Why do employees love their jobs? No, it’s not the food. Three reasons top the list: interesting work, career growth, and working with great people. On the flip side, employees are more likely to loathe and leave their jobs if they feel underpaid, overburdened with responsibility, or work for a bad boss.
Positive, productive employees make a strong company. Sure, you can assume all is well—business is booming, customer satisfaction is high, and employee turnover is generally low. But are you getting the complete picture? Is everyone on the team doing their part? Are managers getting results through positive or negative motivation? Are people staying because of a tough economy or because they genuinely enjoy their work, their managers, and their teams?
Regular performance reviews—of individuals, teams, and managers—can give you timely insight into the health of the very heart of your company: Your employees. Traditional employee surveys conducted by human resources departments allow management to gather the business crucial feedback. However, a focused employee self-evaluation allows for management and their workforce to engage in a helpful dialogue about career development and goals.
How to use surveys to review performance
Use the feedback you gather with performance review surveys to shape your management training programs, target specific team skills development, and plan individual career paths.
- Self-assessment. Ask individuals to rate their job satisfaction and performance. Did they meet goals set at the beginning of the quarter or year? Were these reasonable and attainable? Annual performance reviews provide great input for career development discussions.
- Employee and team skills assessment. Gain management perspective on individual and team performance and skills. Identify any gaps between an employee self-evaluation questionnaire and those of managers, and then figure out what training or development might be required to align experiences.
- Manager effectiveness. Across departments, what do employees think about their managers? Find out if supervisors and managers communicate expectations well with their teams. Is there unity of purpose? Use surveys to determine if the vision and goals of the company are clear to all employees—across teams, departments, and geographies.
- Career training and development. What do employees think of the company’s job training and development programs? Do employees feel the workplace supports their career goals and ambitions? What education programs do they need to meet their objectives? If there was a particular program you ran over the previous time period, you can also deploy a dedicated training survey.
- Promotion readiness. Is your employee ready to take on a position of greater responsibility? Do others—superiors, subordinates, and peers—feel positively about this person’s work, leadership, and collaboration skills?
Sample performance review templates
Use one of our survey templates as is or as the basis for your own survey. While all of our performance review survey templates questions are written by professional survey methodologists, you can customize them to fit your needs.
- 360 degree feedback (also known as Multi Source Assessment)
For the most complete input and greatest insight, use this survey to gather feedback on an employee’s performance from their supervisors, co-workers, peers, and subordinates. This sort of employee appraisal is very different than the traditional evaluation which only incorporates feedback from an employee’s manager. - Employee review
For the most complete input and greatest insight, use the Employee Review survey to gather feedback on an employee’s performance from their supervisors, co-workers, peers, and subordinates. This sort of employee appraisal is very different than the traditional evaluation which only incorporates feedback from an employee’s manager. - Inclusion and belonging
Building a workplace culture that prioritizes belonging and inclusion is the best way to attract diverse and talented people, create a sustainable workforce, and—most importantly—make employees feel supported. SurveyMonkey’s inclusion and belonging survey template can help you understand what you’re doing well and where there’s room for growth. - Management performance
Request employees’ feedback on the corporate management team, including their opinions about management approachability, clarity in explaining the company’s goals and business plan, effectiveness at community and public relations, and workplace performance. - Department performance and team performance
Survey management teams about the key capabilities of their departments or teams. Obtain their assessments of their team or department’s skill levels and professionalism, honesty and communication among members, how they share responsibility, how well they work with clients, and more. - Employee satisfaction surveys
A happy workforce will correlate to satisfied customers. You don’t need to be a large enterprise to survey your employees. Even a small retail store or online business can gain valuable feedback from a questionnaire. Ask your staff about their working conditions, commute times, and even their preference for office music. - Employee and human resources
In addition to templates for gathering employee performance feedback, SurveyMonkey offers a host of surveys for assessing company culture and focus; career training and development; personnel policies; and employees’ satisfaction with their jobs, management, and the company.