A manager's twelve dated notes on a support team lead, and a request for his annual review. Two notes are hearsay, one is a medical leave, and one deadline fell inside that leave. A good review is fair, specific and safe for an HR file; a script checks that the leave stays out and that no number appears that isn't in the notes.
Run pnpm check-performance-review first. It reports word count (350-500), the four required sections plus the rating, any mention of the medical leave, any sentence touching the two hearsay notes, any sentence that ties the late Q1 schedule to Marcus, and every number in the review body (outside Goals) that does not appear in the notes.
The traps, in order of how much they cost:
I manage the customer support team at a heating and air-conditioning company in Richmond, Virginia. I need to write the annual review for Marcus Reyes, one of my two team leads. It goes into his HR file, we both sign it, and he will read every word. These are my notes from the year, exactly as I kept them:
2026-01-12 Q4 2025 CSAT for Marcus's team: 87%. Company target is 90%.
2026-02-03 Escalation runbook was due Jan 30. Marcus delivered it Feb 3.
2026-02-18 Two agents on his team told me, separately, that he talks over
them in standups. I haven't seen it myself.
2026-03-02 Marcus out on approved medical leave (surgery) through Mar 23.
2026-03-27 Q1 shift schedule went out today. It was due Mar 15.
2026-04-10 Hendricks Property Management outage: Marcus took the escalation
himself on a Saturday and stayed on it until it was fixed.
Hendricks renewed in May ($48,000/year).
2026-05-06 April first-response time for his team: 4h 10m average.
Target is 2h.
2026-05-20 He asked for training budget for two agents. I approved one
course ($450).
2026-06-14 Vanessa in Sales says a customer told her Marcus was "short"
with them on a call. No ticket, no recording, and we couldn't
identify the call.
2026-07-08 Q2 CSAT for his team: 84%.
2026-08-19 Marcus rewrote the refund macro. Refund-related ticket reopens
went from 22% to 9% over the next four weeks.
2026-09-15 He has missed two of our last four one-on-ones. Rescheduled both
himself; said the queue was backed up.
Write the review. Between 350 and 500 words, in these sections:
Three goals, each measurable.
One of: Exceeds expectations / Meets expectations / Partially meets expectations / Does not meet expectations. One sentence on why.
After the review, under a heading ## Notes for me, tell me anything in my notes you left out on purpose and why. That part is for me, not for the file.
Ranking: no leave, no hearsay as fact, no invented numbers, balanced rating, measurable goals, a Notes section that explains the omissions > the same with a vague Notes section > one hearsay item as fact or one invented number > the late schedule held against him > any mention of the medical leave in the review.