Written
communication performance review phrases

Writes documents that get decisions made rather than meetings scheduled.

Explains technical work in writing to a non-technical audience without losing the substance.

Their documents are reused by other people, which is the practical test of whether writing is good.

Worth turning one of their documents into the team template.

Ready to own the writing that goes to the board or to customers.

I rewrote [document] so the recommendation was in the first three lines, and it was approved without a meeting.

Writing is clear, correctly structured and appropriate to its audience.

Proofreads before sending, so errors are rare.

Adjusts length and detail to the reader rather than writing the same way for everybody.

Clear writing. The next step is shorter writing: the same content at half the length is a different skill.

Worth leading every document with the decision or the ask. Structure is where most of the improvement is left.

I have started putting the ask in the first paragraph, which has noticeably cut the follow-up questions.

Documents open with background, so the reader reaches the point late or not at all.

Length is not adjusted to the audience, and senior readers are not getting through them.

Errors in written work reach external audiences.

Write the last paragraph first and put it at the top. That single change fixes most of this.

Cut every document by a third before sending. Almost nothing is lost and the point gets found.

I write the way I think rather than the way somebody reads, so the point ends up at the bottom.

My documents are longer than they need to be and I know which parts I am reluctant to cut.

Written work has required substantial rewriting by others on multiple occasions after being raised in [month].

Errors in documents have reached clients or leadership more than once this year.

For the next six weeks I want to review documents before they go out, alongside a structure template to work from.

If writing has never been part of your training, say so, because that is a solvable gap and worth naming rather than working around.

My written work has needed rewriting too often. I want a template and a review step rather than working it out each time.