The Employee Performance Evaluation Email: What It Is, When to Send It, and How to Write It
Publié le 16 August 2024
Take the time when preparing employee performance evaluation emails to make them truly meaningful and helpful.
If you are an HR professional, manager, or team leader, one of your tasks is conducting regular performance reviews with team members. The final element in each review is a summary of the results sent to the employee by email after the meeting. This article explains why employee performance evaluation emails are important and describes what to write to inspire employees’ further improvement and committment to the organization committment to the organization. Most significantly, I show you how to prepare an email quickly and simply, sparing you unnecessary stress and ensuring your workforce gets the feedback they need.
What is an employee performance evaluation email?
During an employee performance evaluation, also called a performance review, employees receive feedback on their performance and competencies and outline a growth plan. Typically, such an assessment occurs once every six months or once yearly, but some companies may conduct performance reviews more often (for example, quarterly). According to data on the SHRM website (citing Workhuman research), only 7% of companies conduct no performance reviews at all, whereas 28% of organizations conduct evaluations quarterly.
After a meeting in which you discussed an employee’s performance, it’s time to write an employee performance evaluation email. This is a formal message from the manager or HR professional to the employee that must include all the essential results of the performance review—achievements, areas that can be strengthened, and goals for the following review.
This formal email includes clear, valuable information for the employee and the company and consequently represents both an assessment tool and a powerful mechanism for staff development.
When and why should you send an employee performance evaluation email?
An evaluation email primarily aims to summarize the meeting, highlight the employee’s successes, identify opportunities for further growth, and record work results for the period covered.
Situations meriting an employee performance evaluation email
The main situations that call for sending an evaluation email are described below:
- within one or two days after a meeting during regular evaluation periods, such as quarterly, semi-annual, or annual;
- when no meeting is held but the manager conducts a performance assessment by email based on work results;
- after the initiation of an unscheduled performance review meeting, when it is necessary to highlight outstanding achievements or focus attention on the employee’s poor performance to reinforce the key points discussed;
- at the end of important projects or milestones to give employees feedback from which they can benefit in new projects.
Why is it essential to send employee performance emails?
Introducing the practice of sending performance review emails benefits the company, its management, and the employees.
The main reasons for sending performance evaluation emails include the following:
- Documenting the results of the performance review makes it easier for you to track and analyze the subsequent development of each employee and gives employees an accurate understanding of their performance, strengths, and areas for improvement.
- Communication and useful feedback after a performance appraisal help employees improve their work and grow professionally, while also preventing candidate cheating.
- Motivating and retaining talented professionals. If you understand the importance of strong people to a company, you recognize the significance of making them feel valued. In addition to a salary increase, recognizing their achievements in an email with an evaluation provides an opportunity to express the company’s appreciation.
- Employee performance emails formulate clear, achievable goals and expectations for the future, so employees can always return to them to remember the personal development goals established at the meeting.
- Performance emails create a positive image of the company and an atmosphere of mutual respect and trust. This shows employees that the company helps them grow and is ready to invest in their growth and development, which will make the organization more attractive to new talent.
Tips for writing a great employee performance review email
Gallup data show that 80% of employees who have received meaningful feedback in the past week are fully engaged. The key word here is “meaningful,” so let’s consider how to make our reviews meet that criterion.
If you haven’t written an employee performance evaluation email before, you may struggle in your first emails to correctly build the logic of the text, choose a subject line, and adopt an appropriate tone. Save this selection of valuable tips that will help you to prepare your emails.
Come up with specific subject lines
Since a performance review email is usually sent not only to the employee but also to the finance department, HR specialist, team lead, and, for example, one of the unit heads, it is crucial to include all necessary information in the subject line. This will make it easy to identify the email in the inbox and simple to find it if necessary.
Therefore, make sure your email subject line includes the designation “performance review,” the employee’s name, the unit name, and the period or reason for the review.
For example:
Five required elements to better structure your email
To make your email logical and include all the necessary information, adopt the following structure:
- Greet the employee and all email recipients. This is a professional email, so your greeting should be formal and start with the employee’s name.
- In the first paragraph, explain the reason for the email, indicating that it is based on the results of a scheduled or special review.
- Describe the work results you discussed, which may be established key performance indicators (KPIs) or collected performance results for the period. It is vital to provide numbers and concrete results. You can also evaluate the employee’s performance on an established performance scale. Remember to explain what each numerical value means when assessing various categories of work and skills.
- Describe your plans for the next period and make them as specific as possible, naming tasks, possible KPIs, and goals for skill development.
- Indicate in your email whether there has been a change of position or revision of remuneration. This element can even be placed at the very beginning of the email, ensuring that the financial unit immediately sees the vital information.
To make your employee’s email not only professional but also humane, add a short summary at the end with personal thanks (as the supervisor) for the work done.
Pay attention to these points in the email copy
Pay special attention to the tone of the email copy. On the one hand, an email about work results is quite an official matter, but on the other it builds your relationship with the employee. Therefore, try to maintain the tone of voice accepted by your company and unit team. From a communication point of view, it is better to take a warmer approach than one that is too formal.
Read the entire email several times to ensure the text contains important information and has no errors, typos, or other inaccuracies. Be especially careful if you copy the email text from the review of another employee.
Take care of email design and brand consistency
The most common design option for a performance review email is a simple text using an email client such as Google or Yahoo. However, another option is to design internal emails based on colors and fonts from the company’s brand book. It is critical that all internal and external communications are consistent, build trust in the company, and clearly show the recipients that they are truthful emails from the company.
How to use an employee performance review template to speed up the process
To speed up the process of preparing performance review emails, you can use
- prepared layouts of email texts, which indicate the structure you need and are easy to follow when making each new email, or
- employee performance review email templates created in an email builder. In Stripo, for example, you can save all the modules and the email template and then replace only the required text. Utilizing software tools can also streamline the process, ensuring efficiency and consistency.
This will ensure that all your emails look professional and remain on brand.
We have prepared examples of performance review emails to help you prepare your first one. You can adjust them to suit your processes and your employees’ working activities.
Employee performance evaluation email sample #1
Subject line: Performance Review Results Follow-Up for [Name]
Hi [Name],
I hope this message finds you well.
I am following up on our recent performance review discussion. Thank you again for your time and insights.
I was incredibly impressed with [Achievement 1] and [Achievement 2].
We discussed areas for improvement, specifically [Feedback]. I want you to know that I’m here to support you in this and help you advance in your role.
Let’s continue to work together toward achieving your professional goals.
Thank you for all your hard work, dedication, and progress. Keep up the great work!
Best regards,
[Your Name]
Employee performance evaluation email template #2
Subject line: Performance Review: [Employee Name] for January–June 2024
Conclusion
An employee performance evaluation email is an excellent tool for providing feedback after a performance review. Use it to maintain warm relationships with employees and cultivate the atmosphere of a unified team. For inspiration when writing an email, you can use this article’s email structure and writing examples. To simplify the technical aspect of preparing emails, use convenient tools that will do that work for you.
