Performance review phrases that explain what to keep or change
A sentence bank can help you start writing. It cannot tell you how someone performed. Before using any phrase, add a real example, check it against the person's role and give them room to explain the context.
The examples below are fictional illustrations—not customer accounts or statements about a real employee. Replace them with evidence from your own review period. Do not copy a negative example into someone's review because it sounds plausible.
A useful sentence structure
Name a specific context, the observable behavior, the effect you saw, and a practical next step with the support you will provide.
Keep claims proportional to the evidence. If an outcome was not measured, describe the observation without inventing a result. Avoid personality labels such as “difficult,” “not leadership material” or “a natural.”
Copyable manager review worksheet
Employee / role:
Review period and agreed expectations:
Specific context or responsibility:
Observed behavior:
Evidence / private source link:
Observed effect (leave unmeasured impact unstated):
Employee perspective / missing context:
Strength to keep using:
Practical next step:
Manager support / owner:
Follow-up date:Use the phrases below to help fill this in, not to replace your evidence.
Copy the review worksheet, or create a free workspace for 1:1s and goals. Review cycles are on Team.
Strengths: show what should continue
Ownership
Instead of: “You show great ownership.”
Adapt: “During the billing handoff, you documented unresolved questions, named the decision owners and checked that each had a next step. That gave the receiving team a clear record of what remained. Keep using that handoff structure for cross-team projects.”
Collaboration
Instead of: “You are a team player.”
Adapt: “You invited support into the release review before the announcement was finalized. Their questions helped the team clarify the customer-facing explanation. Keep involving the people who will handle questions after launch.”
Quality
Instead of: “Your work is always excellent.”
Adapt: “For the migration checklist, you tested the rollback steps and asked another engineer to review the failure cases. The team had a documented recovery path before the change. Keep making that review visible in release preparation.”
Learning
Instead of: “You learn fast.”
Adapt: “After the first onboarding session, you asked for feedback and revised the walkthrough to explain permissions before setup. I saw you apply the feedback in the next session. Let's identify another area where that approach would help.”
Growth: describe the behavior and the support
Communication
Instead of: “You need to communicate better.”
Adapt: “The support team learned about the changed release scope on launch day. For the next release, post the agreed customer-facing changes before final sign-off and ask support to confirm receipt. I will help make that checkpoint part of the launch plan.”
Reliability
Instead of: “You are unreliable.”
Adapt: “The agreed handoff date passed without an update, so the receiving team could not plan its work. When a date is at risk, flag it as soon as the risk is known and propose a revised plan. Let's review whether competing work is making those commitments unrealistic.”
Prioritization
Instead of: “You lack focus.”
Adapt: “You took on additional requests while the agreed documentation task remained open. Before accepting another request, check it against the current priority list with me. I will make the trade-off decision explicit rather than leaving you to satisfy both.”
Feedback
Instead of: “You are defensive.”
Adapt: “In the design review, we moved to solutions before the reviewer had finished explaining the concern. In the next review, summarize the concern first and check that you understood it before responding. I will leave time for that step in the agenda.”
When the evidence or expectations are unclear
Sometimes the honest sentence is not a rating.
- Missing evidence: “I do not have enough examples from this period to assess that responsibility fairly. Let's review relevant work together before I finalize this section.”
- Changed priorities: “We replaced the original project with urgent migration work. I am assessing the contribution against that agreed change, not treating the original deadline as an unchanged commitment.”
- Unclear expectations: “We did not make the ownership boundary explicit. I will clarify the expectation with you before we use it in a future assessment.”
- New concern: “This concern has not been discussed clearly before. I should have raised it sooner. Let's review the example, hear your perspective and agree on support and follow-up.”
These statements do not remove accountability. They make the limits of the assessment visible.
Before sending a manager review
Check each paragraph:
- Does it describe work or behavior, rather than personality?
- Can I point to a relevant example from this review period?
- Have I applied the same role expectations consistently?
- Have I acknowledged context, collaborators and manager responsibility?
- Is the next step within the person's control, with the support they need?
- Have I avoided disclosing private information or inventing impact?
Ask for the employee's perspective and correct factual errors. A written review is a starting point for a conversation, not proof that your first interpretation is right.
Put the phrases into a complete review
Use the performance review template for small teams for the full employee and manager forms. Raise development feedback throughout the year rather than saving it for the review; read Prixie's continuous-feedback overview.
The worksheet and phrases above are the main thing to copy and use. You can write them in your own documents.