The 90-Day Review Template to Keep Your Business on Track

A 90-Day review template can help you understand the employee experience in the first 90 days. Employee attrition is a major challenge for business owners. It costs an average of 33% of an employee’s annual salary to have people leave and even more to hire a new person. Plus, the process is very time-consuming. Therefore, the priority is always to retain existing employees. The first step for employee retention is to know your employees.
‍

The 90-Day review is held at the end of the employee’s three months on the job. This is the time that new hires spend getting accustomed to the company's way of working. The review is used to evaluate the process and give feedback to individual employees.
‍

Conducting review meetings might be challenging. There is a lot of preparation involved for the meeting to flow smoothly. The 90-Day review template will save you all the preparation time and focus on the conversation.
‍

Keep reading to learn more!

‍

{{banner-1="/banner-page"}}

‍

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. The purpose is to align and review the professional job requirements. The following issues are usually addressed:

Role clarity
Company culture
Onboarding experience
Employee's performance and improvement
Goal setting and alignment
Training, tools and resources

‍

Why is it important for your business?

Most companies conduct annual performance reviews. However, research shows that 92% of employees want feedback more often than just once a year.Having a better understanding of your new staff member early on would be more beneficial than having to wait a year to evaluate employee performance.
‍

A 90-day review meeting is the best time frame for both the employer and employee to become familiar with each other. Establishing an ongoing feedback loop after the 90-day review meeting can ensure that the information is provided more frequently.
‍

According to Harvard Business Review, 30% of job seekers leave their job within 90 days of joining. The 90-day review can promote engagement and earn the employee’s loyalty.
‍

90-day review can help review and improve:

Job role expectations
Employee Performance
Onboarding Experience
Employee-Manager Relationship
‍

Job role expectations: Only about half of the employees strongly agree that they know what is expected of them at work. This can cause a lot of miscommunication between the employer and the employee.

‍

During the 90-day review, you can review the job's responsibilities to ensure there is no confusion. Additionally, you can include specific KPIs for the role and check whether employees have a hard time meeting them. If so, go over strategies that can help improve work.
‍

Employee Performance: 90 days is enough time for employees to show concrete results that you need to evaluate together. First, discuss the employee’s strengths that helped them achieve those results. Afterward, look at areas for improvement and provide guidance on how to keep growing professionally.

‍

This will give employees a clear idea of where they need to put more effort promptly. Most importantly, they will not be discouraged by your feedback, but will be motivated to keep learning and improving.
‍

Onboarding Experience: Onboarding is the first process an employee goes through after joining a company. This experience is supposed to be smooth and informative so that the employee feels confident about starting with their role.

‍

During the 90 days review, you can reflect on the process and understand what went well and what could have been better. This will help in improving the onboarding experience for future employees.
‍

Employee-Manager Relationship: “People do not quit jobs but their bosses” is a common saying in the corporate world. A study revealed that 50% of over 7000 employees surveyed left their jobs to get away from their manager.

‍

However, it doesn’t have to be this way. A 90-day review is a good chance for managers and employees to connect and get to know each other better. This review needs to be interactive and allow employees to share their concerns, insights and questions. Addressing these will help strengthen employee-manager relationships.

‍

The importance of a 90-day review template

Holding a 90-day review can be challenging without a proper structure. It is easy to get lost in conversation and miss out on important points, such as identifying growth areas or answering employee questions. Luckily, you can rely on a 90-day review template to 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. Otherwise, the conversations can go way out of scope and end up discussing irrelevant topics. Plus, it may be hard to cover everything in a limited time-frame without a solid plan. 90-day review templates can prompt and guide the discussion with relevant questions.

Reduced preparation time: It is a tiresome task to prepare discussion pointers every time before a review meeting. 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. This means you can easily customize it based on your business needs. 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:

‍

{{banner-3="/banner-page"}}

‍

90-day review template

To save you the hassle of surfing the internet for hours, we have built the best usable 90-day review template.
‍

The template is divided into 3 categories.

Self Review
Manager Review
Goal setting

Self Review: This section is to be filled by the employee. The questions in this section are designed for the employees to assess themselves on certain parameters.

Are you happy with your job role? Do you miss anything from your previous role?
Do you have all the tools and resources required to excel at work? Do you need any additional training?
What projects are you enjoying the most within your position? What are your career goals?
Are you comfortable working 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 is supposed to fill this section and discuss the same with the employee.

Is the employee skilled enough to do the job? What skills are they good at?
How have they excelled in the last 90 days?
Do they take ownership and adhere to deadlines?
What are the areas of improvement?
Overall Performance Rating. Describe in detail why you chose to give that rating.

‍

Goal Setting: These goals should align with the personal goals of the employee and business goals. There should be specific action items for every goal along with a timeline. The progress of these goals should be measured over time.

You can download the complete template here.

‍

Conclusion: 90-Day Review Template

With the increase in attrition rates in the last couple of years, companies have started focusing on employee retention. New employees look for continuous feedback from their managers. This helps them gain confidence and gives clarity on what to do next. Conducting review meetings at regular intervals can build trust.
‍

The 90-day review templates help you conduct these meetings with ease. All you need to do is fill in the answers to the questions in the template.

‍

FAQ
What is a 90-day review?

A 90-day review is a performance appraisal process held after an employee spends at least three months on the job. In such a case, a 90 review meeting is often conducted as a one-on-one between a manager or a supervisor and an employee who just recently came to the company.

‍

How to conduct a 90-day performance review?

To conduct a 90-day review, you need to undergo five different steps:

Determine the goals of the review
Schedule a review and notify an employee being reviewed in advance
Write down a one-page 90-day review with all the related questions
Conduct a 90 review and ask all the questions
Write feedback based on the answers and make certain to have a follow-up

‍

How to write a 90-day review?

In short, to write a 90-day review you must know the review's objectives when it will be held, and what you want to achieve or accomplish. The key part of the 90 -day review is all about asking the right questions. Besides, remember that during the review, you need to ask an employee for their take on what you just discussed.

‍

How to prepare for a 90-day review?

To prepare a 90-day review, follow these steps:

Gather all specific data about employee’s performance
Prepare the logistics (meeting place, time and date, necessary tools, etc)
Notify the employee on time and provide certain points to think about
Define the goal of the review and make sure your feedback is straightforward yet motivational
Plan for some time to hear back from the employee and discuss potential concerns

‍