving evaluation remarks for employees below:
Positive:
71. “You remain calm and collected in the face of new problems.”
72. “You tackle problems with a calm, practical, and proactive approach.”
73. “You always suggest solutions that are evidence-based.”
74. “You always consider alternative solutions to a problem.”
75. “You focus on the cause of the problem instead of the symptoms of the problem.”
Needs improvement:
76. “You have trouble solving complex problems, causing delays or inefficiencies.”
77. “You focus too much on symptoms rather than digging into the root causes of issues.”
78. “You should work on a more systematic and logical way to solve problems.”
79. “You must improve your collaboration skills with colleagues when solving problems.”
80. “You should focus more on boosting innovation and creativity when finding solutions to issues.”
Productivity
When employees aren’t productive, the company isn’t performing optimally. But high productivity requires that employees ‘work smart’ and never exchange quality for quantity. Here are a few sample employee evaluation comments for assessing productivity:
Positive:
81. “You consistently meet production expectations.”
82. “You frequently meet the team’s production goals.”
83. “You significantly contribute to our team’s productivity.”
84. “You have improved productivity since our last evaluation.”
85. “You’ve never sacrificed quality to increase productivity.”
Needs improvement:
86. “You don’t meet expectations and regularly need extra assistance or revisions.”
87. “You struggle with paying attention to detail, leading to mistakes.”
88. “You often rush your work and bring lower-quality results.”
89. “You must take more responsibility for your work and ensure it matches the required standards.”
90. “You should get more training and support to improve your skills and quality of work.”
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Learning and development
Learning and development is a key competitive advantage for companies today. But it’s also a personal journey of growth and career advancement for many employees. For this reason, self-evaluations are often used to assess learning and development.
These often take the form of self-report questionnaires where employees rate their learning on a Likert scale of 1 to 5. You can also use a post-training evaluation email to gather more insights. Here are some of the most valuable employee self-evaluation comments that should be included in these questionnaires:
“I…”
91. “learn new skills in order to adapt to change.”
92. “actively encourage my colleagues to learn.”
93. “shy away from learning as a team.”
94. “strive to promote learning in the workplace.”
95. “see mistakes as an opportunity for learning and development.”
96. “ask for feedback to improve my skills.”
97. “usually wait for learning opportunities.”
98. “don’t always take feedback well.”
99. “struggle with changes.”
100. “set clear goals for myself.”
Crafting growth-focused employee evaluation comments
Providing employee evaluation comments with growth in mind brings continuous improvement within organizations.
Employees are empowered and view evaluations as opportunities for development and not as mere assessments. Such a shift in perspective boosts individual performance and contributes to a culture of excellence and innovation.
Your employee evaluation comments could be better phrased to promote employee learning and growth. Plus, leave your teams feeling confident about their performance.
Originally published on: 02 Jan 2019 | Tags: Employee Engagement
