Perfect Phrases for Performance Reviews : Hundreds of Ready-to-Use Phrases That Describe Your Employees' Performance [Paperback]

Douglas Max (Author), Robert Bacal (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 11, 2002 | ISBN-10: 007140838X | ISBN-13: 978-0071408387 | Edition: 1

Hands-on help for quickly­­and persuasively­­writing company-mandated performance appraisals

Writing performance appraisals is one of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks managers face. Perfect Phrases for Performance Reviews simplifies the job, providing a comprehensive collection of phrases that managers can use to describe employee performance, provide directions for improvement, and more. For example:

• "Sets priorities well"
• "Misses important deadlines"
• "Thorough, reliable, and accurate"

All managers and HR professionals will value the book for its:

• Hundreds of ready-to-use phrases, organized by job skill and performance level
• Tips for documenting performance issues and conducting face-to-face reviews
• Easily adapted performance review templates covering five performance levels

With the wide-ranging assortment of descriptions available in this book, managers will be able to find the perfect terms to help them analyze and understand the work performance of each person they work with.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Writing Performance Reviews is as Easy as Looking Up the Right Phrase!

Finding the right words to assess and describe your employees' performance is an important--and time consuming--exercise for any manager. Perfect Phrases for Performance Reviews provides hundreds of ready-made phrases that you can use to describe any employee's performance in 74 different skill areas. The phrases are grouped into five employee performance levels:

• Outstanding
• Exceeds expectations
• Meets expectations
• Needs improvement
• Unacceptable

You can use these phrases to:

• Craft a carefully worded and accurate assessment
• Document behaviors and accomplishments
• Specify areas of excellence or poor performance
• Guide and develop promising workers
• Make the entire review process more productive for yourself, your organization, and those who report to you

Complete with a step-by-step primer on how to plan, conduct, and write a performance appraisal, Perfect Phrases for Performance Reviews is an indispensable resource for managers who want to write fair, accurate reviews that help every employee become more productive.

About the Author

Douglas Max is Managing Director of LR Communications, a firm that conducts on-site seminars in writing and presentation skills.

Robert Bacal is an author of Managing Performance and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Consulting and other books dealing with human resources issues.

Product Details

• Paperback: 250 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (November 11, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 007140838X
• ISBN-13: 978-0071408387
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 4.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #438,035 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Phrases and a lot more, March 9, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Perfect Phrases for Performance Reviews : Hundreds of Ready-to-Use Phrases That Describe Your Employees' Performance (Paperback)

Doing performance reviews--preparing for them, filling out the form, and understanding how to make them effectively improve an employee's performance--can be a challenging task. How do you make it a positive experience, for yourself and for the employee? It's not easy. How do you let the person know he or she is not living up to the organization's expectations? Again, not easy. This book can help in doing these things. The majority of book is given over to phrases you can use in over 70 different categories of performance. Each category has five levels of phrases, from outstanding to unacceptable. Even if some phrases don't fit exactly what you're looking for, you have a place to start and you can easily modify them to fit your purposes. I also like the first part of the book on how to plan, conduct, and write a performance review. The book also has two cool appendixes. One is titled "Ten Mistakes Managers Make When Conducting Performance Reviews," and the other is "Seven Mistakes Employees Make During Performance Reviews." For a retail price of [money], this book is a great tool for anyone having to do performance reviews. Highly recommended.

37 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Perfect Phrases for Performance Reviews .... Not!, March 19, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Perfect Phrases for Performance Reviews : Hundreds of Ready-to-Use Phrases That Describe Your Employees' Performance (Paperback)

The background to giving appraisals is very good, as is the advice on how to conduct an interview. For this alone the book is worth purchasing. Included within this book are many pages of "perfect phrases". To state they are perfect is, I feel, a little misleading. Although I must mention that at the start of the book it is stated that these sentences should be altered to suit the individual. My gripe is that the sentences have not been rated very well. For example, on page 41 under Accuracy, Outstanding options provides you with "Mistakes don't slip through" as one of the choices. Should that not read, "Exceptionally accurate at all times". Many of the sentences are very weak and fail to use any "power words" to strengthen an employee's qualities.

My feelings are that the book has been thrown together from previous appraisals with little though to the content of the phrases. The "sentences" require regrading and stronger words added to give them more bite. Also other attributes need to be added to give the book a wider audience such as: Loyalty, Sense of Duty, Competence, Confidence but to name a few.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Underwhelmed!, February 25, 2006

By 

AKW (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Perfect Phrases for Performance Reviews : Hundreds of Ready-to-Use Phrases That Describe Your Employees' Performance (Paperback)

This book has a lot of great catagories, but when it comes to actual phrases to use, they come up short. The phrases are very basic...I didn't need a book to come up with these. This book lacks detail, descriptive phrases and impact. I was looking for inspiration in writing my performance reviews - I did not find any inspiration or usuable phrases in this book!