12 Proven Employee Evaluation Templates to Get The Most Out of Your Employees (2023)

Have you heard Peter Drucker’s famous quote, "If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it?" It applies to every aspect of business, from development to marketing. In the HR department, you measure employee performance to help inspire them to improve and work better as a team.

As HR managers, it’s your job to keep track of employee progress and integration into the company culture. It’s also your responsibility to create employee evaluation forms for your team to conduct performance reviews and appraisals.

Wondering how to get started with employee evaluation? We’ve got you covered. This article will share everything you need to conduct an effective employee evaluation.

You’ll learn what an employee evaluation is, best practices for creating employee evaluations, plus a wide range of employee evaluation templates to get you started on the right foot every time.

Table of Contents

• What Is An Employee Evaluation
• When Should an Employee Evaluation Template Be Used?
• What to Include in an Employee Evaluation Template?
• 12 Employee Evaluation Templates You Can Use
• Best Practices For Creating Effective Employee Evaluations

What Is An Employee Evaluation

An employee evaluation is a business communication tool for HR professionals. More specifically, it’s a category of tools for evaluating employees' work for a company or brand.

Employee evaluation types include performance reviews, performance appraisals, project evaluations, team reviews, and self-assessments.

The type of employee evaluation depends on how you need to evaluate employees. What are the evaluation parameters and criteria? How often do you need to do it, and at what capacity? What are higher-up managers looking for?

Conducting regular employee evaluations can support the HR department in helping employees improve their tasks and responsibilities.

When Should an Employee Evaluation Template Be Used?

In the HR department, there are plenty of tasks that are done repeatedly. Employee evaluations are the perfect example. But when you have a template to use as a base for every employee evaluation, you save time and effort for everyone on the team.

Your employee evaluation cycles will fit into any one of these categories:

• Periodic (monthly, quarterly, annually)
• After probation periods
• When the need arises

Employee evaluations and performance reviews are periodic. Depending on how your company works, evaluations can be monthly, quarterly or yearly. Another system would be to follow the date of employment. This way, you’d have evaluations happening all year; this is a great idea if you want constant improvement.

All employees must undergo an employee evaluation after the probation period stated in their contracts. This practice is critical for the team and new employees to know if they’re a good fit for each other and the company.

Occasionally, you’ll need to conduct employee evaluations when the need arises. For example, if an employee is struggling or can’t seem to get up to speed, an evaluation can get to the bottom of the problem and give insight into how to fix it. This employee might need further training or a mentor to help them get back on track.

What to Include in an Employee Evaluation Template?

If employee evaluations and performance reports are documents you’ll often be using, you need a reusable template. Design it with all the vital sections to fill out during and after an evaluation.

Here are the sections you need to include when designing employee evaluation forms for your HR department team.

1. Employee Details: Name/ ID/Position

At the very top of the document layout, include spaces to write the employee details. Leave enough writing areas so the evaluator doesn’t space constraints. Keep this information in the left or right corner, so hand-filled evals are easily recognizable when filed.

Additionally, if using printed templates, consider stickers that include all the essential info for each employee and paste them in that area.

2. Rating and Scoring

This section reflects the way your score system works. Visually, you can generate more interest in this area and use it as an overview of the evaluation. It’s the area managers and analysts will look at first when reviewing evaluations. Make the scoring visual with numbers, icons or happy and sad faces.

Don’t overcomplicate the data entry. Make it easy for everyone, including the evaluator, to fill in the information. Consider the usability of your employee evaluation form templates for the evaluators and analysts that will be using them regularly.

3. Written Comments and Notes

Provide an area for notes and observations gathered during the evaluation process. You can add prompts or leave them blank to be filled in at the evaluator's discretion.

For printed templates, add lines to help keep notes organized. In digital templates, add a text box with a placeholder saying “write here” or something similar.

Help the evaluator by adding bullet points as visual suggestions of where to write their action sentences. This will allow evaluators to quickly skim the content when reviewing a large number of completed evaluations.

4. A Signature Field and Date Placeholder

At the bottom of the form, create a space where both the evaluator and employee will sign. Additionally, include a space for the manager to sign, if necessary.

Leave enough room if the forms are to be printed, signed by hand and stamped. Finally, include a space where you can write the date of the evaluation event.

12 Employee Evaluation Templates You Can Use

Inside your Visme editor, the same one you already use for reports and proposals, you’ll find several templates for employee evaluations. We’ve selected the top 12 performance review and self-evaluation examples you can use immediately.

All Visme templates are fully customizable to match your brand, project or client’s guidelines. Inside the editor you have access to a broad library of design elements for every business occasion. Not to mention stock photos and videos to create performance reviews that inspire and engage your employees.

1. Simple Performance Review

This simple performance review template uses stars for the rating system. A simple review like this is generally an overview of a larger document with performance-tracking analytics and a collection of written reviews. Use this template to provide a general overview of one employee’s performance.

Take advantage of Visme’s vast icon library to visualize important points in the review template. Bring attention to different areas with branded icons or illustrations. Design elements like icons and illustrations help with the visual flow of your layouts.

2. Temp Performance Review

Temps are temporary workers who fill in for employees on sick leave or holidays. Employee evaluations are critical for knowing if the temp is completing all the expected work. This performance review template for temps like this one will come in handy for larger companies with high turnover.

Collaborate with your team when creating the template to review a temps’ performance. Make sure all topics are covered in the evaluation template and give access to your copy editor to double-check all brand messaging and voice. Share the finished design with the HR team to sign off on the layout of the questions and prompts in the evaluation.

3. Self-Evaluation Form

Provide employees with self-evaluation forms so you can see what they think about their work performance. Their self-assessment and evaluator’s analysis paints the bigger picture of how well the employee performed during a specific period or project. Adding emoji faces to the options softens the self-evaluation process for the employee. If an employee is new to self-evaluation, show them some self-evaluation examples for inspiration.

Include a data visualization in the template for the employee to adjust according to their own judgement. Make it easy for them with percentage gauges and data widgets. Add a popup with instructions on how to edit the chart. Adding interactivity to a self-evaluation form can make it fun, but make sure it's easy and intuitive.

4. Self-Evaluation Review

This employee evaluation form template is another style of self-assessment. Here, the evaluation criteria are scored as a percentage. When you share a digital version of this template with an employee, all they need to do is fill in their information and adjust the percentage of their scores.

Add a personal text review section for the employee to input their thoughts. You can leave comments on each template, such as asking them to be objective in their comments.

5. Executive Director Performance Review

Offer employees the chance to evaluate their managers and directors. Make it visually interesting, so they’re inspired to answer honestly.

These bottom-up evaluations are valuable for higher-ups to stand in their employees' shoes and understand their needs. Company culture shines through when an executive director receives reviews from employees with grace and honesty.

6. Clinical Psychologist Performance Review

Use this performance review template to assess and evaluate the doctors in your hospital. This one is for a clinical psychologist, but you can edit it for any medical specialty in your organization.

Change the colors and fonts to match the brand guidelines of your healthcare company. Staying branded through internal communication helps with company culture and employee satisfaction.

7. Food Service Employee Evaluation

Employees in the food service industry come and go. Only the ones that outperform the rest will become managers and continue up to corporate. Use a simple evaluation form to let your employees and higher-ups know how the current team is performing and what can be improved for the benefit of the restaurant or store.

8. Manager Performance Review

Check and share new managers’ progress and performance with this simple visual performance review template form. Use colorful progress gauges to visualize the scoring system. Add a decision box for the evaluator and HR team to input the final decision about the employee in question.

9. Annual Employee Review

Change strengths and weaknesses for strengths and areas for improvement. This small difference in wording can make a world of difference in how the employee receives the evaluation.

Annual reviews are generally more important than monthly or quarterly. Include more information to better understand the employee’s growth or faults over the year.

10. Quarterly Performance Review

This quarterly review template for analyzing employee performance has a different approach. The idea is to write objective commentary with action verbs and descriptive words under each topic. For this employee performance evaluation template, the HR manager will need to have conversations with the employee and their peers.

11. Midyear Employee Performace Review

Share these performance reviews in a binder or digital PDF every midyear. The HR department conducts the reviews across the company, and the team creates these documents with all the information collected. These overviews are ideal for managers to check on the performance of each employee after all evaluations have been conducted.

12. Team Project Evaluation

Evaluate a team project instead of individual employees. Review the team's performance as a whole, find ways for employees to support each other, and let the new ones step up. Reviewing your employees' teamwork gives you a new perspective on their work and productivity.

For marketing teams, connect the Visme and Google Analytics integration to populate charts with essential KPIs and OKRs to help evaluate the team’s performance.

Best Practices For Creating Effective Employee Evaluations

For effective employee evaluations, you need to tick all the boxes. The better developed your templates are, the easier they will be to use. Go beyond the basics in your template development and deployment.

Here are some best practices for creating effective employee evaluations.

1. Use A Standardized Scoring System

Use the same evaluation standards for all performance reviews and employee evaluations in a group, team, or company. Having a standard scoring system is critical for equitable and fair evaluations.

The scoring covers attendance, punctuality, job skills, attitude and detailed performance parameters according to your company’s projects and growth expectations. Reflect the scoring system in the design of the employee evaluation template.

2. Stay Objective In The Scoring And Comments

Employee evaluations must be objective, both in the scoring and in the comments added to the form. An employee evaluation or performance review is not an opinion piece—far from it.

Objectivity is the only way to give constructive criticism, share actionable advice and set goals with the employees. Never add judgemental comments or observations in employee evaluations; they are not only unethical but also illegal. Discrimination of any kind has no place in performance reviews.

3. Start Sentences With Action Verbs

Not all evaluation points can be numerical. The evaluator must share specific and objective observations about the employee in written form.

Start these comments with action verbs. For example, “displays a productive attitude when problems arise or fails to meet weekly sales goals repeatedly." This technique inspires the employee and informs the higher managers simultaneously.

4. Strengths and Weaknesses

Describe the evaluated employee’s strengths and weaknesses using descriptive words and phrases. Employee evaluations aren’t only for the managers to analyze performance but also for the employees to feel inspired to improve.

Using action verbs and descriptive words helps them build on their strengths and overcome their weaknesses. Follow up an employee evaluation with a SWOT analysis if the employee wants to learn more about their position and role.

5. Actionable Feedback and Goalsetting

Once you're finished with the observations and analysis sections of the reviews and evaluations, remember to set some goals for the employee and share actionable feedback on how to achieve them.

Offer guidance and resources for personal improvement and development. You don’t need to input a list of links into the performance review document; simply add an interactive link to a folder in the cloud where the employee can access all the information.

6. Follow Branding and Voice Guidelines

Create performance reviews that support company values both in tone and visuals. The words, terms and sentences you use in both questions and comments will be seen by both managers and employees.

An employee evaluation that makes an employee feel seen, heard and understood helps boost company culture and employee retention. Likewise, a branded employee evaluation template helps evaluators connect with the company and the brand.

7. Use Templates

Using templates for business communication, like employee evaluations, is efficient and time-saving. Go a step further and create a branded, dynamic template that anyone in your organization can use.

Include dynamic fields to simplify the input of information, specifically those that repeat across pages and projects. For example, control how your company name looks on every piece of content your team creates.

Streamline HR & Employee Documents with Visme

Does one of the performance review examples above grab your attention? Click on the button underneath it to start using it immediately.

Creating employee evaluation templates, storing files and referencing documents are daily HR tasks. But are your reviews, evaluation templates, and other documents looking unattractive in a dated design?

Make your performance reviews easier and more colorful with Visme. Design beautiful and engaging HR documentation without any design experience.

With Visme, you can create and save branded templates for all types of business and marketing content, as well as, organize it into workspaces and folder libraries. Integrate Visme with your favorite work and productivity apps and run your HR department in style.