I manage nine people and have to write review comments for every one of them by Friday.

Example comments at three ratings

The same competencies, written for three different people. All names and details are made up.

Exceeds expectations, quality of work: “Priya rebuilt the weekly sales dashboard so it now refreshes overnight. It used to take her about four hours every Monday, and the team now has numbers before the 9:30 meeting instead of after lunch. Her work rarely needs a second check.”

Meets expectations, communication: “Daniel's status updates are on time and accurate, and stakeholders know where his projects stand. In meetings with other departments he could say more: twice this year he raised a problem with me afterwards that the group needed to hear in the room.”

Below expectations, dependability: “Three of Marco's five reports this quarter arrived after the agreed date, and in October the client report went out with last month's figures. We agreed in August that he would flag a delay by the Wednesday before the deadline; that has happened once. Meeting deadlines, or flagging them early, is the goal for the next six months.”

Notice what each comment does. It names the behavior, gives one example with a date or a number, and says what the effect was. The “below” comment also states what was agreed before, so the review is not the first time the employee hears about it.

Comments by competency: a sentence to start from

Review forms tend to use the same handful of headings. A sentence for each, to adapt to what you really saw:

- Quality of work: “Her reconciliations went to audit this year with no corrections.” - Job knowledge: “He is the person the team asks about the returns policy, and he wrote the one-page guide new hires now use.” - Communication: “She explains a technical delay in two sentences a customer understands.” - Initiative: “Without being asked, he set up the shared inbox rules that cut our response time in half.” - Dependability: “In twelve months she has missed one deadline, and she told me about it four days ahead.” - Productivity: “He closed 210 tickets this year, the second highest on a team of seven, while training a new hire.” - Teamwork: “When Lena was out for six weeks, he took over her two accounts and kept both clients informed.” - Meeting expectations, said plainly: “Her work is reliable and on time. The next step is taking the lead on one project end to end.”

Each of these can be checked. That is the test for a review comment: could the employee, or HR, ask “when?” and get an answer.

Words to leave out, and the comments HR sends back

Some comments get returned by HR or cause trouble later, even when the manager meant well. Leave these out:

- Personality instead of behavior: “abrasive”, “not a culture fit”, “bad attitude”. Describe what happened instead: “interrupted the client twice in the June review call”. - Anything about age, health, pregnancy, family plans, religion, nationality, disability or other protected characteristics, including “energetic young team member” or “seems distracted since the baby”. - Absences that may be protected leave, such as medical or family leave. Ask HR how to handle attendance before you write about it. - Comparisons with named colleagues. - Promises about pay or promotion you cannot make. - Stock lines that say nothing: “team player”, “goes above and beyond”, “a valuable asset”.

A review is a record that can be read again months later, sometimes by people outside your team. Write each comment as if the employee will read it aloud to someone you both respect. If a review is part of a formal process, such as a written warning or a performance improvement plan, HR should see it before the employee does, and they may want different wording.

Nine reviews in one week: a working order

Writing reviews for a whole team goes faster in passes than person by person.

Pass one, about 15 minutes per person: notes only. Rating, three examples, one goal. Do all nine before drafting any.

Pass two: drafts. One person per request, with the same competency names each time so the reviews line up. Start with the person whose rating is easiest, and leave the hardest conversation for when you have the format settled.

Pass three: read all nine side by side. Look for two things. First, inflation: if everyone's comments sound like “exceeds”, the ratings will not mean much. Second, effort: the people you know best tend to get the longest comments. Even them out so each review gets about the same care.

One caution for every draft: a review contains personal and confidential information. Check your company's policy on AI tools before pasting notes in, and use a first name or initials rather than a full name and employee number.