Performance Appraisal Phrases

Performance appraisal is a time-consuming and scrupulous process, which requires a thorough and detailed employee assessment. However, you should not abolish it since performance reviews are essential for company development. They help to fix trust issues, increase job performance and steer employees in the right direction. Additionally, performance reviews allow hiring managers to easily identify the best promotion candidates.
If you have never written performance appraisals before, you might have a hard time finding the perfect words to describe your employee. Fortunately, our handy examples can make your life easier. On this page, you will find both positive and negative review phrases for different topics. Do note that they should only serve as a guidance. Supplement them with relevant data about your employees to achieve the best results.

Accountability

Accountability is the ability of an individual to take responsibilities for their actions and face the outcomes. Accountable employees demonstrate understanding of the company’s goals and are always ready to take more responsibilities. Employees who blame others for their mistakes and do not want to deal with difficult tasks cannot be held accountable.

Positive phrases:
• Timothy is always willing to take responsibility for his team’s actions and work results.
• Marta understands the importance of deadlines and always performs her tasks in time.
• Greg is capable of recognizing his mistakes and is never afraid to face the consequences.
• Julia is very good at recognizing her mistakes and holds herself responsible for the outcome.
• Peter listens to the opinion of his team and never puts his own interests before those of the others.
Negative phrases:
• Delilah avoids difficult tasks.
• Greg lacks confidence and fails to deliver his point of view.
• Jennifer cannot deal with stress and often makes mistakes.
• Peter tends to shift responsibilities to other members of the team.
• Marta never accepts her mistakes and tries to think of excuses in case of any failure.
More examples for accountability

Accuracy

Accuracy is the ability to perform work correctly and free from errors.

Positive phrases:
• Trevor does not tolerate inaccuracies.
• George always gives exact instructions.
• Peter comes up with the most detailed plans.
• Robert is a diligent worker that makes no mistakes.
• Gloria verifies the accuracy of data before entering it.
Negative phrases:
• Monica is sloppy with paperwork.
• Tamara cannot focus on the work.
• Ingrid’s documents are full of mistakes.
• Edward has the highest defect rate in the team.
• Rachel fails to conduct accurate market researches.
More examples for accuracy

Adaptability

Adaptability is the personality trait that determines how an individual responds to change. It shows how good your employee can deal with unexpected situations. Adaptable employees never resist change but readily embrace it. They quickly get used to any environment and always remain calm and confident. Such people are more likely to meet the tight deadlines and complete difficult tasks.

Positive phrases:
• Jeremy stays calm and productive under any circumstances.
• Raymond acknowledges and recognizes any proposal for change.
• Sarah is quick in adapting to change in the performance of the duties.
• Sue is initiative at work by adopting appropriate methods to perform the duties.
• Jeremy is always aware of new effective approaches to apply to conducting businesses.
Negative phrases:
• Greg is not willing to perform new duties.
• Jake cannot handle sudden changes because of stress.
• Sophia is not able to focus on multiple tasks at once.
• Rita becomes overly nervous after sudden plan changes.
• Henry gets very upset and unproductive when things are not going according to plan.
More examples for adaptability

Advising

Advising is providing counsel, guidance, and suggestions to less experienced employees.

Positive phrases:
• Edward makes great recommendations for his mentees.
• Susan is a highly talented mentor with years of experience.
• Monica is a very inspiring and motivating managing employee.
• Arthur generates wonderful training programs for new employees.
• Trevor always finds the right words to explain problems of any difficulty.
Negative phrases:
• Tabitha does not want to improve her mentoring skills.
• Peter fails to help new employees solve their problems.
• Donald hates to review and assess other people’s work.
• John rarely finds time to discuss issues with employees.
• Henry never lets his subordinates deviate from his plans.
More examples for advising

Ambition

Ambition at work is a willingness to achieve more power, wealth, and recognition.

Positive phrases:
• Thomas is motivated on success.
• Olivia’s enthusiasm is contagious.
• Edward is constantly outperforming himself.
• Abigail does not afraid to take risks and dream big.
• James demonstrates boundless enthusiasm and energy every single day.
Negative phrases:
• Bruce never visits training courses.
• James does not pursue his dreams.
• Trevor does not believe he is fit for managing positions.
• Donald is an underperformer who seems to hate his job.
• Jennifer refuses to take more responsibilities in the workplace.
More examples for ambition

Analytical skills

Applying analytical skills is essential in problem-solving and decision-making processes.

Positive phrases:
• Grace uses pure facts to address issues.
• Samantha deeply analyzes every problem.
• Rachel considers even the smallest details.
• Emily uses professional data analysis software.
• Abigail makes informed and effective decisions.
Negative phrases:
• Daniel cannot think outside the box.
• Elaine makes baseless assumptions.
• Anthony cannot perform deep data analysis.
• Vincent forgets important nuances of his projects.
• William misses many details when analyzing data.
More examples for analytical skills

Appearance/Hygiene

Appearance is the physical appearance of the employee at work. It includes such factors as cleanliness, neatness, grooming and accordance with the dress code policy of the company.

Positive phrases:
• Jeremy has a perfect sense of style and always looks professional.
• She has an exquisite sense of style when it comes to choosing work attire.
• Alan has a very welcoming character and everyone in the office likes him.
• Sara presents herself well, so she always makes a great first impression.
• Sam is always dressed in business attire, which makes his appear more trustworthy to our clients.
Negative phrases:
• Greg does not follow the grooming standards of the company.
• Marta’s appearance does not project an image of professionalism.
• Sometimes Greta shows up at work with uncombed hair and bad makeup.
• James often breaks the company’s dress code by wearing overly vulgar attires.
• Hayden wears revealing clothes that distract other employees from focusing on the work.
More examples for appearance / hygiene

Assertiveness

Assertiveness is a must-have quality for employees whose job is to change other people’s opinions.

Positive phrases:
• Olivia agrees to disagree.
• Ellie honestly expresses her thoughts.
• Henry speaks up for himself in a respectful way.
• Abigail listens to others but has her own opinion.
• Abby gets what she deserves without being aggressive.
Negative phrases:
• Bruce is afraid to ask for help.
• Michael hates holding eye contact.
• Janet defends her ideas aggressively.
• Oliver seems unconfident when giving speeches.
• Lionel stays silent instead of standing up for himself.
More examples for assertiveness

Attendance and punctuality

Employees are required to be punctual at work. Their attendance can indicate whether they like his job or not and if they are lazy. No boss will like an employee who always turns up late at work, no matter how talented he is. Therefore, attendance appraisal is very necessary, though it is not a good idea to mention this during a lunch or break time. As a manager, you should choose the right moment and right phrases for your employees. That is critical.

Positive phrases:
• Harry never misses work without prior notifications.
• Rachel completes all her tasks within the set deadlines.
• Heather is such a reliable employee that we never see her turn up late at work.
• Bill always complies well with our rules of attendance and break. He is attentive and very careful.
• Greg has improved much his punctuality in this year. Well, we can forget about check his attendance now.
Negative phrases:
• Tamara often fails to call in sick.
• Alfred’s attendance leaves much to be desired.
• John always takes breaks longer than he is allowed.
• Rachel frequently takes long breaks and misses team meetings.
• It seems that Ryan doesn’t pay attention to or respect our attendance policy.
More examles for attendance and punctuality

Attention to detail

Attention to detail is the ability to stay concentrated and focused when completing tasks.

Positive phrases:
• Michelle carefully checks paperwork for mistakes.
• Elaine always reviews her work after completing it.
• Abigail uses calendars and day planners to stay very organized.
• Rachel is a highly attentive employee who never makes mistakes.
• Olivia performs every single task with exceptional attention to detail.
Negative phrases:
• George keeps overlooking small details on a regular basis.
• Even the smallest office distractions make Henry lose focus.
• Peter is too tolerant of errors so his accuracy leaves much to be desired.
• Donald refuses to take breaks and makes many mistakes because of that.
• Aaron makes careless comments to clients due to the short attention span.
More examles for attention to detail

Attitude

Among factors to consider in performance appraisal, many people deem attitude the most important one. This is especially correct for an employee, as an employee with good attitude will be very useful in working with customers and getting on well with everyone in the team. On the other hand, in fact, poor service attitude is the factor damaging the most of a company’s reputation. No matter how good your products are, bad service attitude will only drive your customer away. So, this factor should be considered the most carefully in a performance appraisal.

Positive appraisal:
• Hayden is a cordial person who is always happy to help.
• Peter gets gloomy very rarely. He is a real pleasure to deal with.
• Jeremy looks for ways to assist other people even in the most difficult situations.
• John is always happy to receive new project and willing and eager to learn new things.
• He always smiles when coming to work and gives off a positive vibe to his team members.
Negative appraisal:
• Emma criticizes her colleagues too often.
• His poor attitude is influence on his work performance.
• Ben fails to keep a positive attitude in tense situations.
• He always shows a negative attitude towards getting his work done.
• Ronald is very snobbish. Other employees do not like to work with him.
More examples for attitude

Business trend awareness

Business trend awareness demonstrates a person’s ability to identify the directions in which businesses are developing.

Positive appraisal:
• Abigail develops trendsetting products.
• Thomas anticipates customer behavior.
• James utilizes innovative work methods.
• Steven successfully predicts future trends.
• Edna increases profits through accurate analysis.
Negative appraisal:
• Olivia never reads business news.
• Trevor cannot use forecasting tools.
• Bruce ignores industry trends reports.
• Henry conducts inaccurate market research.
• Donald does not care about customer reviews.
More examples for business trend awareness

Caring workplace

Caring workplace is one where employees genuinely care about each other and customers.

Positive appraisal:
• Marta relates to her subordinates and treats them as equals.
• Trevor always tries doing more than required in the workplace.
• Susan shows genuine care for both employees and customers.
• James takes time to make sure her work is complete and accurate.
• Edna makes sure each employee is entitled to an adequate space for work.
Negative appraisal:
• Steven often shows up late and ungroomed.
• Oliver makes many harsh comments in the workplace.
• Richard keeps breaking up office equipment due to carelessness.
• Howard fails to keep a smile on his face when working in the office.
• Donald never cleans his desk and does not follow office kitchen etiquette.
More examples for caring workplace

Collaboration

Collaboration in the workplace is vital for any company. Employees should be able to work together in order to successfully accomplish common goals. That is why you have to consider cooperation skill while conducting appraisals. Useful review phrases listed below will help you to do that.

Positive appraisal:
• George works well on teams.
• Jack respects other members of the team, including new employees.
• Gabriel is equally great at working both independently and on a team.
• If Leonardo sees that his co-worker does not cope with their responsibilities, he always helps them.
• Walter is the leader of the group he has created. He gives tasks that are suitable for each of his teammates.
Negative appraisal:
• He has to learn to be more constructive and less destructive.
• Leonardo never helps his co-workers, even when they ask him to.
• She never helps other members of the team even if they ask her to.
• Nathaniel has not become a part of the group even after his boss required it.
• Jonathan got much advice for his work, but he is not open to ideas of his co-workers.
More examples for collaboration

Commercial awareness/Business acumen

Commercial awareness/business acumen is the ability to make optimal business decisions that would benefit the company.

Positive appraisal:
• Susan has boosted our profits.
• James generates great product ideas.
• Albert pays attention to business news.
• Rachel is getting along with customers.
• Benjamin gets good prices from suppliers.
Negative appraisal:
• Our stakeholders do not like Stacy.
• Henry ignores the latest industry trends.
• Michael often makes inefficient decisions.
• Ronald cannot focus on the main objectives.
• Olivia does not know a thing about our products.
More examples for business acumen

Commitment

Commitment is a willingness to dedicate time and energy to the work. Committed employees always try to perform the job on the highest level possible.

Positive appraisal:
• Wendy obeys workplace policies and regulations.
• Trevor is exceptionally dedicated to the company.
• Sometimes Sandra skips breaks to avoid backlogs of work.
• Sandra is self-motivated and strives to complete all the tasks on time.
• Elisabeth does not take a break until she finishes the job. She is a result-oriented person.
Negative appraisal:
• Linda can only work under supervision.
• Harry severely lacks commitment to work.
• James works very slow and lacks accuracy.
• Stephen does not adhere to the goals of his team.
• Samantha does not manifest a single sign of dedication to her job.
More examples for commitment

Communication

Workplace nowadays requires very much from an effective communication, whether for a brick-n-store, online or market-place position, and whether verbal or written. This is also a criterion to be reflected in the performance appraisal. In this regard, communication with customers and with other colleagues should be paid more attention.

Positive appraisal:
• David is great at organizing conferences.
• Brenda makes us surprised at her communication skills.
• John has effective communication skills in both verbal and written language.
• Jane has such a talent that she can communicate very well in six kinds of language.
• Thanks to John’s good communication skills, his team members are pleased to work with him.
Negative appraisal:
• Trevor fails to build trust among his subordinates.
• Sometimes Ursula fails to build a contact with the audience.
• Oliver has serious communication problems in the workplace.
• Jim has very bad communication skill, both verbal and written.
• Wendy is uncomfortable when responding to questions during interviews.
More examples for communications

Computer skills

Computer skills allow employees to operate computers.

Positive appraisal:
• Anna easily adapts to new software.
• Helen overcomes software errors easily.
• Grace uses her workplace computer for work only.
• Faith is familiar with most computer hardware components.
• Samuel installs and configures software in the shortest period.
Negative appraisal:
• Victoria has a terrible typing speed.
• Diego hates to adapt to new software.
• Giselle cannot handle software errors.
• Simon does not use advanced software.
• Vincent does not know how to turn on a computer.
More examples for computer skills

Consistency

Consistency is the ability to steadily set and achieve goals as well as meet deadlines and promises.

Positive appraisal:
• James provides consistent results.
• Gwen always reaches sales goals.
• Michael consistently meets deadlines.
• Arthur is motivated to succeed in the workplace.
• Thomas builds his willpower to achieve consistency.
Negative appraisal:
• Bruce misses deadlines very often.
• Trevor consistently arrives at work late.
• Donald easily loses motivation and focus.
• Henry fails to become a consistent employee.
• Olivia does not know how to develop consistency.
More examples for consistency

Cooperation

Cooperation has long become an essential part in organizational culture. It may be demonstrated in forms of a simple action to share information or experience with other or of some helpful assistance with handling a problem. It is the decisive factor to ensure smooth running of the organization, the efficiency of every member. Working in cooperation with others is very important to the success of the whole team.

Positive appraisal:
• Jeremy works in agreement with other employees.
• Jack always puts requests of his clients above other things.
• Bruce demonstrates unmatched willingness to assist others.
• Abigail does every task assigned to her without any objections.
• Aaron quickly establishes rapport with both colleagues and clients.
Negative appraisal:
• Wendy fails to create a harmonious team.
• George refuses to assist others on the job.
• Peter refuses to cooperate with other employees.
• Michael often blames others for his own mistakes.
• Trevor demonstrates lack of cooperation during group projects.
More examples for cooperation

Conflict management

Conflict management is the process of identifying and resolving issues between two or more parties.

Positive phrases:
• Emma is a careful listener.
• Gloria treats others with respect.
• Thomas never initiates conflicts.
• Michael quickly finds compromises.
• Abigail makes angry customers happy.
Negative phrases:
• Helen is very stubborn.
• George aggravates conflicts.
• Bruce never yields in conflicts.
• Donald blames others all the time.
• Susan rarely reaches compromises.
More examples for conflict management

Controlling costs

Controlling costs allows for minimizing the expenses of a company.

Positive phrases:
• Greg uses free open source software.
• Peter completes his projects under budget.
• Wendy develops good cost-reducing solutions.
• Michael minimizes paper waste by using email.
• Harry hire interns and freelancers to reduce production costs.
Negative phrases:
• Monica keeps her PC on all the time.
• Susan forgets to pay invoices in time.
• George makes unnecessary purchases.
• Jeremy does not even try to reduce costs.
• Olivia makes employees to print all the documents.
More examples for controlling costs

Creativity, pro-active traits and innovation

A creative quality is always of great use to any organization. It shall not boost the whole performance but create many opportunities to develop in the future. A creative employee is initiative at work, which not only contributes to the whole success of his organization but increases his loyalty as well. Our success will depend much on such dedicated members.

Positive appraisal:
• Ryan owns a kill to take creative ideas with effective solutions.
• Jake creates very creative promotional posters that attract many customers.
• That is remarkable that Clinton can always come up with beautiful ideas to handle his tasks.
• Terry has a unique imagination and creates some of the most innovative things we have known.
• Sally always seeks new innovative approaches to her work and applies the same at her workplace.
Negative appraisal:
• Robert never demonstrates originality in the workplace.
• Edward actively discourages most of the new procedures.
• Michelle does not even try to come up with creative ideas.
• Ally is unresponsive to risky situations. She tends to avoid things that are different from her way.
• We should require Kailan to be more creative in his job. He shouldn’t follow everything he was asked to.
More examples for creativity

Critical thinking

Critical thinking means that one can make reasonable assumptions and decisions regarding details or processes. A person with critical thinking skill will be able to handle problems very well and come up with solutions in a matter of seconds. Critical thinking can be a valuable quality of employee, if it is used properly.

Positive phrases:
• Rachel is excellent at strategic planning.
• Oliver has exceptional analytical and reasoning skills.
• Edward considers both the tactical and strategic aspects of solutions.
• Janet thoroughly and methodically analyzes data to solve difficult problems.
• John always considers carefully situations to work out the most suitable solution.
Negative phrases:
• Michael rarely puts his analytical skills into practice.
• Emma rushes to judgement before gathering enough data.
• Abigail draws conclusions based not on analysis but on emotions.
• It is not good if John makes such a quick decision without considering carefully.
• John is too hasty to make such an important decision. It gives me a bad feeling seeing that.
More examples for critical thinking

Customer focus

Customer focus is the orientation of an employee toward serving the needs of the clients.

Positive phrases:
• Marta is wonderful at customer relations.
• Abigail represents the company very well.
• Jack relates to customers exceedingly well.
• Tamara easily overcomes objections of her clients.
• Rachel has developed an incredibly loyal customer base.
Negative phrases:
• Nathan fails to reassure unhappy customers.
• Trevor chews gum while speaking with clients.
• Robert presents a sloppy and uncaring image.
• Customers with many questions annoy Robert easily.
• Valerie has lost temper with customers on several occasions.
More examples for customer focus

Customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is a measure of how services provided by an employee meet customer expectation. It indicates whether clients are happy with the overall experience with your organization.

Positive phrases:
• Harry strives to deliver the best support to every client.
• Marta is able to find a unique approach to any customer.
• Jeremy meets every customer with a broad smile on his face.
• Claire helps new employees to improve their customer service skills.
• Jim’s customers always rate him high in customer satisfaction surveys.
Negative phrases:
• Lionel has an impolite and harsh attitude. He drives customers insane.
• Evan has to display a better knowledge of his profession to customers.
• Rachel always receives bad scores for customer satisfaction in surveys.
• Oliver looks unprofessional and untidy. Customers do not like dealing with him.
• Robert is not willing to assist customers with problems that require a thorough analysis.
More examples for customer satisfaction

Decision making

Decision-making skills are very important for senior employees and team leaders. Good decision makers tend to choose the best solutions in the shortest time, so they are welcomed in any company.

Positive phrases:
• Michael’s decisions are well-thought-out.
• Sarah is able to make sound fact-based judgments.
• Trevor never fails to choose an appropriate solution.
• Richard makes the best decisions in a timely manner.
• Sandra never lets her emotions affect choosing an appropriate decision.
Negative phrases:
• Greta never makes bold decisions.
• Ben is too inattentive to deal with unordinary situations.
• Paul tends to use overly difficult time-consumable solutions.
• James rarely assists his colleagues to find an optimal solution.
• Cindy does not analyze all the options when making the final decision.
More examples for decision making

Delegating

Delegating allows an employee to get things done by other people.

Positive phrases:
• George always shares credit with subordinates.
• Helen assists her delegates when it is required.
• Anna keeps an eye on the progress of the delegated tasks.
• Abigail supplies subordinates with the right tools and information.
• Edward manages to pick the most fitting employees when delegating.
Negative phrases:
• Emma refuses to delegate work.
• Arthur provides unclear instructions.
• Donald micromanages tasks he delegates.
• Ronald delegates tasks to the wrong employees.
• Michael does not provide instructions when delegating.
More examples for delegating

Dependability

Dependability in the workplace is the quality of being truthful and reliable. Dependable employees can always be counted on.

Positive phrases:
• Michael always gets to work on time.
• Robert has an impeccable attendance record.
• Ben always performs at or above our expectations.
• Peter does his best to accomplish tasks assigned to him.
• Bruce is a talented manager who can achieve any production goals.
Negative phrases:
• Harry fails to handle assignments within tight deadlines.
• Michael does not accept responsibilities for missed deadlines.
• Marta fails to contribute satisfactory work in a regular manner.
• Lionel is a very diligent employee, but he requires supervision.
• Aaron fails to achieve his personal goals. He is not ambitious enough.
More examples for dependability

Detail-mindedness

Detail-mindedness is the quality of being diligent and precise in the workplace.

Positive phrases:
• James never makes any mistakes.
• Gwen is a diligent and attentive employee.
• Nothing can distract Sandra from her work.
• Valerie puts extra efforts to reduce mistakes.
• Emma double-checks every document before turning it in.
Negative phrases:
• James overlooks important details.
• Albert turns a blind eye to minor issues.
• Thomas is unorganized and unenthusiastic.
• Henry does not pay attention to small nuances.
• Anna does not check her paperwork for mistakes.
More examples for detail-mindedness

Emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence is the ability to read and manage one’s feelings, as well as the feelings of other people.

Positive phrases:
• Rachel is in full control of her feelings.
• Emily strives to befriend every colleague.
• Valerie reads other’s emotions amazingly well.
• Thomas demonstrates outstanding social skills.
• James finds the right approach to every person.
Negative phrases:
• Peter acts irrationally under stress.
• Henry is afraid to provide feedback.
• Michael makes rushed decisions in crises.
• Bruce does not communicate with colleagues.
• Ronald cannot find a common ground with colleagues.
More examples for emotional intelligence

Employee’s respond to performance appraisals and coaching

Employee’s respond to performance appraisals and coaching reflects on their ability to self-improvement.

Positive phrases:
• Michael accepts his mistakes.
• Jennifer is interested in others’ opinions.
• Albert never misses learning opportunities.
• Samantha attends every coaching session.
• Stephen uses feedback to improve himself.
Negative phrases:
• Oliver takes criticism personally.
• George views criticism as an offense.
• Ronald disregards any sort of criticism.
• Susan never attends coaching sessions.
• Jeremy gets offended to negative feedback.
More examples for employee’s respond to performance appraisals

Engagement skills

Engagement skills are used to build strong connections with customers and employees.

Positive phrases:
• Arthur easily turns unhappy customers into regular clients.
• Louie does everything he can to improve customer service.
• Monica is a great speaker who is able to engage any audience.
• Sandra writes amazing marketing messages for potential clients.
• Thomas has wonderful relationships with most of the subordinates.
Negative phrases:
• Oliver does not invest in customer experience.
• Yvonne has not built trust with her subordinates.
• Trevor does not keep his promises to the employees.
• Henry often makes inappropriate jokes to his employees.
• John is only focusing on the mistakes made by his subordinates.
More examples for engagement skills

Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm in the workplace shows how interested an employee is in completing the job.

Positive phrases:
• Jessica is ready to do what it takes to finish the job.
• Yvonne strives to help as many customers as she can.
• Helen never gives up no matter how difficult the problem is.
• Henry does not lose enthusiasm even in the direst situations.
• Steven looks genuinely happy after completing challenging tasks.
Negative phrases:
• Peter fails to maintain a positive attitude at work.
• Susan has no motivation to master new software.
• Portia is always the first person to leave the office.
• Ronald is not willing to improve his professional skills.
• Thomas lacks the motivation to work on challenging tasks.
More examples for enthusiasm

Entrepreneurial skills

Entrepreneurial skills comprise a bunch of qualities required to plan and manage projects in order to achieve goals.

Positive phrases:
• Gwen is not afraid to experiment.
• Helen can sell anything to anyone.
• Michael is a respected team leader.
• Angelina helps colleagues to organize work.
• Robert manages multiple projects without much fuss.
Negative phrases:
• Peter is a poor project manager.
• Jessica does not generate good ideas.
• Trevor has a poor understanding of marketing.
• Sam cannot develop a proper business strategy.
• Emma does not know a thing about management.
More examples for entrepreneurial skills

Ethics

Ethics are the moral guidelines followed by a person. They improve a company’s reputation and help employees to maintain a positive work environment.

Positive phrases:
• Rachel argues vigorously for fair dealing.
• Yvonne always demonstrates integrity and honesty.
• Monica has a reputation of a very honest employee.
• Trevor is very honest and scrupulous in all activities.
• Clyde can easily resolve any disputes with customers.
Negative phrases:
• Robert violates the company’s dress code.
• Jack does not take novice employees seriously.
• Marta participates in gossip and spreads rumors.
• Sandra violates ethical guidelines of the company.
• Jennifer does not follow some of the company’s policies.
More examples for ethics

Executive skills

Executive skills are vital for senior managers who set priorities, coordinate teams, and lead projects.

Positive phrases:
• Thomas sets the right example for his employees.
• Michael helps subordinates to deepen their skills.
• Gwen has made a bunch of great deals with our partners.
• James always takes responsibility for the team’s mistakes.
• Arthur never micromanages but provides help when needed.
Negative phrases:
• Olivia fails to define clear objectives for her team.
• Bruce micromanages other employees all the time.
• Donald cannot build trust with his own subordinates.
• Henry is bad at negotiating contracts with our partners.
• Trevor makes a lot of rash decisions due to his impatience.
More examples for executive skills

Feedback, receiving and giving

The ability to receive and give feedback allows employees to identify their mistakes and change for the better.

Positive appraisal:
• Edna gives useful commentaries.
• Valerie provides people with amazing advice.
• Jennifer analyzes feedback to her own good.
• Samantha is glad when people give her advice.
• Trevor accepts commentaries with a smile on his face.
Negative appraisal:
• Emma is not open to feedback.
• George can’t take any criticism.
• Peter gives poor commentaries.
• Arnold ignores customer reviews.
• Gwen refuses to listen to feedback.
More examples for Feedback

Flexibility

Flexibility is the ability to respond and adapt to changing circumstances and unexpected situations. Flexible employees are able to easily modify their approach based on certain demands.

Positive phrases:
• Marta adapts to changes in the workplace without any difficulties.
• Peter does not mind working extra hours in order to meet the deadline.
• Quentin is a very flexible employee, so he can be trusted with any task.
• Nathan can easily change the focus of work at the request of the supervisor.
• Cindy stays productive even when faced with unexpected changes in strategy.
Negative phrases:
• Robert fails to rapidly change the course of action in stressful situations.
• Aaron becomes overly nervous when dealing with unexpected situations.
• Trevor cannot cope with extra work. He becomes overly nervous and grumpy.
• When dealing with difficult issues, Jessica fails to find proper solutions in time.
• Susan is willing to take additional tasks, but she is very bad at setting priorities.
More examples for flexibility

Goal achievement

Goal achievement is the ability to concentrate on completing the tasks required to achieve an objective.

Positive phrases:
• Janet completes all the objectives in time.
• Emma is aimed at achieving personal goals.
• Arthur consistently achieves professional goals.
• Susan fulfills the personal goals she sets for herself.
• Ashley does her best to achieve the company’s goals.
Negative phrases:
• Oliver breaks deadlines.
• George often fails objectives.
• Anna creates terrible action plans.
• James sets unrealistic personal goals.
• Harry never sets any goals for himself.
More examples for Goal achievement

Goal-setting

Goal setting is a critical skill for a manager/leader. Setting the right goals will keep the performance go forward. On the contrary, setting wrong goals may put a constraint on performance, though. So, evaluating goal setting skill is very important.

Positive phrases:
• John is good at setting clear and measurable performance expectations.
• Terry is responsible to his whole team by setting reasonable goals for them.
• John knows to define clear goals and expect the right performance from his group.
• John knows how to share his suitable feedback with his staff regarding their progress.
• John knows how to keep his staff within a plan and assigns suitable duties to each of them.
Negative appraisal:
• Such unachievable goals Terry is setting!
• John blames others for missed deadlines and objectives.
• John fails to achieve his goals that are sometimes pre-set.
• John does not often focus on his work and try to reach his goals.
• John is easy to get distracted at work. Not focusing on this goals results in his failure.
More examples for goal-setting

Honesty

Honesty is the quality that fosters collaboration between employees and leads to a healthy work environment.

Positive phrases:
• Thomas sets very high personal standards for honesty.
• Olivia is always perfectly clear and direct with her colleagues.
• Bernadette’s words always match her actions in the workplace.
• Arthur has never distorted the truth in professional interactions.
• Susan treats every single employee and client with deep respect.
Negative appraisal:
• Ingrid does not always track and meet deadlines.
• Donald often makes promises that he cannot deliver.
• Trevor does not want to admit some of his weaknesses.
• James forgets about honesty when chasing personal goals.
• David has been caught lying to his supervisor multiple times.
More examples for honesty

HR management

Human resource management is the practice of managing people within a company. HR professionals identify the best candidates for the needs of the organization.

Positive phrases:
• George can find a perfect candidate for any job.
• Peter attracts a wide range of skillful applicants.
• Nathan regularly recruits top-quality employees.
• Gwen analyzes employee complaints in a timely manner.
• David develops effective tests to determine the suitability of candidates.
Negative phrases:
• Nigel fails to develop effective salary increase plans.
• Lionel is not fluent enough in employment regulations and laws.
• Aaron fails to find compromises with employees that ask for a rise.
• Terry lies to potential candidates by promising raises and promotions.
• Sometimes Frank fails to “sell” our organization to prospective candidates.
More examples for HR management

Improvement

Improvement phrases are used in performance appraisals in order to identify specific areas that employees can improve on. Feel free to use our examples while evaluating workers.

Positive phrases:
• Richard looks for ways to expand the business.
• Donald consistently demonstrates his willingness to improve.
• Gloria consistently works on improving professional skills needed for her job.
• Olivia assists new employees to improve. She sets a good example for them.
• Robert is a diligent and enthusiastic employee who likes to face challenging tasks.
Negative phrases:
• Robert does not demonstrate a desire to improve his skills.
• Rebecca sets unrealistic personal goals that she cannot achieve.
• Quentin hates to deal with tasks that require advanced professional skills.
• Hank is bad at learning new things. He fails to stay updated and remain competitive.
• Cindy cannot stay focused on the work. She loses sight of her goals and fails to improve.
More examples for improvement

Initiative

Initiative refers to an employee’s ability to take up new responsibilities without waiting for order to do so. It is such a required quality for who work independently and rely on much creative solutions at work. An initiative employee should be considered a motivated, flexible, competent, dynamic and reasonable worker. He will never do thing beyond his control and shall not take unnecessary actions.

Positive phrases:
• Rachel always seeks ways to demonstrate initiative.
• John always protects new ideas, objectives or tools.
• Frank tries hard to show initiative by taking new tasks.
• Helen demonstrates a strong initiative in every situation.
• John always takes responsibility for his area and their actions.
Negative phrases:
• Paul displays no initiative at all.
• Quentin shows the initiative very rarely.
• Abigail does not take initiative to solve her clients’ problems.
• Sandra should demonstrate more initiative in setting personal goals.
• Terry doesn’t know to answer the bell. He lets new opportunities go by so easily.
More examples for initiative

Innovation

Innovation skills allow people to develop innovative work methods and bring unique ideas to the table. These skills include risks management, problem-solving, the ability to think outside the box and other useful attributes that improve productivity in the workplace. Creative people are very valuable to all companies, which makes the creativity assessment highly important.

Positive phrases:
• Our clients like Tom for his creativity.
• Lionel suggests many innovative ideas at team meetings.
• Sue is able to resolve complex problems in a creative manner.
• Hayden is one of the most creative employees of the company.
• Sam is open-minded and always seeks for new and most progressive approaches to completing his tasks.
Negative phrases:
• Rachel is afraid to think outside the box.
• Tom avoids uncommon tasks that require innovation skills.
• Daniel regards innovative ideas as too troublesome and risky.
• Most of the time Michelle refuses from innovative opportunities.
• Nathan always prefers methods that do not require any change.
More examples for innovation

Integrity

Integrity is the quality of being sincere and firmly adhere to moral standards in any situation. Honest employees are very valuable since they can be trusted with the most important tasks.

Positive phrases:
• Henry always does the right thing regardless of consequences.
• Michael remains an honest and trustworthy person in any situation.
• Bruce is very loyal to the company. He shows amazing devotion to his duty.
• Janet has strong moral principles. No one doubts her integrity and fairness.
• Susan has gained dozens of new clients due to integrity and professional attitude.
Negative phrases:
• Yvonne puts integrity aside when pursuing her personal goals.
• Jeremy covers up bad news and is not willing to admit mistakes.
• Matthew does not respect new employees. He is too demanding and ruthless.
• Trevor has tried to stretch the law numerous times. He is not trustworthy at all.
• Samantha spreads rumors and gossips. She needs to become more professional.
More examples for integrity

Interpersonal skill

Interpersonal skill refers to the ability to communicate well and work well in a group-work environment. You may refer it to teamwork skill, though interpersonal skill requires somewhat more. You have to work under greater pressure and communicate better with others. So, it is somehow the combination of teamwork and communication. As such, its importance is more crucial.

Positive appraisal:
• Harry can connect with anyone he want
• Bill can establish a good support base for his work.
• Peter is nice and gentle. He relates with others very well.
• We like it very much to work with Pete. He is very interesting.
• Bill always knows how to make the surrounding people comfortable.
Negative appraisal:
• Greg has related with his coworkers not well.
• Julie directs fast but has bad attitude with her feedback.
• Peter’s strong personality has caused a rift on our team.
• Bob does not grasp the intricacies of managing relationships.
• Ryan has given up a wake of bad relationships in his career path.
More examples for interpersonal skills

Job knowledge

Knowledge about the job is one of the most fundamentals of an employee in addition to skill and ability (qualification). A manager should conduct regular appraisal on this quality of his employee as if one fails to improve his knowledge about the job, he can no longer give a desirable performance. To do this, the manager must know about every aspect of the job, too, and tools to evaluate his employees of the same. Below is one of such tool.

Positive phrases:
• Judy’s skill set exceeds job requirements.
• Anabelle knows the organization inside out.
• Kyle demonstrates a strong level of job knowledge.
• Emma demonstrates a very high level of job knowledge.
• Doug demonstrates and uses his job knowledge on a daily basis.
Negative phrases:
• Judy’s skill set does not meet job requirements.
• Robert fails to keep his job knowledge up to date.
• Trevor needs to ask for assistance on many projects.
• Susan refuses to complete job-specific training courses.
• Doug is continually turning in sub-par work and needs to improve his job knowledge.
More examples for job knowledge

Judgment

Judgment is the ability to form good and unbiased opinions about something. This is a vital skill for team leaders, but it can come useful for most of the other jobs. On this page, you will find a number of appraisal phrases that will help you to evaluate the judgmental skills of your employees.

Positive phrases:
• Edward is a circumspect and methodical employee.
• Calvin always addresses urgent issues in the first place.
• Emma is a recognized problem-solver with years of experience.
• Kate always uses logic as the main instrument to solve problems.
• Abigail maintains an objective judgment in any situation.
Negative phrases:
• Terry fails to make a sound judgment.
• Terry is more of an emotion-based decision maker.
• Emma lacks the patience to carefully analyze every angle of a problem.
• Tamara makes decisions without consideration of the company’s standards.
• Samantha does not show a cold mind required to make objective judgments.
More examples for judgment

Knowledge management

Knowledge management skills are required to control a company’s information assets.

Positive phrases:
• Marta has significantly reduced the overall training costs.
• Steven striving to improve his knowledge management skills.
• Olivia managed to lower the time to competency for new employees
• Arthur does an excellent job of managing the organizational knowledge base.
• Yvonne has established a culture of knowledge sharing between departments.
Negative phrases:
• Sandra often uses information from outdated sources.
• Trevor is unwilling to share his skills with other people.
• Peter refuses to use new knowledge management tools.
• Helen does a very poor job of managing the knowledge base.
• Harry does not like to share knowledge with other departments.
More examples for knowledge management

Leadership

Leadership skills are the abilities required for the proper project overseeing and team guiding.

Positive phrases:
• Gain the employee’s respects.
• Be responsible for his/her own staffs.
• Envision the employees of the action plan.
• Keep an open communication among employees.
• Make picture of the action plan of the employees.
Negative phrases:
• Exaggerate the seriousness of a problem.
• Rarely show appreciation for a good-performance.
• Rarely prepare to participate in discussion or meetings.
• Do not rely on his/her leadership instincts to manage others.
• Ignore the policies of the company and tend to work by himself.
More examples for leadership

Level of supervision required

The level of supervision required characterizes an employee’s ability to work without guidance.

Positive phrases:
• Gwen can solve any problem without guidance.
• Sandra comes up with good decisions by herself.
• Rachel is experienced enough for self-supervision.
• Thomas shows the ability to work without supervision.
• Emma is a trustworthy worker who requires minimum supervision.
Negative phrases:
• Michael cannot work independently.
• Arthur has to be supervised all the time.
• Edna makes mistakes when working alone.
• Janet is not accustomed to working by herself.
• Emma lacks the experience to work without a mentor.
More examples for the level of supervision required

Listening skills

Listening skills in the workplace allow employees to focus completely on the words of others.

Positive phrases:
• Encourage others to give their own opinions.
• Try to understand the employee’s point of view.
• Master the skill of reflecting what the employee says and their opinions.
• Be patient to listen to others’ opinion and wait until they finish their lines.
• Listen to their opinion and ensure that they feel that they are being listened to and feel free to express the opinions.
Negative phrases:
• Don’t want to listen to others.
• Interrupt others while they are speaking.
• Be easy to be distracted when listening to others.
• Be easy to lose temper when others give criticism.
• Interrupt others and change their topics if don’t like.
More examples for listening skills

Long-range planning

Long-range plans provide a summary of the company’s future.

Positive phrases:
• Brad understands the company’s vision.
• Oliver establishes effective long-range plans.
• Michael integrates long-range plans with everyday tasks.
• Harry communicates with others when developing strategies.
• Thomas regularly assesses the market and reviews his plans.
Negative phrases:
• Susan never anticipates problems.
• Monica fails to optimize her plans.
• Jeremy is bad at creating action plans.
• Harry quickly loses sight of the big picture.
• Emma does not address organizational problems.
More examples for long-range planning

Managing ambiguity

Managing ambiguity is one of the most crucial competencies of a good manager.

Positive phrases:
• Emma quickly adapts to change.
• Arthur strives to minimize ambiguity.
• Jessica handles vagueness with ease.
• Olivia remains confident in any situation.
• Henry finds good solutions no matter what.
Negative phrases:
• Ingrid gets nervous easily.
• Peter fails to deal with stress.
• Alfred poorly reacts to mistakes.
• Thomas makes rushed decisions.
• Harry cannot work without a detailed plan.
More examples for managing ambiguity

Managing expenses

Managing expenses is required to evaluate and pay expenses generated by employees.

Positive phrases:
• Michael is good at cost estimating.
• Rachel controls expenses very well.
• Peter develops clear cost management plans.
• George creates realistic financial forecasts.
• Paul has saved a lot of money for the company.
Negative phrases:
• Harry makes many accounting mistakes.
• Monica does not update his financial plans.
• Rebecca never reviews vendors and suppliers.
• John fails to cut the expenses of his department.
• Edward does not follow the company’s business strategy.
More examples for managing expenses

Management Skills

Management skills involve planning, delegation, communication, time-management, and other abilities required to lead a team effectively.

Positive phrases:
• Patrick is able to get the most from scarce resources.
• Frank is able to track multiple issues and problems at once.
• Laura takes measures to avoid problems early in the process.
• Alfred manages to anticipate financial problems before they occur.
• Oliver consistently generates many great ideas at brainstorming sessions.
Negative phrases:
• Hank does not provide feedback to subordinates.
• Ronald does not understand how to use project management software.
• Donald leads his team from the position of power. Employees do not trust him.
• Daria micromanages employee activities, which damages the productivity of her team.
• Thomas ignores the ideas suggested by employees. He needs to become more open-minded.
More examples for management skills

Management style

In many organizations, management skill is a required factor for an employee to succeed and perform well. So, evaluating management-style of an employee has become one of the factors to decide whether that employee is potential to take more responsibility and improve in the future. There are many ways to give an appraisal on management style.

Positive review phrases:
• Paul’s management style has helped his team perform work well.
• Terry’s team and managers gave him good remarks and feedback.
• Walter is very good at managing his team perform their tasks excellently.
• Fred leads his team to be the best team though he has got difficulties with it.
• Bob is expert in training his employees and he provides them a good management.
Negative review phrases:
• Well, it is a fact that Holly is not competent enough to lead her team to its goals.
• Bill displays his unfairness with his team because he only cares for his favorites.
• Perhaps Julie is a talented employee, her leadership skills are not the same, though.
• Julie was a good employee but it is not good enough to become an excellent manager.
• Paul is bad at managing a high performance team and he does not know how to perform.
More examples for management style

Meeting goals

Ability to meet goals characterizes an employee’s motivation and productiveness.

Positive review phrases:
• Harry is good at goal setting.
• Gwen has fulfilled every goal this year.
• Edna consistently meets personal goals.
• Samantha achieves the company’s goals.
• Arnold strives to succeed every objective.
Negative review phrases:
• Trevor is bad at goal setting.
• Lucy lacks motivation to fulfill goals.
• Zack sets goals that are not challenging.
• George has failed most of the objectives.
• Michael does not try much to achieve goals.
More examples for meeting goals

Mentoring

Mentoring skills are vital for people involved in staff development. A good mentor has to be able to assist new workers to absorb the company’s policies and social norms. If you want to improve the efficiency of your business, you need to consider mentoring skills while reviewing the performance of your team members.

Positive review phrases:
• Jade is willing to assist his mentees at any moment.
• Jack acts as a positive role model for his subordinates.
• Samantha helps new employees to get used to their jobs.
• Sara assists new staff members to find the best solutions.
• John is great at organizing, guiding and delivering feedback to his mentees.
Negative review phrases:
• Peter confuses new hires by giving them different directions.
• Jack lacks the confidence. Some of the new employees do not respect him.
• Tom does not help his mentees to define goals. It reduces the efficiency of his mentoring.
• Tamara often brings in a personal agenda, damaging the growth potential of her mentees.
• Samantha does not have any leadership instincts. New employees do not take her seriously.
More examples for mentoring

Motivating employees

Motivating employees is required to make the company’s staff more productive and focused on work-related activities.

Positive review phrases:
• Isabella makes employees work harder.
• Samuel thanks employees for good work.
• Jennifer rewards subordinates for good ideas.
• Naomi actively expresses appreciation to employees.
• Harry provides subordinates with career opportunities.
Negative review phrases:
• Sebastian lets employees become bored.
• Arnold never thanks employees for hard work.
• Joseph takes excellent performance for granted.
• Wayne ignores the accomplishments of employees.
• Thomas sets unreachable goals that discourage employees.
More examples for motivating employees

Multitasking skills

Multitasking skills allow employees to work on different assignments at the same time.

Positive review phrases:
• James willingly takes up extra tasks.
• Emma often does several things at once.
• Terry uses a task tracker to minimize mistakes.
• Harry completes the most challenging tasks first.
• Christine juggles several duties at the same time.
Negative review phrases:
• Rachel does not prioritize her tasks.
• Edward cannot do several things at once.
• Bruce misses deadlines when multitasking.
• Peter has trouble focusing on the main assignment.
• Oliver becomes overly anxious when working on complex projects.
More examples for multitasking skills

Negotiation

Negotiation skills allow employees to make better deals with the company’s clients and partners.

Positive phrases:
• Thomas influences other people.
• Emma consistently makes good deals.
• Harry has outstanding negotiation skills.
• Michael is extremely confident in negotiations.
• Maria easily finds a common language with others.
Negative phrases:
• Jeremy fails to negotiate lower prices.
• Abigail never prepares for negotiations.
• George lacks the ability to persuade others.
• Trevor gets angry when he cannot win an argument.
• Peter does not listen to others during negotiations.
More examples for negotiation

Non-verbal communication

Non-verbal communication (body language) is communication without using words.

Positive phrases:
• Trevor smiles when he talks.
• Abigail always has a good posture.
• Jennifer exhibits responsive body language.
• Michael mirrors other people’s body language.
• Peter welcomes clients with a solid handshake.
Negative phrases:
• Susan always looks tense.
• Frank uses overly firm handshakes.
• Bryan slouches and frowns all the time.
• George does not look people in the eyes.
• Valerie ignores other people’s body language signals.
More examples for non-verbal communication

Numerical skills

Numerical skills refer to the way an employee interprets, calculates, and processes numbers.

Positive phrases:
• Helen offers accurate market forecasts.
• Benjamin never makes numerical errors.
• Jessica creates a successful budget every month.
• Emma always makes decisions based on data analysis.
• Arnold does quick calculations in his head without a calculator.
Negative phrases:
• Michael is bad at analyzing numerical data.
• Susan cannot calculate without a calculator.
• Alfred’s financial reports are full of mistakes.
• Jennifer seems to hate tasks that require numerical skills.
• Oliver does not understand the relationships between numbers.
More examples for numerical skills

Organizing skills / planning

Organizing and planning skills cover a set of abilities that allow individuals to prioritize, plan and achieve their goals. Employees who stay organized in the workplace are more productive and valuable than those who fail to do so.

Positive phrases:
• Leonid strives to keep his department organized.
• Janet assists other members of the team to stay organized.
• Edward has built a healthy and organized workplace environment.
• Sheila is capable of planning and organizing the work in timely manner.
• John sticks to deadlines and always meets the production benchmarks.
Negative phrases:
• Meet difficulties in handling the workload.
• Feel difficult to plan an action without any instruction.
• Fail to resolve the problem in timely and duly manner.
• Lack of communication at work and be reluctant to support or assistance.
• Demonstrate a management-by-crisis style, which means a responsive style.
More examples for organizing skills

Personal goals

Personal goals are objectives employees set to themselves in order to achieve a specific result.

Positive phrases:
• Edward successfully gave up cursing.
• Rebecca learns new things all the time.
• Samantha reads business books every day.
• Jack has mastered many new skills over the year.
• Michael sets himself challenges that motivate him.
Negative phrases:
• Olivia hates to change.
• Thomas never takes up courses.
• Bruce fails to develop self-discipline.
• Gregory does not leave his comfort zone.
• Jeremy is not interested in improving himself.
More examples for personal goals

Persuasion and Influencing

Persuasion and Influencing Skills are required for employees who must convince others to do what is needed for the company.

Positive phrases:
• Monica is a persuasive public speaker.
• Angelina makes people do what she needs.
• Edward can easily change someone’s mind.
• Jennifer negotiates good prices with suppliers.
• Thomas finds the right words to persuade people.
Negative phrases:
• Stacy avoids eye contact.
• Peter never wins disputes.
• Harry fails to increase sales.
• Oliver makes bad presentations.
• Susan makes bad deals with suppliers.
More examples for persuasion and influencing

Problem solving

Problem solving is a very crucial cognitive process in which one must know about the problem, develop solution to resolve it, and take necessary measures to avoid it from happening again. Problem solving skill may relate to many kinds of skills and qualities, and therefore, it is considered an essential quality for each employee. Improving problem solving skill has become a priority in any organization.

Positive phrases:
• John always thinks twice before making his decision.
• John keeps everyone update of what is going on within the company.
• John always analyses situations very well before making his decision.
• Analyzing situation and then solving problems are both John’s strength.
• John considers situations very carefully before working out the best solutions of all.
Negative phrases:
• John is not familiar with facing any tense matter.
• John cannot stand along facing with any tense problem.
• John has never got easy to work out a solution to any difficult problem.
• John easily loses his focus when standing in front of a complex situation.
• John seems to struggle hard to work out a solution to any difficult matter.
More examples for problem solving

Product knowledge

Product knowledge is the ability to answer questions and communicate information about services or goods.

Positive phrases:
• Valerie strives to explain customers how our products work.
• Arnold knows literally everything about the company’s products.
• Monica does a good job at demonstrating the advantages of our products.
• Jennifer is genuinely interested in learning new things about our products.
• Rachel has impeccable product knowledge and generates many sales leads.
Negative phrases:
• Oliver has no idea how the company’s product work.
• Henry is terrible at explaining the technical nuances.
• Ronald does not understand the core benefits of our products.
• Nigel seems very unenthusiastic when talking about our products.
• Trevor makes many mistakes when presenting our products to customers.
More examples for product knowledge

Productivity

Productivity in the workplace is a characteristic used to assess the efficiency of employees. The more productive the worker — the more work they will accomplish in the allotted time. This is one of the most important qualities of an employee, which has to be addressed during performance appraisals. With the use of the example phrases listed below, you will be able to easily evaluate the productivity of your workers.

Positive phrases:
• David produces a huge amount of excellent work.
• Peter produces more goods than anyone else in his team.
• Portia pursues every opportunity to improve her performance.
• Jim constantly generates and implements creative ideas to build productivity.
• Sandra does not mind taking over new responsibilities and projects. She is motivated to be highly productive.
Negative phrases:
• Richard cannot focus at work. His productivity leaves much to be desired.
• Valerie demonstrates terribly low production rate. She lacks motivation and focus.
• Will frequently fails to arrive at work on time. This seriously damages his productivity.
• Negative attitude and carelessness make Frank one of the least productive employees in the team.
• Sharon misses deadlines of the time. She seriously lacks the discipline to become a better employee.
More examples for productivity

Project Management

Project management is the art of managing a company’s resources to achieve a specific goal.

Positive phrases:
• Tom handles problems well.
• Peter always meets projects deadlines.
• Wendy creates effective project roadmaps.
• Greg regularly communicates with his team.
• Gloria is effective at project scope management.
Negative phrases:
• Monica delegates tasks poorly.
• Edward fails to engage his team.
• George turns down difficult projects.
• Rachel makes bad project decisions.
• Quentin is unable to lead big projects.
More examples for project management

Project focus

Project focus is the ability to fully concentrate on completing specific objectives.

Positive phrases:
• Arthur never misses deadlines.
• Thomas is always focused on the task.
• Gwen avoids procrastination by all means.
• James finishes projects ahead of schedule.
• Michael demonstrates incredible concentration.
Negative phrases:
• Bruce lacks motivation.
• Olivia never has a plan.
• Donald makes silly mistakes.
• Henry is unfocused all the time.
• Trevor cannot concentrate on his work.
More examples for project focus

Professional competence

Professional competence is the understanding and application of the skills and responsibilities required to perform the work well.

Positive phrases:
• Michael possesses a thorough job knowledge.
• Thomas tries to learn something new every day.
• Arthur asks for complex tasks to improve his job knowledge.
• James carefully follows every single standard of the company.
• Gwen demonstrates a deep and thorough knowledge of her job.
Negative phrases:
• Donald does not even try to outperform himself.
• Olivia demonstrates a severe lack of professional skills.
• Trevor has not attended professional courses for a long time.
• Henry ignores most of the opportunities for self-improvement.
• Bruce makes a bunch of mistakes even on the simplest tasks.
More examples for professional competence

Professionalism

Professionalism makes a successful workplace. Working in a professional manner shall help improve the performance very well. Respecting others and complying with internal rules, professionalism can be a great contributor to a wonderful corporate culture.

Positive phrases:
• He can present attractively.
• She is quite a professional. She knows everything about her job and organization.
• It is quite professionalism of him to comply very well with orders and internal rules.
• He never lets us down. He is like a professional. We can expect much more from him.
• Being calm while working under high pressure, that’s what we need from such a professional.
Negative phrases:
• Being irresponsible is not the quality of a professional.
• He has got trouble to divide between his personal life and work.
• He fails to take necessary measures to improve his performance.
• It is very unprofessional if you are frequently late at work like that.
• Never being inaccurate about anything, that is the style of a professional.
More examples for professionalism

Quality of work

Quality of work is the primal characteristic of an employee. It is used to evaluate the results of work produced by a worker.

Positive phrases:
• Gloria strives to make defect-free products.
• Jack is willing to improve the quality of his work.
• John never neglects any detail of any task given to him.
• Rachel always completes her work on time and does not make any errors.
• We can rely on Lionel as his performance is of exceptional quality and accuracy.
Negative phrases:
• Tom does not pay enough attention to quality issues.
• Stephen fails to maintain the high work quality when dealing with new tasks.
• Natalie frequently makes errors. She has to overcome the lack of concentration.
• Sometimes Jack cannot focus on the work. His actions slow the rest of the team.
• Matthew does not want to pick up new techniques, which damages the quality of his work.
More examples for quality of work

Relationship Building

Relationship building is a vital process for a healthy and stable workplace environment. An employee who is good at developing social connections can bring many benefits to any company.

Positive appraisal:
• Alfred can easily befriend any client.
• Ronald has built a wonderful team. He is a great leader.
• Harry is able to find a common language with any person.
• Francesca works well with employees from other departments.
• Laura has friendly and harmonious relationships with colleagues.
Negative appraisal:
• Rebecca often puts the blame on other employees.
• Edward does not value ideas and input of other employees.
• Cindy does not get along with the most of other employees.
• Oliver demonstrates a lack of cooperation on team projects.
• Donald fails to make his subordinates focus on the common goal.
More examples for relationship building

Reliability

It is challenging for an employee to achieve reliability at work. A reliable employee means he must be knowledgeable and willing to help, that everyone can rely on him to help. A reliable employee will surely have a good performance while helping others improve their performance, too. It is not only a quality but an objective for every employee to aim at. It is such a desirable quality of employee that employers are always seeking for.

Positive appraisal:
• During the crisis, Christian continued to work conscientiously.
• Jennifer readily takes accountability for all departmental activities.
• Rachel willingly accepts challenging tasks and performs them in time.
• Henry can be counted on to complete even the most difficult assignments.
• Walter is such an enthusiastic and energetic person. He is helpful and reliable, too.
Negative appraisal:
• Maria cannot keep most of her promises.
• Due to his incline to full dedication, Benjamin has a faster professional burnout.
• If you rely on David, you can miss the deadline and take negative mark form your boss.
• Failures at work affect Zoe too much and can dislodge her from working rhythm for a long time.
• Because of the desire to demonstrate impressive performance, Sarah can falsify data in job reports.
More examples for reliability

Researching skills

Researching skills allow employees to find information and utilize it effectively.

Positive appraisal:
• Samantha strives to find the best work methods.
• Michael never lets emotions affect his decisions.
• Ashley carefully evaluates data sources before using them.
• Helen thoroughly reads every source of information she uses.
• Jennifer makes a good use of professional analytical software.
Negative appraisal:
• Ingrid makes baseless decisions.
• Sandra makes logical mistakes in her reports.
• Donald fails to overcome research challenges.
• David does not use data management software.
• Henry often forgets to verify information sources.
More examples for researching skills

Resilience

Resilience is the ability to overcome difficult obstacles and recover from setbacks no matter what.

Positive appraisal:
• Abigail easily manages stress.
• George quickly recovers from failures.
• Chloe handles workplace issues with ease.
• Tabitha remains very positive no matter what.
• Michael performs the hardest tasks without complaints.
Negative appraisal:
• Peter easily loses temper.
• Valerie cannot get over her mistakes.
• Portia is visibly irritated by customers.
• Gregory cannot handle emotions at times.
• Arthur gets harsh at the end of the workday.
More examples for resilience

Safety at work

Safety at work is the state of being protected from an unsafe working environment.

Positive phrases:
• Chris enforces safety in the workplace.
• Susan considers safety the top priority.
• Emma has an impeccable safety record.
• Jessica does not tolerate safety violations.
• Bruce performs his work within safety guidelines.
Negative phrases:
• Peter ignores safety rules.
• Nicole sacrifices safety for productivity.
• Arnold does not adhere to safe work practices.
• Trevor tolerates hazardous or unsafe conditions.
• Monica violates safety guidelines on a regular basis.
More examples for safety at work

Sales skills

Sales skills are a set of skills required for a salesperson to successfully convince potential customers to make a purchase.

Positive phrases:
• Rachel is able to persuade anyone.
• Wendy represents the company very well.
• Trevor understands what the client wants.
• Emma sells more than other employees do.
• Michael consistently hits high sales targets.
Negative phrases:
• Peter asks too few questions.
• Michael never meets sales targets.
• Jeremy sets unrealistic sales targets.
• Abigail uses outdated sales techniques.
• Lionel fails to build relationships with clients.
More examples for sales skills

Self development

Self-development in the workplace is the process of improving professional skills and overcoming bad habits. Employees interested in self-development contribute to the organization’s success more than those who are not.

Positive phrases:
• Kate is purposeful and always gets the desired results.
• Sam is self-organized and has the ability to meet the strictest deadlines.
• Robert constantly develops and applies new methods to achieve the best results.
• She knows how to prioritize which allows her to achieve the desired results quickly.
• He is responsible and strict with himself; therefore, he brings the work to perfection.
Negative phrases:
• Fiona does not have a clear vision of what the business goals are.
• Judie does not have any strategies to execute the business goals.
• Sam pursues personal goals at the expense of the business goals.
• Sue jumps from one goal to another without accomplishing anything.
• Stacy is never serious about accomplishing tasks within the time given.
More examples for self development

Setting priorities

Setting priorities is the process and strategy of determining which tasks to perform first.

Positive phrases:
• Emma easily adapts to shifting priorities.
• George effectively prioritizes his workload.
• Rebecca alters task priorities when needed.
• Violet handles urgent tasks in the first place.
• Jeremy prioritizes tasks that bring the most results.
Negative phrases:
• Wendy does not prioritize goals.
• Ronald is not flexible with priorities.
• Harry fails to focus on top priorities.
• Abigail postpones important projects.
• James can be easily distracted from the main task.
More examples for setting priorities

Stress management

Stress management has become a duty for employees. If one cannot handle his own stress, he will not be able to complete his work well. Stress should be handled in timely and effective manner. If one cannot handle stress well, he may influence on the performance of the whole team. Evaluating one’s stress management ability is very important. The result will tell you if the evaluatee is capable of taking more responsibility, that he is dependable for higher duties or not.

Positive review phrases:
• David frequently help other employees to deal with stress.
• Jennifer demonstrates an outstanding ability to manage her own stress.
• Henry remains calm even when other employees around him are panicking.
• Robert has vastly improved his stress management ability over the last year.
• He/she always expresses her composure even when others are losing theirs.
Negative review phrases:
• Michael tends to raises his voice when under pressure.
• Michael cannot maintain composure when dealing with difficult tasks.
• Gabriel tends to lose focus and feel drained during periods of high pressure.
• Victoria becomes short-tempered, nervous and jumpy when pressure increases.
• Ryan sets aside too much time for relaxing his mind and often misses deadlines.
More examples for stress management

Supervision

Supervisory skills are required to lead teams, manage assignments and solve problems in the workplace.

Positive phrases:
• Philipp is exceptionally dedicated to his team.
• Donald assigns jobs responsibilities in order to stretch staff.
• Alfred regularly provides constructive feedback to his subordinates.
• Ronald has the ability to resolve conflicts between his subordinates.
• Marta successfully eliminates the obstacles that occur in the staff’s way.
Negative phrases:
• Rebecca should listen more to her staff.
• Ronald is not able to set the right targets.
• Olivia is often not available to employees.
• Cindy does not give feedback to her employees.
• Thomas does not confront unacceptable behavior and performance.
More examples for supervision

Teamwork

Teamwork is such an essential skill for any employee of a company. It requires people to know to work together in a group and to contribute their efforts toward common goals. It requires them not to compete with each other, but to help each other and share everything that they know. A strong teamwork will definitely make a strong company.

Positive phrases:
• Paul always makes a good working manner with others.
• Tamara is one of the key contributors to the success of the team.
• Thanks to Bill, our team has reached such an outstanding achievement.
• Arnold is always willing to lend a helping hand to any other member of the team.
• Maria has very good teamwork skill. She is the most effective and cooperative member of our team.
Negative phrases:
• Vladimir has personal interests that differ from the interests of the company.
• Ronald has to improve his communication skills in order to build better teams.
• Jennifer needs to bring coworkers together in order to improve teamwork in the workplace.
• It is over a year but Olive sill works on his own. He doesn’t like to share his work with others.
• Despite his high status, Joey stays open-minded and respects opinions of the rest of the team.
More examples for teamwork

Technical skills

Technical skills are the abilities needed to perform specific assignments. Many industries nowadays rely on employees with technical knowledge.

Positive phrases:
• Yvonne regularly updates her technical skills.
• Francesca is great at operating job machinery.
• Paul is good at solving complicated issues in his job.
• Helen maintains all the certification in the department.
• Ingrid takes responsibility in acquiring new technologies.
Negative phrases:
• Paul is not good enough to be a technician.
• Ryan seems to feel hard when learning new technology.
• Bill should equip more knowledge of technology for his job.
• Thomas has not benefited from visiting technical seminars.
• John is too inattentive to work with complex technical systems.
More examples for technical skills

Telephone skills

Telephone skills are required to provide high level of customer service over the phone.

Positive phrases:
• Wendy effectively calms down furious clients.
• Henry finds a unique approach to every caller.
• Michael returns calls within the promised time.
• Emma knows how to please an unhappy caller.
• George avoids distractions when talking on the phone with clients.
Negative phrases:
• Clive hangs up abruptly.
• Nigel does not return calls very often.
• Leonard misspells our clients’ names.
• Monica does not pay attention to callers.
• James cannot answer a single question about our products.
More examples for telephone skills

Time management

Time management is the ability that one can manage his schedule and time resource well, to balance his private and work life, to handle pressure from deadline without falling over. Good time management skill means one always turns up on time at work, hands over results effective as expected, and is dedicated to the job.

Positive phrases:
• Ryan always performs his tasks effectively.
• Jim is able to get along with working under high pressure.
• Walter has ability to control his time and his team’s time well.
• Greg always gives prominence to efficiency and productivity of his team.
• Ryan manages his time resource well. His private life and work can exist in harmony.
Negative phrases:
• Ben does not have ability to work under pressure.
• Paul needs to work harder to keep up with his deadline.
• Harry should learn how to manage his time in a more effective way.
• Fred cannot prepare schedules for his team meetings. They blame him for that.
• Jenny’s performance is bad. Perhaps it is because of her weak time management skill.
More examples for time management

Training ability

Training ability allows employees to learn and apply new work methods. Trainable workers are very effective in most aspects of their job since they can master any tasks.

Positive phrases:
• Valerie is very interested in obtaining new skills.
• Harry is sufficiently skilled in most aspects of his job.
• Robert never misses an opportunity to learn a new thing.
• Gloria consistently demonstrates her willingness to learn.
• Ronald has quickly adapted to new professional software.
Negative phrases:
• Arnold fails to employ new software.
• Aaron rarely attends training sessions.
• Abigail has not benefited from professional skills training.
• Jenny does not keep the training equipment fully between classes.
• Frank should catch more training opportunities and concentrate on them.
More examples for training ability

Verbal communication

Verbal communication – the act of exchanging messages by using speech.

Positive phrases:
• Emma sounds convincing.
• Harry answers questions directly.
• Michael has a nice and deep voice.
• Jennifer speaks well with everyone.
• Trevor easily explains complex issues.
Negative phrases:
• James mumbles words.
• Edward talks too quietly.
• Peter cannot handle hecklers.
• Susan has a fear of public speaking.
• Rachel fails to build rapport with clients.
More examples for verbal communication

Visionary skills

Visionary skills are required to generate groundbreaking ideas and finding ways to bring them to life.

Positive phrases:
• Rachel has a big picture thinking.
• Emma’s passion encourages the team.
• Abigail strives to implement innovations.
• James creates a sense of purpose in the workplace.
• Thomas makes colleagues passionate about his vision.
Negative phrases:
• Ronald does not think big.
• Michael takes unnecessary risks.
• Henry is not interested in innovations.
• Lucy is not aware of the company’s vision.
• Oliver cannot beat anxiety when trying new.
More examples for visionary skills

Weaknesses

Weaknesses are negative qualities of a person that prevent them from being effective. Nobody is perfect, so the ability to acknowledge one’s weaknesses is very important for the development of an employee.

Positive phrases:
• Jack strives to get over his fear of public speaking.
• Roger is not shy to ask for assistance when it is needed.
• George strives to transform his weaknesses into strengths.
• Isaac strives to do his best even if he does not know something.
• Rowan identifies his weaknesses and makes everything he can to fix them.
Negative phrases:
• Evelyn is too impulsive and impatient.
• Layla slowly switches from one task to another.
• William tends to give up his work if he cannot succeed.
• Jacob loses self-confidence when it comes to urgent issues.
• Gabriel avoids any confrontation and cannot defend his opinion.
More examples for weaknesses.

Widening one’s knowledge base

Widening one’s knowledge base is the process of acquiring new skills and information.

Positive phrases:
• Mary likes to learn foreign languages.
• Ronald reads specialized literature all the time.
• Emma refreshes professional knowledge frequently.
• Trevor takes online courses to expand his expertise.
• Harry became proficient in many computer applications.
Negative phrases:
• Bruce is incompetent.
• Peter hates challenging tasks.
• Arthur fails to adopt new skills.
• Frank uses outdated work practices.
• Monica does not follow industry trends.
More examples for widening one’s knowledge base

Willingness to actively help others

Willingness to actively help others is a must-have quality for employees who have to work in teams.

Positive phrases:
• Edward likes being helpful to others.
• Olivia claims that helping others is her life’s purpose.
• Rebekah gladly answers any professional questions.
• Bruce successfully solves issues for most customers.
• Jessica never refuses to help her colleagues in need.
Negative phrases:
• Nigel ignores clients with difficult requests.
• Robert refuses to assist his team members.
• Peter never provides selfless help to others.
• Greg seems to enjoy seeing his colleagues fail.
• Samantha does not solve the problems of her clients.
More examples for willingness to actively help others

Work attitude

Work attitude demonstrates an employee’s feelings about their job.

Positive phrases:
• Gwen is thankful for her job.
• Michael seems happy at work.
• Thomas has a positive mindset.
• James maintains a friendly attitude.
• Arthur is the ultimate people person.
Negative phrases:
• Bruce behaves negatively.
• Trevor often loses temper.
• Olivia never wears a smile.
• Henry works in a slipshod manner.
• Donald always shows up late for work.
More examples for work attitude

Work under pressure

The ability to work under pressure is required to complete challenging tasks and meet tight deadlines.

Positive phrases:
• James does his best to finish his job within the deadline.
• Arthur always maintains a positive demeanor in the workplace.
• Gwen is a talented problem-solver who always finds a way out.
• Thomas manages his time well and always meets the deadline.
• Michael never makes mistakes even when working under pressure.
Negative phrases:
• Trevor fails to handle tight deadlines most of the time.
• Bruce often procrastinates instead of focusing on the tasks.
• Donald cannot properly control his emotions in the workplace.
• Henry makes rushed decisions when working under pressure.
• Olivia wastes too much time overthinking workplace problems.
More examples for work under pressure

Written communication

Written communication skills are used to represent information by written or printed symbols.

Positive phrases:
• Rachel responds to emails quickly.
• Jennifer can sell anything via emails.
• Samantha’s letters attract new clients.
• Emma uses different approaches for different clients.
• Peter is great at promoting our products through texts.
Negative phrases:
• Thomas writes too much.
• Nigel makes grammatical mistakes.
• Quentin never thanks customers in his letters.
• Zack does not know his audience when writing.
• Janet uses too much jargon in her written communication.
More examples for written communication

 

Here it is the most popular performance appraisal sample wording. You can save this post as performance review phrases pdf/doc file. I hope you found the review phrases materials useful for managing with your job tasks efficiently. You can leave your comments.

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One thought on “Performance Appraisal Phrases

  1. Phraises was very informative and helpful, hope to have more
    .
    Thanks

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