How to Use ChatGPT as a Question Generator for Employee Reviews

Only two in every 10 US employees receive meaningful feedback weekly. That's an unsettling statistic because good feedback drives a culture of ongoing improvement. Connected, motivated workers are almost four times as likely to be engaged and half as likely to look for different job opportunities.

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Treat this as your sign to focus on a continuous feedback loop with regular employee reviews. Facilitate open communication about what everyone is doing well, be constructive in what they need to change, and celebrate wins big and small.

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Yes, we know that writing employee review templates isn't anyone's dream job – and you likely have more important things to focus on. That's why we've created this guide on using ChatGPT as a question generator to do that work for you. Let’s dive in!

Question generator prompts for employee reviews

By far, the most popular AI writing tool is ChatGPT. In June 2023 alone, the generative AI website had 1.6 billion visits. It's steadily gaining popularity in business, with over 200 technical companies currently using it. Many industries hopped on this trend to streamline procedures and save time on tasks – or even money, by delegating some work to the bot.

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That's why we chose this tool to show you how to use it as a question generator for writing employee review templates. 

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Performance review

Let's start with a short, broad statement to have ChatGPT generate random questions for a performance review.

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Prompt: Give me some examples of employee performance review questions.

‍ChatGPT response:

This is a good start – GPT has already conveniently sorted the questions into sections you can use in your performance reviews. Now let’s take it a step further.

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The way to get the most out of ChatGPT is with these three input elements: objective, context and format. For this purpose, the prompt structure can look like this:

• Objective: Generate interesting questions for a performance review.
• Context: I am the manager of a tight-knit team of developers working to create a new online learning platform for global use. I want to review my team’s successes from the past quarter to motivate them to do even better.
• Format: Sort the questions into five different skill types and use bullet points.

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ChatGPT response:

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Peer review

Let’s try out some prompts for a different industry. 

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Prompt: Act as an HR manager with 10 years of experience. Write some examples of peer review questions for a team of 20 marketing professionals (including designers, copywriters and SEO experts). 

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The questions should focus only on soft skills. They should also focus on evaluating one employee. I want these questions to address topics that will help my team to cooperate better. 

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ChatGPT response:

Perhaps we could use close-ended questions for faster filling-in. We’ll work in the same conversation tab, so we don’t have to repeat the company information in the next prompt.

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Prompt: Give me a list of 10 multiple-choice questions for my monthly peer review. I want the questions to be easy and fast to answer so I get high response rates. Make these examples new, and don't repeat your previous ideas.

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ChatGPT response:

This method is called prompt chaining. You can build on top of your first query to get better or more accurate results with more instructions and follow-up questions. Try to continue this chain with more specifics or for different teams and skill sets.

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90-day review

Let's switch to a new tab for these quarterly review questions.

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Prompt: Act as an experienced HR consultant. Generate 10 examples of common questions for a 90-day review that could be used in any industry. Use the following structure:

• The topic of the question
• The question
• The type of question (open-ended or with a scale); add a scale if applicable

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ChatGPT response:

To follow up, you could provide a specific industry, ask for multiple-choice options or prompt GPT to make the questions fit a particular role, like data analysts. You can also ask the tool to focus on a particular performance aspect or sort the questions into themes. Here are some prompt examples for this:

• Provide multiple-choice options for each of these questions. Make the options the same for each question to improve consistency.
• Stick to the same format but generate a new list. Write questions for a 90-day review for a startup working on space exploration technologies. The questions should focus on hard skills. Ask the respondents to provide real-life examples or data to back up every answer.
• Make a list of quarterly review questions sorted into these roles and teams: product manager, software development team, sales team, customer support team, marketing manager and VP of engineering. 

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Another tip is asking for a change of style, for example:

• Use simple language
• Make it more fun
• Make the text understandable for a 12-year-old
• Be more professional
• Make the questions sound like conversations with friends
• Use short sentences

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360-degree review

We wanted some fresh ideas, so we created another conversation tab. That means ChatGPT won't work off anything we previously asked about. Let’s go for a super simple prompt again to see what you can get when you don’t have any specific ideas.

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Prompt: Generate a list of questions for a 360-degree review.

ChatGPT response:

It's interesting to see the different ways this question generator interprets simple prompts. For the 360 valuation, ChatGPT divided the questions by hierarchy. Here are some prompt chaining ideas for you to try on top of this:

• List five more employee review questions for each of the subheadings above. Sort them into soft and hard skills.
• Skip the general and behavioral questions. Give me seven more questions for the sections: self-evaluation, peer evaluation, supervisor and subordinate evaluation.
• Generate questions for a single employee. They work as a [name of position]. This is their CV [copy it into GPT]. They have X years of experience in this role, and the project they’re most proud of was [description].

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To split up long prompts like the one above, you can start by saying, “In a minute I will give you information about an employee. When I tell you that the information is complete, I will ask for you to give me performance review questions specific to their role”.

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Alternatively, flip the tables and ask ChatGPT: “I want to get specific questions for an employee’s review. What information do you need about them to give me the best results?”

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Self-performance review

Let's try something more creative and push ChatGPT to see if it can create questions for quizzes to spice up the employee review process. For this prompt, we started a new chat again.

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Prompt: I want to send out self-performance reviews to my employees, but also make them out-of-the-box and fun. Show me how I can turn self-assessment questions into a workplace personality quiz.

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ChatGPT response:

Ask the tool to generate a scoring chart and descriptions of each result. 

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You can even go a step further and use a different AI tool to generate images for every personality type. ChatGPT can write descriptions for those pictures for you to copy and paste into Freepik, Canva, Dall-E, or Photoshop.

ChatGPT question generator alternative: Effy AI

An alternative question generator to ChatGPT is Effy AI. It's an intuitive software designed by professionals specifically for performance reviewing, with an extensive question bank. The examples you get are helpful and relevant.

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Effy AI has multiple options that allow you to create a high-performance culture with quality questions for employee reviews that spark thoughtfulness and help focus on the most significant matters. 

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The innovative tool lets managers store all performance information in one place, as well as a platform to give and receive feedback, record private notes, and set reminders to reach the highest possible response rates.

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The cherry on top – you can connect it with your work Slack channel to make performance reviews that much more convenient. Effy AI has ready-to-use templates, so you don't have to copy and paste ChatGPT-generated questions into Docs or other text editing software. It also comes with an artificial intelligence feature for drafting comprehensive summary reviews and development plans based on the questions and answers you provided.

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The best thing is it's entirely free for teams of up to 10 members. Sign up here with your Gmail, Slack, or Microsoft account.

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Here’s a short summary for you to compare the tools side by side.

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Conclusion

If you want more than just a random question generator, Effy AI is the choice for you. This artificial intelligence-powered tool has many features for creating high-quality questions and speeding up the employee performance management process. It's highly customizable, easy to use, and much more sophisticated than a simple questions generator. Overall, it's a wonderful way to improve your work culture with regular 360-degree feedback and empowering employee evaluations.

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Sign up for free to speed up your employee reviews with ready-to-use, quality questions in just a few clicks.