Sample List of Accomplishments for Performance Review

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A performance review is a process used by businesses to assess the effectiveness of their employees’ work and how it adds value to the company or organization. The goals of a performance review are to:

1. Assess if employees have been meeting expectations,
2. Give feedback (boss/manager to employee and employee to boss/manager),
3. Uncover areas that need improvement, 
4. Collaborate on solutions to strengthen areas of weakness,
5. Discuss career growth opportunities, and 
6. Reward performance. 

A performance review is an opportunity for an employee to shine a light on what they’ve accomplished and unabashedly communicate their career goals. To make the most of a performance review it is important a boss/manager establish expectations and that if no expectations are established the employee asks for clear expectations in order to set guidelines that will help facilitate a positive outcome for their career. 

Company goals may change over time. A performance review allows both the employer and employee to discuss what has been completed during the last performance review cycle, assess what went well, where areas of improvement may lie, and to proactively implement needed support.

A performance review is a great way to keep employees aware of their performance as company goals change. This is why some companies have quarterly and bi-annually performance reviews, in addition to annual performance reviews.

Performance reviews provide an environment to have a formal conversation about short-term as well as long-term performance. Having dedicated time to analyze an employee’s work gives managers an opportunity to provide feedback that can be applied to help the company, the direct team, and the employee’s career goals.

Employees often under utilize performance reviews. They are great opportunities to not just get feedback but turn that feedback into an ongoing mentorship that shortens the amount of time it takes to reach career goals.

During a performance review a boss or manager will be assessing:

• How well you perform the duties of your job,
• Technical skills and knowledge,
• Characteristics and traits, and
• Interpersonal skills and relationships.

Your boss and/ or manager is using your performance review to assess how well you do your job. This information will be used to determine your pay raise, if you get a promotion at work, and career growth opportunities. On the negative side if a performance review determines a lack of performance or failure the results could be employment probation or termination.

What you say during a performance review has a direct impact on your career and growth with the company. It is highly recommended that you prepare a list of your professional accomplishments and practice what you will say in this meeting.

The best performance reviews happen when both parties know what is expected of them and there is alignment in what the position is being assessed on. There’s nothing more frustrating than having a performance review conducted by a manager that doesn’t fully know the duties, goals, and expectations of the role they are assessing.

A good way to start a performance review meeting (to help facilitate a positive outcomes) is to review the:

• Goals of the performance review,
• Job description, and
• Job duties and goals.

During the initial face-to-face meeting, employees should try to understand their manager’s perception about their past performance; what they liked and disliked. This opens the door to opportunities to correct possible misperceptions.

During performance reviews employees want to communicate three things:

1. Professional strengths,
2. Areas for improvement, and
3. Accomplishments achieved over the last performance review cycle. 

It is important not to just list all accomplishments; this can make it look as though numbers have been inflated, something was improperly or illegally done, or the information is not true. Instead list accomplishments with the intention of communicating that you are a master of your job. Explain:

• How the accomplishment impacted your team
• How the accomplishment impact the organization
• What were some challenges faced while completing the accomplishment
• The result of the work completed
• The things that went right
• Things that could have been done differently

Everything explained should be done so clearly and succinctly with metrics and concrete details/ examples.

While you may feel the urge to share elaborate details about what, and how, you accomplished something going on and on can actually discredit you. Too many details can come across as inauthentic, you don’t want to appear as you’re lying. When a person goes on and on in an explanation they can come across as lacking a real understanding of what they did and how they did it.

It’s best to share succinct statements in the form of “sound bites” with metrics and details about how you achieved the results. Gauge the conversation and body language of the person you are speaking with, if you feel it is appropriate ask them if they’d like you to share more.

An accomplishment for a performance review is a quantified detail that connects a job duty to favorable outcomes you created. Accomplishments should include metrics that matter to the business.

An accomplishment has to be important to your job duties and the business’ mission and goals. It should contribute to business results. The level of effort required by an accomplishment shared in a performance review should be at least somewhat difficult—take the opportunity to highlight how you go above and beyond!

A great accomplishment for a performance review highlights your mastery of your job description and its duties. A great accomplishment is made up of:

• Quantified metrics that clearly articulate the results you produced, and
• Details about how you accomplished the results.

When something is quantified it is measured. When you quantify your accomplishments you are measuring your success. Common actions/ variables used to measure the success of a position are:

• Task completion 
• Saved time
• Saved money
• Revenue generated
• Increased customer satisfaction 

Accomplishments you quantify, track, and share in a performance review should relate to your job responsibilities.

A great accomplishment includes quantified metrics and details about how you achieved the accomplishment. The best way to communicate how you achieved something at work is to use skills based language in your explanation.

Skills based language intentionally uses words that emphasize your abilities instead of character traits.

Here are a few examples of skills based words:

• Persuade/ persuaded (skill)
• Deliver/ delivered (skill)
• Influence/ influenced (skill)
• Consult/ consulted (skill)
• Streamline/ Streamlined (process)
• Improve/ improved (action/outcome), and,
• Organize/ organized (process).

Sharing quantified accomplishments using skills based language in a performance review communicates that you are a valuable employee. Sharing quantified accomplishments is a confident way to communicate evidence of what you’ve done, the targets you’ve hit, and the objectives you’ve achieved without sounding like you’re bragging.

When great accomplishments are presented over and over in a performance review your boss and/ or manager is left with a clear understanding of your business value, leadership abilities, and potential for growth.

Now that you know what a performance review is, what your boss and/ or manager is assessing, and what you want to communicate when you share your accomplishments, here is a sample list of accomplishments for performance review for 15 different job titles.

Example of a great accomplishment for a performance review for a person that is a Phlebotomist:

• I increased patient happinesses by 78% by reducing patient wait times by 20 minutes by analyzing the reason for extended wait times and developing and implementing an informal process to help elderly patients and English as a second language patients enter their information in our self check-in tablets.

Example of a great accomplishment for a performance review for a person that is an Administrative Assistant:

• I reversed the company’s financial loss of $15,000 per month on copier repair costs by streamlining the copier repair process, reducing our turnaround time in receiving parts, and organizing part management. The actions I took led to an increase in customer satisfaction scores among internal employees who use our various copy machines on a daily basis.

Example of a great accomplishment for a performance review for a person that is a Senior Engineer:

• I increased database admin effectiveness by 20% and reduced latency by 40% by completing a flawless transition from LAMP stack to MEAN stack.

Example of a great accomplishment for a performance review for a person that is an entry-level Public Relations Associate:

• I increased my client’s spend this quarter by 34% by developing a process that sends them a report on the previous week’s outcomes every Thursday morning with an easy to use link to add additional campaign tasks that we bill for. 

Example of a great accomplishment for a performance review for a person that is an entry-level Social Media Director:

• I increased our website traffic by 25% and lead generation by 20% by creating a system for other social media managers to add content daily so I could schedule it all in advance.

Example of a great accomplishment for a performance review for a person that is a Project Manager:

• I increased productivity by 15% by reducing the number of emails sent back and forth for data verification. I’m now generating a weekly task list with a column for due dates, questions, and clarifications to avoid future delays.

Example of a great accomplishment for a performance review for a person that is a Retail Associate:

• I increased sales by 15% in my department by creating an email template to send to high-level customers that allows them to add items to their online shopping carts and reduce their wait time.

Example of a great accomplishment for a performance review for a person that is a Cashier:

• I increased customer satisfaction by 30% by developing and implementing a system of hand signals while we were training new cashiers after one of our cashiers was injured at work, which helped reduce the number of long lines in our checkout lanes.

Example of a great accomplishment for a performance review for a person that is an Executive Chef:

• I increased our profits by 20% by developing a cost effective menu using local ingredients that has been named “the best and freshest” in our company’s local area, which is now being imitated at other locations.

Example of a great accomplishment for a performance review for a person that is an entry-level Creative Director:

• I improved customer satisfaction with our product ad campaign graphics by 23% by taking the feedback from customers on social media and changing the color scheme so they were more vibrant and improved legibility.

Example of a great accomplishment for a performance review for a person that is the Head of Technology at their company:

• I decreased the turnover rate of IT technicians by 25% by designing new training material that reduces the amount of time it takes them to become fully capable of working on their own, which led to an increase in satisfaction scores among internal employees who use our various information systems.

Example of a great accomplishment for a performance review for a person that is a Firefighter Paramedic:

• I reduced the average patient response time by 25% by reducing the time it takes to bring our equipment from our vehicle back to the patient. I’ve changed our system so that one paramedic grabs the stretcher out of the ambulance, one paramedic brings in an oxygen tank for patients with respiratory emergencies, and another carries a bag of basic medications. By saving even 10 seconds at each call, we are able to reduce our average EMS response times significantly since 80% of calls occur within 10 minutes.

Example of a great accomplishment for a performance review for a person that is an entry-level Customer Service Specialist:

• I increased first contact resolution on my ticketing queue by 15% by adding new information fields on our first contact page.

Example of a great accomplishment for a performance review for a person that is a Social Worker:

• I increased my client’s child attendance rate at school by 20% by instituting a new system that allows them to enter the required forms electronically before they come in to fill out the rest.

Example of a great accomplishment for a performance review for a person that is an Insurance Agent: 

• I reduced our insurance claims by 12% this quarter by putting together a program called “Worry-free Wednesdays” where homeowners can sign up to have their yards mowed one day per week, which has improved the appearance of all of our clients’ homes and saved them time. 

As illustrated in each example above it’s possible to communicate the value of your contributions with metrics and a few added details, no matter the industry.

Sample List of Accomplishments for Performance Review (FAQs):

Ready to create your own list of quantified accomplishments for a performance review?

Here’s three easy steps to get started:

1. Use the sample list of accomplishments above as inspiration to create your own list of accomplishments.
2. Create a Forever Free PayDestiny Account below to create a free PayDestiny Achievement Bank, a tool that provides fill-in-the-blank prompts to create a list of quantified daily or weekly work accomplishments.
   
3. Use the list of quantified accomplishments you create to easily communicate how well you’ve performed your job in one-on-one meetings with your boss, mid-year performance reviews, annual performance reviews, promotion interviews, salary negotiations, and more.

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