American philosopher and social reformer John Dewey once said: “We do not learn from experience … we learn from reflecting on experience.”
In the HR world, this introspection takes the form of a Self-Evaluation. With more companies ditching the annual performance appraisals in favour of a more regular, collaborative feedback process, the employee is no longer just a silent recipient of feedback but an active player in their own professional development journey.
So what’s so great & promising about a self-evaluation? Especially for employees.
Well, for starters, by critiquing their own work, employees can gain a better idea of their own performance and identify specific areas they need to work on in the future. In that sense, it’s a great opportunity to tell managers where they (employees) lack in terms of skill, knowledge, or access to resources. Based on this report, a company may decide to train, mentor, or otherwise help employees fill gaps in their performance or behavior.
Jumping right into a self-evaluation might feel a little daunting at first. So, before we get to the key features of our pre-built Form, let’s have a good think about when, why, and how self-evaluations are done in the first place.
Self-Evaluations: The When, Why, and How
To get you started, here are some useful insights designed to help you tailor this process to your unique business or professional context:
Why?
As with every performance review, it’s important to have a clear, strategic goal in mind. In other words, what are you hoping to achieve with this round of self-evaluations?
Do you want to boost team morale, identify skill-based training gaps, or train a future organizational leader? The fact is, companies use self-evaluations not just to assess performance, but for different strategic, operational, and cultural reasons. It’s important you know yours.
It also helps to think about what kind of feedback you’re hoping to gather. Are you looking for honest reflections? Progress updates? Or simply a chance for employees to speak up in their own words? Being clear on this will make the process more meaningful for both sides.
When?
Unlike most performance appraisals, which are conducted annually, there is no one standard frequency for conducting self-evaluations. That said, self-evaluations are mostly done before a scheduled performance review as a way to prepare employees for more insightful conversations with their managers (usually, every 6 or 12 months).
Whether you have a quarterly, bi-annual, or annual performance review coming up, getting your team started with a self-evaluation is a great way to kickstart the performance review process!
Some teams also use them at the end of big projects or during key transition periods, like onboarding, promotions, or departmental shifts. In short, anytime you need a fresh perspective, it’s a good moment to ask people how they think they’re doing.
How?
There is no strict formula for conducting a self-evaluation. You can use surveys, questionnaires, checklists, a template like one we have provided, or even software programs to get the ball rolling. By and large, most self-evaluations are based on a list of statements or questions prompting employees to think critically about their contributions at work.
You can keep it simple or go deep, but either way, it’s best to give people enough space to explain their answers. A few open-ended questions, along with some ratings or yes/no items, usually strike the right balance between clarity and reflection.
So far, we have developed a clear understanding of what self-evaluations are, when managers use them, and why.
What We Offer
Well, to make this process easier for you, we at WordLayouts designed and developed a comprehensive self-evaluation template. Feel free to explore the key features of our pre-standardized Self-Evaluation Form. Trust me, we make the process a lot easier & quicker for you by doing all that tedious design & formatting work so you don’t have to!
To begin with, our template is:
- Free-of-cost
- 100% editable
- Professionally designed
- Vetted by HR and business experts
- Available in multiple file formats
Key Features of Our Template
Here’s a quick run-down of the core elements of our template:
Employee information
In this section, supply basic details about the employee, including their name, employee ID, department, and position details. This is also where you specify the period of employment covered by the review, as well as the date when the self-evaluation report is submitted to HR.
Rating scales
We use the Likert scale to measure employee responses, considering it is one of the most common rating scales used for studying an individual’s opinions, attitudes, or beliefs.
A simple and consistent 5-point scale lets you measure & compare information easily, especially when you are evaluating the performance of individual employees in big teams.
This is what each number in the Likert scale signifies:
1: Strongly agree
2: Agree
3: Neutral
4: Disagree
5: Strongly disagree
Use this scale to record employee responses against each statement in a quick and intuitive way. You can easily edit section headings and specific prompts included in each section to suit your organisational needs or context.
Overall rating
In addition, we use an overall rating scale for employees to self-evaluate, comprising the following categories –
- Exceeds expectations
- Satisfactory performance
- Needs improvement
- Unacceptable performance
Open-Ended Sections
While ratings can help you quantify responses and identify key patterns, they are not always the complete story. To gather in-depth, qualitative insights into an employee’s past performance, you need to use open-ended sections as well, just like we have!
Flexible and open responses encourage greater reflection, allowing employees to tell their ‘side of the story’. Employees are expected to use these sections to talk about any skills learned, goals met, or targets hit during the period for which they are being evaluated.
Below are some of the default questions used in our template. Use this list of pre-researched questions as a starting point for creating your own self-evaluation form (or better yet, customizing one!).
- In which aspects of your role do you believe you have demonstrated exceptional performance?
- What key accomplishments are you most proud of? How have they supported the success of the team/organization?
- What aspects of your role do you find most challenging, and how do these challenges impact your overall productivity?
- Were there any professional goals you set but were unable to achieve? What challenges hindered your progress?
Find more question examples in our Peer Evaluation Template!
Add Examples, Here is Why
Real-life stories from work can help you make sense of the achievements of your employees, or for that matter, the challenges they face. One way to encourage employees to confide more in you is to ask them to back up their insights with specific examples.
To do this, you can add a few hypothetical examples within our pre-built questionnaire. This will give your employees a better idea of what kind of experiences or anecdotes they ought to share. These examples can be particularly tailored to your business context, from specific technical skills they developed, to a specific event where they may have contributed significantly to business goals.
Always encourage employees to mention specific metrics such as KPIs or OKRs used to rate their performance & potential. For example, “My contribution to project X has helped increase customer NPS 10x.”
Only use metrics that apply to you in the context of your industry, company and professional role.
But hold on, what are KPIs, how do they differ from OKRs, and do I need separate questionnaires for both?
KPIs or Key Performance Indicators measure performance against specific targets—usually ongoing metrics like sales revenue or customer retention. They basically track how well you’re doing in real time.
On the other hand, OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) are goal-setting frameworks that define what you want to achieve (Objectives) and how you’ll measure success (Key Results). They’re typically more ambitious, time-bound, and forward-looking.
In the context of HR-led self-evaluations, KPIS and OKRs work slightly different ends. While KPIs help employees assess how well they’ve met quantitative targets in the past, OKRs help them reflect on strategic contributions and futuristic goals, not just past performance.
Summary
The Self-Evaluation Template is a powerful tool used for performance evaluation and professional development. It helps in identifying skill gaps, understanding job-related challenges, and finding ways to enhance productivity and efficiency. You can use it to determine how your current role fits in with your long-term career plan and what you can do to progress to the next stage.
Remember, in order to self-evaluate, you need to know what you have done, so always keep track of whatever you have done throughout the year. You can do this by keeping a work diary or using any kind of task tracking tool, like a spreadsheet or software used at your workplace, where you add important details about your achievements every month. As a structured document that allows employees to assess their own performance, skills, achievements, and overall contribution to work, self-evaluations serve as a tool for employees to reflect on their strengths, weaknesses, and professional growth over a specific period.
Who Is Our Template For?
- Employees (to reflect on their performance and set future goals)
- Supervisors/Managers (to assess employee feedback and make informed decisions)
- HR Department (for record-keeping and performance management)
Other Templates You Might Be Interested In
At WordLayout, our team is committed to developing new HR tools to help your company run smoothly. If you are looking to step up your HR game and create a healthy work environment, here are some more templates you might find useful…
Employee Improvement Plan
PIPs are targeted action plans designed to give weak performers a chance to get back on track. Unlike an informal word with your line manager at lunch, a PIP is a formal, documented step in a broader disciplinary process.
As a performance management tool, the creation and implementation of a PIP is at the manager’s discretion, who is also responsible for providing any help or support needed to rectify enduring patterns of subpar performance or bad behavior at work.
You can use this step in performance management to help employees understand their skills, identify training gaps, and set clear improvement goals to work towards! Build an effective roadmap of action for underperformers by simply filling out their case details in our premade Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) template.
Employee Satisfaction Survey
Employee Satisfaction Surveys are special feedback forms used to measure how happy employees are with their jobs and overall work experience. Analyzing first-hand insights is a great way to foster clear communication between employees and the company. By offering a formal avenue to share their honest views, employee surveys boost team morale & increase work productivity while reducing employee turnover in the long haul.
Our Employee Satisfaction Survey includes 27 individual survey points spread out over 5 broad thematic areas. Our survey statements help you identify specific areas of improvement in terms of workplace culture, management style, and employee benefits. Each section in our template has an Additional Feedback section where you can add your detailed remarks or responses if any statement in a section is rated 3 and below.
Elevate your HR game today with our Employee Satisfaction Survey template and lay down the foundation of a positive and supportive work environment!
Peer Evaluation Form
A Peer Evaluation Form helps you understand how employees perceive one another in a professional, organized & anonymous way. In that sense, it’s a valuable tool for HR professionals who can then recommend or make changes around the workplace based on their analysis, such as new training programs or more staff dinners.
Use our premade Peer Evaluation Form to evaluate the performance of your employees on a regular basis. Once you have nailed down why you are conducting evaluations in the first place, structure yours depending on the purpose of the evaluation, the criteria being assessed, and the format of the evaluation.
Remember to use well-defined evaluation criteria to gauge an employee’s performance and contributions at work. Make sure your criteria are measurable, objective, and relevant to your organisation’s work.
Eliminate paperwork and start gathering evaluations online using our free, 100% editable template, available in WORD and Google Docs formats!
