The Performance Review Rewrite Kit

A large share of the variance in performance ratings is explained not by the person being rated but by the person doing the rating. Some managers are generous, some are severe, and the gap between them is frequently larger than the gap between a strong and a weak employee. Everything in this kit exists to reduce one quantity: how much of someone’s rating is explained by which manager they happen to have.

You get a five-point scale written as observable behaviour instead of unstated expectation, and a defence of why a 3 must be a respectable place to be. Six rating errors with the specific process step that constrains each. A calibration meeting agenda that stays a discussion about standards rather than becoming a negotiation about outcomes. The review conversation itself, with sentences that work and sentences that do damage. Plus a self-assessment form and the monthly note habit that makes recency resistible at all.

For HR leads, people managers and heads of department.

What it is not: a validated performance measurement instrument. The descriptors are a starting point to rewrite for your roles. Where ratings feed redundancy selection or a promotion that could be challenged, the evidentiary standard is higher than any template supplies, and the kit says so.

10 pages, A4, formatted for printing. Delivered as a PDF immediately after payment.