Effective Phrases for Performance Appraisals : A Guide to Successful Evaluations

by James E. Neal Jr.

Now in its ninth edition, the guide has been continuously revised to meet changing employment conditions. This widely acclaimed handbook is a practical and valuable aid to making the completion of performance appraisals fast, easy and accurate. Combed bound.

Genres: Reference, Business, Nonfiction, Management, Leadership

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 1983

Reviews

[Sunny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not a story book. But, I am in the midst of writing employee evaluations this week, and have once again pulled out my old, tattered copy of this.

My father - retired navy - gave this to me many years ago when I was promoted into my first leadership role. It has proved to be a valuable resource time and time again.

The table of contents lists the topics in alphabetical order - accuracy, achievement, appearance, communicative skills, competency, cost management, decision making, etc. etc. Look up the skill you want to write about, and then there are several phrases that can be plagiarized at will. So, if you think your employee has fantastic organizational skills, go to the organizing section and there are phrases like:

*effectively develops organizational capabilities and integration of objectives

*builds organizational effectiveness

*avoids over staffing

*makes the most of organizational energy and potential

*is methodical in planning and performing

*is very orderly and systematic

ad nauseum

There is even a foreword that warns "The phrases contained in this handbook are extremely positive and reflect superior performance. By simply altering the phrases, it is possible to describe areas in need of improvement. For example, "Excels in delegating routine tasks to subordinates" can easily be changed to, "You can improve your effectiveness by delegating routine tasks to subordinates."

And, just to be sure all of your evaluation writing needs are met in one place, the back of the book has a list of helpful adjectives and helpful verbs. Just to name a few: independent, industrious, ingenious, innovative, intense, involved... and the verbs: fulfills, furnishes, gains, generates, gives, grasps, guides, handles, helps...

I give this handbook the highest possible recommendation. Spend the ten bucks. It's worth every penny!

[Justwinter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found this to be a hilarious read--useful too--but my warped sense of humor just howled at some of the phrases, imagining how to work them into every-day life. The reviewer who commented "how to say You Suck nicely" hit it on the head.

"Demonstrates a strong awareness of the economic importance of lost production time" could be a fabulous back-handed compliment.

Lots of great phrases for encouragement and really good performance reviews--but come on! Great funny stuff in here too! So glad I own this.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thesaurus for performance evaluation summaries. Divided into neat little sections including: effective phrases, two word phrases, helpful adjectives, helpful verbs, performance rankings, and time frequency, and guidelines for successful evaluations. Easy skim through. Focuses on the positive and future development.

[Carly Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great reference if you need to write any kind of job performance review.

[Natalia Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you have to take care of write reviews for your employees and English is not your first language, you will understand how hard it can be to put sentence together to get an effective understanding of what you want to say, this books helps me a lot in this situation and using some of the phrases I was able to add my part and get to the point to express to my employees what I valuated of them and what I would like that we work together to improve. I didn't give 5 stars because i think a lot of other situations could have been useful to have in this book but I was not able to give 4 1/2 stars because the weird system that Good reads use, i hope some day they finally give this half star and option in the game :)

[Roberta Gervasi · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was my first book related to successful phrases for performance reviews and the alike. It appears as though it was written with the first computer ever or by someone who never emerged past 1980. It looks like it was copied and then binded by kinkos but In either case, this book does the job.
It has great examples which gives the user a place to start, spur some ideas or what to consider when writing performance reviews, evaluations, development plans, etc. This book will beat googling a hundred sites for those great phrases for writing performance evaluations. Worth every penny!

[Leslie ♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good little book to help you out write your or your subordinate's evaluations.

[Mr. George The Librarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

solid, helpful handbook of phrases to help any supervisor. great for finding those right words to spark a fire in staff.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yeah, I've had to use this book over the years when feeling uninspired. This should really be more of a software solution these days...

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful if conducting performance reviews.

[Jay Mantle · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book I've ever used for work appraisals. I recommend it to colleagues and customers.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect tool to complete evaluations.