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Performance Appraisal Phrase Book: The Best Words, Phrases, and Techniques for Performance Reviews
You'll never struggle with performance appraisals again!
Do you dread writing employee performance evaluations? Do you struggle for hours to find just the right words of praise, avoid repetition, and tread the fine line between "constructive" and "criticism"?
Performance Appraisal Phrase Book makes it easy for you. Featuring concise sections on how to write the evaluation, handle tricky legal issues, and verbally discuss the evaluation, this book also includes a directory of thousands of words and phrases appropriate for any type of written evaluation.
You'll be able to find just the right way to assess:
With Performance Appraisal Phrase Book at your desk, you'll get through reviews in a snap--and have plenty of time left to accomplish all your other managerial duties.
Do you dread writing employee performance evaluations? Do you struggle for hours to find just the right words of praise, avoid repetition, and tread the fine line between "constructive" and "criticism"?
Performance Appraisal Phrase Book makes it easy for you. Featuring concise sections on how to write the evaluation, handle tricky legal issues, and verbally discuss the evaluation, this book also includes a directory of thousands of words and phrases appropriate for any type of written evaluation.
You'll be able to find just the right way to assess:
With Performance Appraisal Phrase Book at your desk, you'll get through reviews in a snap--and have plenty of time left to accomplish all your other managerial duties.
288 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2003
393 people are currently reading
164 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 24, 2022
Before reading a book that purports to offer advice, it's a good ideal to become familiar with the expertise of the authors.
Corey Sandler has written over 300 books, from "How to Fix Your Own PC" to the "Performance Appraisal Phrase Book". He appears to be a journalist by training and trade, who appears to have spent a long career writing guides on a variety of topics that lie outside the realm of journalism.
Janice Keefe, coauthor on this book, does not seem to have as much of a traceable footprint, but the matter in the book indicates she worked for Hearst Newspapers.
The point here is that neither of them seem to be able to boast expertise in human resources law, theory, or practice (outside of what they might encounter in their day-to-day professional lives).
In this book, it shows quite clearly.
The book is (as the title suggests) primarily a lengthy list of phrases for inclusion in performance appraisals. It is divided into sections for skill or competency (for example, there is a section on 'creativity' and another on 'communication skills'). Each section contains a simple list of suggested phrases, with subsections for 'meets or exceeds expectations', 'needs improvement', and 'unacceptable'.
The end result is the reader is left with each section repeated three times, with slightly different phrasing to represent level of performance; the book could have been one third as long with proper use of parentheticals. ('(Demonstrates exceptional/needs to improve/demonstrates unacceptable) job performance' instead of three separate phrases for that notion).
What's worse, these phrases, many of which any ready could come up with on their own, in some cases are highly ill-advised for use in performance appraisals. For example, I take exception to the construction 'Unable to' (what evidence do you have to prove the employee is incapable of X, rather than failing to do X? And what benefit is there in saying this as opposed to 'Fails to demonstrate' or 'Did not demonstrate X during this appraisal period'?).
To summarize, this particular text is worse than unhelpful; the inclusion of certain phrases may actually do harm.
Finally, I would not recommend reading this book; it is intended as a desk reference to flip to the section you need (much like a thesaurus), and I do not recommend its use for that purpose either.
Corey Sandler has written over 300 books, from "How to Fix Your Own PC" to the "Performance Appraisal Phrase Book". He appears to be a journalist by training and trade, who appears to have spent a long career writing guides on a variety of topics that lie outside the realm of journalism.
Janice Keefe, coauthor on this book, does not seem to have as much of a traceable footprint, but the matter in the book indicates she worked for Hearst Newspapers.
The point here is that neither of them seem to be able to boast expertise in human resources law, theory, or practice (outside of what they might encounter in their day-to-day professional lives).
In this book, it shows quite clearly.
The book is (as the title suggests) primarily a lengthy list of phrases for inclusion in performance appraisals. It is divided into sections for skill or competency (for example, there is a section on 'creativity' and another on 'communication skills'). Each section contains a simple list of suggested phrases, with subsections for 'meets or exceeds expectations', 'needs improvement', and 'unacceptable'.
The end result is the reader is left with each section repeated three times, with slightly different phrasing to represent level of performance; the book could have been one third as long with proper use of parentheticals. ('(Demonstrates exceptional/needs to improve/demonstrates unacceptable) job performance' instead of three separate phrases for that notion).
What's worse, these phrases, many of which any ready could come up with on their own, in some cases are highly ill-advised for use in performance appraisals. For example, I take exception to the construction 'Unable to' (what evidence do you have to prove the employee is incapable of X, rather than failing to do X? And what benefit is there in saying this as opposed to 'Fails to demonstrate' or 'Did not demonstrate X during this appraisal period'?).
To summarize, this particular text is worse than unhelpful; the inclusion of certain phrases may actually do harm.
Finally, I would not recommend reading this book; it is intended as a desk reference to flip to the section you need (much like a thesaurus), and I do not recommend its use for that purpose either.
July 2, 2022
Purchased this because it’s recommended reading for the ASCP DLM exam, then ended up using it when work announced that we would finally be having performance reviews again (the first since quarantine). This was the perfect resource for evaluating my teams. My only complaint is that it only has specifics for the sales industry. It would be nice if they covered healthcare/service/etc.
October 15, 2020
Utterly useless. Just lists down phrases by joining sets of nouns and verbs about how to word your feedback. Should have been obvious by looking at the title, but still hard to understand what addition does the book do.
April 14, 2024
Magnificent Human Resources Book
This book meets or exceeds all requirements for helping someone complete a performance review. Demonstrates all words and phrases required for documenting.
This book meets or exceeds all requirements for helping someone complete a performance review. Demonstrates all words and phrases required for documenting.
February 9, 2017
great book!
lots of useful information, keywords and phrases to help with effectively writing a performance review. also offers legal advice and pitfalls of writing constructive reviews of performance of others. must read for anyone who needs inspiration , guidance and support for writing and speaking with people no matter if they are exceptional or need improvement in certain areas.
lots of useful information, keywords and phrases to help with effectively writing a performance review. also offers legal advice and pitfalls of writing constructive reviews of performance of others. must read for anyone who needs inspiration , guidance and support for writing and speaking with people no matter if they are exceptional or need improvement in certain areas.
November 28, 2016
Great Performance Appraisal Guide
This book contains quite a number of phrases to guide you in writing your performance appraisals. What I particularly like about this book is that it has both measurable or quantitative attributes as well as the qualitative attributes for a variety of job titles.
This book contains quite a number of phrases to guide you in writing your performance appraisals. What I particularly like about this book is that it has both measurable or quantitative attributes as well as the qualitative attributes for a variety of job titles.
June 22, 2012
Wonderful phrases, and well organized.
January 25, 2014
Huge help, I can't believe I was writing appraisals without it. Wish I'd heard of it before.
November 11, 2013
Great tool for help in writing performance evaluations. Highly recommend!
December 20, 2017
Huge help when creating performance reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews