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Effective phrases for performance appraisals: A guide to successful evaluations

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"Effective Phrases for Performance Appraisals" is the equivalent of a "Roget's Thesaurus" for supervisors and managers who have to evaluate employee performance on a regular basis. It organizes effective phrases under headings such as 'Communicative Skills" and "Leadership". You pick the most appropriate phrase to describe your employee's performance, e.g. "optimally utilizes all channels of communications", and write the review. Even if you don't want to use phrases out of this book, I've found that it is a good pattern book for brainstorming my own phrases.

The only omission (in my opinion) in "Effective Phrases for Performance Appraisals" is the lack of phrases for below average performance. Try "The Definitive Performance Writing Guide" by Douglas L. Drewry for your below average performance appraisals.

I've been writing performance reviews for five years now, and found this to be the best guide ever to help fill in the blanks. Almost every appraisal form requires analysis and precise commentary about the employee's behavior, and this book is well-organized and chock-full of helpful phrases to adapt for just about every performance situation. I also used this book as a resource for a class I teach, How to Conduct Effective Performance Appraisals.

New to management? Have to give a performance review and you don't know how to approach it? This book will get you there.
"Effective Phrases for Performance Appraisals: A Guide to Successful Evaluations" by James E. Neal isn't the snappiest book you'll read, and it is not the best value.

It is alphabetically organized by main topic terms, from 'accuracy,' ' achievement' and 'administration' to 'versatility' 'vision' and 'writing ability.'

You'll find 25,000 phrases under 58 such topics. For 'accuracy' there are 24 phrases, like "expects perfection" and "meets precise standards."

The drawback is twofold: the layout wastes space, and the content is easily found in other, more substantive books. It could easily be reduced to a 50 pages booklet.

There are guidelines for appraisals spread across several short appendices.

Useful for the new supervisor, or as a refresher for an experienced middle manager, but not the best of its field. Try "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Performance Appraisals" by Adele Margrave instead. You'll get more bang for the buck.

Anthony Trendl
editor, HungarianBookstore.com

Anyone who writes performance reviews must buy this book! It took me less than half the time it normally would to write my reviews. My HR department even remarked at how well written my reviews were. This is a clear, "to the point" tool that every manager should have.

I purchased a previous edition of this pocket handbook some years ago and replaced it recently with this newer edition..

I get the impression that this thoughtful and well laid out guide was originally for use in the military and other government agencies. It is a very useful tool for allowing your own creative juices to work for you when writing up an appraisal.

The best method that I've found for this little guide is start in with an employee appraisal, then scan through the relevant pages when you feel you are at a sticking point and need some time in order to place the correct phrase that just doesn't seem to come to mind at the moment.

Rest assured that taking a break, scanning through this guide for a while, and then putting your work aside for a few hours will result in some very constructive ideas for you..

s/ Patricia Gibbons

My boss bought this for me as a gag gift when I was dragging behind in submitting my own performance review. While an amuisng gift for that situation, I think the book is a great reference for anyone who has to write reviews frequently. It's not easy to find the right words, and natural to feel "in a rut" about the words we do use so often.

The book is grouped into sections about different performance aspects: quality, resourcefulness, stress, tact, vision, potential, planning, and so on. There's about sixty groups in total, each with two or three pages of suggested phrases. They're sensibly worded, and diverse enough to get the juices flowing again when facing yet another employee performance review when you know what you want to say, but aren't sure about how to get it onto paper.

It's curious to fault the title for not providing unsatisfactory recommendations. I would've thought it obvious to place "does not" or "does not consistently" before any of the supplied phrases to indicate a shortcoming in an employee's performance.

In its tenth priting since 1978, the book is a well-established reference.

This book does not provide effective phrases for reviews that are less than satisfactory. The subtitle should be "A guide to Evaluations for Successful employees" not "A guide to Successful Evaluations". Considering that the hardest phrases to develop are those not meeting expectations, this book really does not provide much benefit.

This is a 'job aid' that we provide to our managers every year. Whether they are novice or expert at writing reviews, they use this reference guide!

This book is good for a quick reference especially when you can't think of a good choice of words to describe a behavior of an employee. Simple and effective.

After having used this book for the last 6 years in writing reviews and consulting with hundreds of managers performing this task - this tool is the most effective guide around. It is concise, easy to use and full of bright ideas. I'm ordering the 10th edition for all my managers and know it will be much appreciated! I tell them it's the book with all the answers. When needing to give feedback on developmental opportunities the guide can be used on both sides of the fence - these are often the tough messages that managers struggle with - the guide makes it easy.