The Ultimate list of 50 Phrases for Self Appraisal

Self-appraisal or self-evaluation mostly forms the first step in a performance management program. While this offers a great opportunity to an employee to accurately evaluate their own performance, elaborate on their achievements and areas of improvements, most of us do not do complete justice to this step. As a result, we land up misrepresenting our work by either overestimating or underestimating our efforts.

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To do complete justice to oneself, an employee needs to use the art of writing with science of data. If done correctly, this exercise can provide meaningful data that can help in rewarding right attributes, plan training interventions, re assess the need for realignment with organization objectives at regular intervals and help employees in their daily and long term performance projects. Here you will find 50 self evaluation phrases that will help you in writing a performance review for yourself.

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While self-appraisals are meant to be our best friend and help us in getting a crisp clear understanding of our own work and learning, it somehow does not come on our priority at all. This could be because of  

1. Lack of time
2. Sheer laziness
3. Feeling that your work is anyways known to your manager 
4. Unable to recall the information while doing self-appraisal
5. Not seeing the importance of doing it elaborately
   

Influence of others and pre set notions such as whatever we write, managers will anyways give the score they want OR let me write only good things about me as the manager will anyways criticise OR as I am aspiring for promotion or good hike let me only write thoughts that show me in good light can also hinder the objectivity of this exercise. 

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You might also like: The Guide to Reward & Recognition

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Why is Self-appraisal important?

For an organization to continue succeeding it is important that all its employees precisely know what they are doing. At all times, there must be an alignment of individual efforts towards the organization objective. At each individual level there must be a sense of accountability, a will to introspect and learn and a sense of accomplishment. It is hence imperative for an employee to assess themselves correctly with supporting data points.

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As an individual, it is every employee’s responsibility to do justice to the work they have done, the contributions they have made by presenting it in the best possible manner they can. We do also hear that the managers didn’t provide right or constructive feedback, didn’t gauge an employee’s efforts correctly or for that matter were not fair in their scoring – well it may be impractical to expect the managers to remember all your accomplishments and then score you. The foundation for a great review starts with writing a performance review for yourself.

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As per a TriNet Survey of Millennials –

• 62% have felt blindsided by performance reviews.
• 31% feel they have received biased or unfair feedback.
• 59% feel their manager is not prepared to give feedback.

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How to Write Self Appraisal?

Here are the steps following which can teach you how to write self appraisal and can also help in writing a performance review for yourself.

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1. Track your work regularly  

Get in a regular habit of making your notes. You surely would not remember it all when you get down to writing your self-appraisal. Keep track of your improvements from the last feedback, the contributions you made, training you did and challenges you faced. In an ideal scenario, it would be a good practice to start maintaining a performance document in the beginning of an assessment period and record your performance under the following categories month on month. 

• Contributions and achievements
• Areas of improvements
• Extra initiatives
• Feedback received and action taken
• Training and certifications and so on

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Read More: Best Practice Guidelines for 360 Degree Feedback Program

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2. Prepare a draft

Do not be in a hurry to click on the ‘Submit’ button in your self-appraisal form. Working in the draft mode will allow you to read, review, amend your inputs and refer to data points. Remember presentation matters! Be sure to check on grammar, sentence formation and overall presentation of your thoughts. 

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3. Take time to complete it  

Normally the tendency is to start working on self evaluation when the HR starts sending reminders. The priority then is to complete the exercise and, in an attempt, to meet the timelines – the quality of content is compromised to a great extent. The 1st two points can come handy if you are crunched on time. If you do not follow this practice, then it surely will be good to start early so that you have ample time to refer to historic data and prepare your write up.

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4. No achievement is a small achievement

We often don't understand how to do self appraisal assessment. There is always a dilemma while working on self-appraisals – how much self-praise is a lot? Would it look better if I am more critical of myself? Will it be considered arrogance if I write about every single achievement of mine – big or small? Well, the whole intent of self-appraisal is to provide an avenue to an employee to express and share their inputs. Utilize it to the best.

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What you can probably consider is the style of writing – see what works best – paragraphs or bullet points. Would you want to make a list of small ones and describe the big achievements? Find out ways of making your data crisp yet covering all the details you want to present. 

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5. Be realistic

Do not under or overestimate yourself. Be realistic about scoring your work. Remember you are doing this exercise to benefiting your learning and intellectual growth first. There is no fun in over rating yourself and then having an unpleasant discussion during review stages and getting demotivated about your final rating. 

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Read More: Fifty Quotes for Employee Recognition

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50 Self Performance Review Phrases

With data in place and time set aside to write self-appraisal, it is time to get creative in writing the review. You may have the best of work to write about but if you are unable to articulate your thoughts and express them in a crisp, engaging and data based manner you may see repetition of content and an excessively lengthy yet less impactful self-review.

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Here we will take some commonly known functional and/or additional skills and suggest fifty self-appraisal phrases for your reference which can be used in conjunction with your project details to describe your work. Do note that these phrases will be meaningful when used along with crisp data points / supporting instances. Let us now look at a couple of self appraisal examples that can help in self evaluation for performance review.

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Customer Support

1. I have handled X tickets and resolved Y% of tickets in Z amount of time.
2. Service SLAs maintained for Y% of time.
3. I have received appreciation from the client on handling the critical case where [mention the details]. 
4. While my interaction with A client is seamless, I need to work on strengthening my working relationship with B client. 
5. Basis my rapport and team delivery, I pitched in for new assignment and we received [provide the details on new assignment].
6. I was selected as the KT point of contact by the client for X project.
   

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Business Communication

7. I am always polite and respectful during all my written and verbal communications. 
8. I clearly set my expectations with other stakeholders.
9. I document the important discussions for later reference. 
10. I have handled escalation emails with ease and composure.
11. I participate in team collaboration and idea sharing forums and contribute ideas. [if you have any ideas that helped in process improvements then you can add here].
12. I share feedback in a constructive manner that helps in acceptance, assimilation, and action.

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Also Read: Effective Communication: Unlock the true power of Engagement!

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Team Handling & Collaboration

13. I deal with my team respectfully and acknowledge everyone’s presence.
14. I invite fresh ideas of process improvements from the team.
15. I encourage open dialogue in the team. 
16. In absence of my Team leader, I take the team huddle everyday.
17. I planned for team outing and team bonding exercise which involved [can share the details here].
18. I collaborated with other departments on the recent RFI and sales pitch.
19. I work with the support teams in driving their initiatives in my team.
20. I am the engagement POC for my team and plan for team celebrations and team budget utilization.
21. My team participated in inter corporate sports/cultural event. 
    

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Learning & Development

22. I attended X trainings on following subjects [mention the subjects].
23. I have incorporated following learning in my daily task which has helped [enter the details on how it has helped your work].
24. I encourage my team to constantly indulge in self learning and attend trainings.
25. In X duration L&D penetration in my team is at Y%.
26. I introduced the concept of cross training and upskilling within the team thereby enhancing team’s learning and ensuring business continuity.
27. As part of IDP (individual development plan), I am currently participating in leadership job shadowing and mentoring program.
    

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Process Improvements & Innovations

28. I worked on X projects and was able to make a saving of Y manhours.
29. I constantly strive for adding more quality by automating manual processes.
30. I constantly contribute fresh ideas within the organization beyond my scope of work too.
31. I am undergoing Quality concept trainings [provide training details and certification level].
    

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Additional Initiatives and Responsibilities

32. I took X number of initiatives beyond my regular task in Y duration.
33. For “A” initiative I also received an appreciation from the Business head.
34. I could not devote time to X initiative taken due to [add details].
35. Due to lack of resources and understanding from my end, I could not complete the Y initiative.
36. I participated in the CSR drive on DD/MM/YY and helped [detail the contribution].
37. I am part of corporate cultural group.
38. I volunteered for [provide details].

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Improvement Areas

39. I need to further improve my time management skills.
40. I can work on enhancing my people management skills.
41. I can get more proactive in gauging my team sentiments. 
42. I do delegate tasks within the team but eventually I get down to doing it on my own. I need to hence work on upskilling and supporting my team.
43. I can further improve on my interviewing skills.
44. I identify the need for training in advanced excel and presentation skills.
45. I need to work on balancing between work and personal time.
    

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Discipline and Compliance

46. I am punctual and always log in on time and complete my work timings.
47. I ensure I follow the safety guidelines of IT and data security.
48. I do not indulge in password and/or access card sharing.
49. I contribute to the safety of the organization by reporting out matters. 
50. I participate in compliance projects run by various departments.

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Self-evaluation can be an overwhelming experience as we normally do not know how to do self appraisal assessment. You can opt for taking help of some self-help books, contact your training department for assistance and until then try this technique of looking and evaluating yourself as a third person.

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But the key for this technique to work will be that you stay honest in capturing the accomplishments and improvements correctly. Taking periodic feedback from your stakeholders will also help you gather right data and aid in a constructive self-appraisal. 

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Remember, if you articulate and present the data in a correct, precise, and accurate manner, you will be able to do justice to your work and carve a learning and upskilling path for future growth. 

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