This is a 90-day review template to understand the employee experience in the first 90 days. Employee attrition is a big problem for business owners. It costs 33% of an employee’s annual salary to have someone leave and more to hire someone new. And it’s very time-consuming. So we always want to retain existing employees. The first step to employee retention is to know your employees and assess their performance well.
The 90-day review is a crucial part of the onboarding process for new team members. It evaluates the employee’s performance and sets the stage for their success through a structured evaluation process.
The 90-day review is held at the end of the employee’s first 3 months. New hires spend this time getting used to the company’s way of working. The review evaluates the process and gives feedback to individual employees.
Conducting review meetings can be tricky. There’s a lot of preparation involved to make it smooth. The 90-day review template will save you all the preparation time and let you focus on the conversation.
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What is a 90-day review?
A 90-day review is a meeting between a manager and a new employee who has just completed 90 days with the company to align and review the job requirements and performance expectations. This review is a performance evaluation to ensure the new employee meets the job expectations and integrates well with the company.
It is also an opportunity to assess the employee's performance through structured feedback from managers, peers, and the employee themselves. The following are discussed:
- Role clarity
- Company culture
- Onboarding experience
- Employee performance and improvement
- Job expectations
- Goal setting and alignment
- Training, tools, and resources
It is also essential to provide constructive feedback during this review to help the new employee develop and integrate effectively into the company.
Gathering feedback from team members, peers, and stakeholders is crucial to providing a comprehensive perspective on the new hire’s performance and creating a roadmap for their future development.
Why is employee performance important to your business?
Most companies conduct annual performance reviews; however, research shows that 92% of employees want feedback more often than once a year. Better understanding your new staff member early on would be more beneficial than waiting a year to evaluate the employee’s performance. Additionally, it is important for employees to evaluate their own performance through self-assessment tools and templates, fostering engagement and ownership in the review process.
The 90-day review meeting is the best time for the employer and employee to get to know each other. Establishing an ongoing feedback loop after the 90-day review meeting can ensure that the information is given more frequently. During the 90-day review, the evaluation process is crucial for providing constructive feedback to help the employee understand their strengths and areas for improvement.
Practical communication skills are key in giving feedback and evaluating performance. Empowering managers in their roles. According to the Harvard Business Review, 30% of job seekers leave within 90 days of joining. The 90-day review can boost engagement and earn the employee’s loyalty.
A 90-day review can review and improve:
- Job role expectations
- Employee Performance
- Onboarding Experience
- Employee-Manager Relationship
Job role expectations: Only about half of employees strongly agree that they know what is expected of them. This can cause a lot of miscommunication between employers and employees.
During the 90-day review, you can review the job’s responsibilities to make sure no confusion. You can also include specific KPIs for the role and check if employees find it hard to meet them. If so, go over strategies to improve work.
Employee-Manager Relationship: “People don’t quit jobs but their bosses” is a common saying in the corporate world. A study found that 50% of over 7000 employees surveyed left their jobs to escape their manager.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. The 90-day review is a good chance for managers and employees to connect and get to know each other better. This review must be interactive and allow employees to share their concerns, insights, and questions. Addressing these will strengthen employee-manager relationships.
Benefits of regular performance reviews
Regular performance reviews are key in developing employee growth and professional development, as they provide constructive feedback essential for employee development. These reviews provide a structured opportunity for employees to receive constructive feedback, set meaningful goals, and discuss their progress with their managers.
Gathering feedback from team members, peers, and stakeholders ensures fair evaluations and provides a comprehensive perspective on a new hire’s performance, helping to create a roadmap for their future development. By conducting regular performance reviews, managers can:
- Identify Areas for Improvement: Pinpoint specific areas where employees can improve their skills and provide targeted training and development opportunities.
- Recognize and Reward Outstanding Performance: Acknowledge and celebrate employees’ achievements, which boosts morale and motivation.
- Align Employee Goals with Company Objectives: Ensure individual goals align with the broader company vision, promoting a common direction.
- Foster Open Communication: Build a culture of transparency and trust by encouraging open dialogue between managers and employees.
- Improve Employee Retention: Regular feedback and recognition can significantly reduce turnover rates by making employees feel valued and supported.
Integrate these into your performance review process, and you’ll have a more engaged and productive workforce. The evaluation process is crucial in assessing employee strengths, progress, and engagement during formal discussions, establishing expectations, and promoting the professional growth of new hires.
How to сonduct a 90-day review
A 90-day review is a critical milestone in an employee’s journey. This review helps managers and employees reflect on what’s working, what’s not, and what needs to improve going forward by evaluating an employee's performance. Providing constructive feedback during this period is essential to motivating new hires and helping them integrate into the company effectively.
Use structured employee evaluation forms that outline key performance areas to ensure consistency and fairness. A 90-day evaluation isn’t just about output; it’s about how well the employee has adapted to the role, the company culture, and the expectations set during onboarding.
Using performance appraisal software and employee development tools can make this process smoother by tracking performance data and providing insights into an employee’s strengths and areas for support. A well-organized employee performance review form ensures the conversation is productive and growth-focused.
What to cover in a 90-day review
A 90-day evaluation form should include feedback on the following:
- Job performance: Are they meeting expectations? Are they completing tasks efficiently?
- Employee's performance: How effective is their work, and what areas need improvement?
- Adaptability: How well are they settling into the role and the team?
- Challenges: What roadblocks are they facing, and how can management help?
- Career goals: What development opportunities would be beneficial for them?
Having straightforward questions to ask during a performance review helps keep the conversation meaningful. Including 360 evaluation questions, which include input from colleagues and supervisors, can give a more rounded view of an employee’s performance and workplace integration.
Using the right tools for reviews
Managers can use an employee performance review template to structure the meeting so that key topics aren’t missed. For organisations with an established review cycle, elements from a mid-year review template can be adapted to maintain consistency in reviews.
A 90-day review template should be more than just a formality—it’s a chance to provide real feedback, address concerns, and set the stage for long-term success. With the right approach, this process builds communication and engagement and makes employees feel supported in their roles by ensuring managers provide constructive feedback.
The importance of a 90-day performance review template
Holding a 90-day review can be challenging without a proper evaluation process. Performance review templates provide a structured format that helps managers and HR professionals conduct employee evaluations effectively, ensuring that all critical aspects of the employee’s performance are reviewed systematically. It is easy to get lost in conversation and miss out on essential points, such as identifying growth areas or answering employee questions. A 90-day review template can help with this.
Some of the biggest benefits of using a template include:
- Structured conversations
- Reduced preparation time
- Easily customizable
- Build a solid plan
Structured Conversations: Review meetings need a well-structured agenda. 90-day review templates can prompt and guide the discussion with relevant questions, helping you provide constructive feedback to new hires.
Reduced preparation time: Preparing discussion pointers every time before a review meeting can be tiresome. A template can save preparation time and allow you to focus on individual items for each employee.
Easily Customizable: You should view templates as a strong yet flexible framework for your 90-day performance review. A quality template can also inspire you to add questions you otherwise would have missed.
Build a solid plan: Once you’ve reviewed the various aspects of the 90-day review meeting, you should make a plan to achieve future KPIs. The 90-day performance review template includes a goal-setting section with a timeline to follow up on tasks.
Related:
- 30, 60, 90 Day Plan: A Simple Guide to Help You Reach Your Goals
- How to evaluate your employees: 360 degree feedback example
- How To Conduct a Software Engineer Performance Review
90-day review template
We’ve created the most user-friendly 90-day review template to save you hours searching the internet, especially when onboarding a new team member and evaluating an employee's performance.
The template is divided into three sections.
- Self Review
- Manager Review
- Goal setting
Self-review: this is for the employee to fill out so they can assess themselves on specific parameters
- Are you happy in your job role? Do you miss anything from your previous role?
- Do you have all the tools and resources to excel at work? Do you need any additional training?
- How do you evaluate your own performance? What obstacles and opportunities for growth have you identified? How do you think your self-assessment aligns with the overall evaluation of your employee's performance?
- What are your favorite projects in your role? What are your career goals?
- Are you comfortable with your team? Do you ask for help? Do they help when you are stuck?
- What are our company’s best and worst experiences in the last 90 days?
Manager review: the manager has to fill this out and discuss it with the employee
- Is the employee skilled enough to do the job? What are they good at?
- How have they done in the last 90 days?
- Do they take ownership and meet deadlines?
- What are the areas of improvement? Provide constructive feedback to help the employee develop and integrate effectively into the company.
- Overall Performance Rating. Describe why you gave that rating.
Goal setting: goals should align with employees’ personal and business goals
Every goal should have action items and a timeline, and progress should be measured over time in the employee's performance review.
You can download the template here.
Get feedback from peers and supervisors
Gathering feedback from peers and supervisors and providing constructive feedback are crucial to a performance review process. Multi-source feedback gives you valuable insights into employees’ strengths and areas of improvement. By getting input from multiple sources, managers can:
- Get a well-rounded view of performance: Understand how different team members perceive an employee for a more comprehensive evaluation.
- Identify blind spots: Uncover areas that may not be visible from a single perspective so you have a thorough assessment.
- Recognize and reward excellence: Highlight outstanding performance that may go unnoticed.
- Develop a deeper understanding: Gain more insight into an employee’s skills, abilities, and contributions to the team in your performance review templates.
Including feedback from multiple sources in the review process ensures a fair and balanced evaluation, which leads to better development plans.
Set goals for the next review period
Employee performance is key to the simple performance review process, especially when setting goals for the next review period. By setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) objectives, managers can:
- Help employees focus on what matters: Give clear direction on what to prioritize.
- Align with business objectives: Ensure individual goals contribute to business success.
- Provide a clear development path: Outline a structured plan for employees to continue growing and improving.
- Measure progress over time: Track employee achievements and performance against the goals so you can assess development at the following review.
By setting SMART goals, managers can have a focused and motivated team aligned to the business.
Best practices for a successful review
A great performance review takes planning and preparation, starting with a thorough evaluation process. Here are some tips to make your reviews effective and productive:
- Be prepared: Collect all the information and insights about the employee’s performance before the review.
- Communicate clearly: Give specific, actionable feedback and use assertive communication skills to convey the message.
- Provide constructive feedback: Emphasize the importance of constructive feedback, especially in the first 90 days for new hires, to aid their development and integration into the company.
- Set clear goals: Define success for the next review period and what needs to be done to get there.
- Open communication: Encourage the employee to share their thoughts, concerns, and feedback and build trust.
- Fair and accurate: Use objective criteria and multiple sources of feedback to get a balanced view.
By following these tips, you’ll have fair and accurate reviews that help your employees grow and develop.
The role of HR managers in the review process
Managers have a big part to play in evaluating an employee’s performance during the evaluation process. Their responsibilities are:
- Guidance and support: Support managers and employees throughout the review process so it runs smoothly.
- Compliance: Make sure all reviews are done following company policies and procedures.
- Performance management systems: Create and implement systems and processes to make performance reviews happen.
- Performance data analysis: Review performance metrics to see trends, strengths, and areas for improvement.
- Training and development: Provide opportunities for employees to upskill and progress.
HR managers help create a structured and supportive environment for continuous improvement and professional development by doing these things.
With these new sections added, the article now has a complete guide to 90-day reviews. It covers regular reviews, multi-source feedback, SMART goals, best practices, and the role of HR managers in supporting and enhancing the review process.
Conclusion
With attrition rates increasing in the last few years, companies have focused on employee retention. New employees look for continuous feedback from their managers to improve their performance. Managers should provide constructive feedback to help new hires integrate effectively and develop their skills. This helps them gain confidence and gives clarity on what to do next.
The 90-day review templates make it easy to conduct these meetings. All you need to do is fill in the answers to the questions in the template.
