Here’s how your verbal conversation might sound:

Laura, it’s time for the annual review, and I’ve been meaning to
have this meeting with you for quite some time. I apologize to you,
and I assume responsibility for not having shared my concerns with
you earlier. However, I don’t feel that your performance or conduct
are up to par relative to your performance in the past. This year has
been a difficult one for you: We’ve had multiple complaints about
your tone of voice with customers—issues that I’ve smoothed over
with customers myself rather than bringing them to your attention.
Also, your loan-to-value ratios have contained errors that the desk
appraisers have caught in their audits of your work. As a result, several have shared with me that they don’t trust your work to be top quality, especially when you appear to be under pressure.

Your overall performance score on this evaluation will be ‘‘does not
meet expectations.’’ I want you to know that I’ll qualify that by
saying that these issues were not brought to your attention immediately as they occurred. I can’t hold you fully accountable for fixing problems that you’re not aware of. On the other hand, tone of voice with customers and simple loan-to-value calculations are the basics of your job. Just because I haven’t taken the opportunity to sit with you to discuss others’ concerns doesn’t justify your behavior or lack of attention to detail.

I’ve written my review of your performance. I’d like to review it with you now. If you have any immediate questions, just let me know. Otherwise, I’ll ask you to take this home and study it. I’m sure you’ll have other questions tomorrow, and I’d like to be able to answer them for you as concretely as possible. I also want you to know that I’ll bring any performance or conduct issues to your immediate attention from now on so that you won’t feel surprised or anxious about how I’m evaluating you.

Oh, there is one other thing: I’d like to have another formal performance review with you in ninety days. Although you won’t receive a merit increase now because of the current review, there is
a possibility that you’ll receive a merit increase in ninety days if your
performance and conduct show significant improvement.

Similar language should be used in the ‘‘Comments’’ section of the written review. An example can be found in Appendix O.

Taken From : The Hiring and Firing Quention and Answer Book