AI playbook · People

Prepare for staff reviews

Organise your notes before a review into strengths, areas to grow and goals, and plan how to say the hard parts kindly.

Setup: 45 minutes per personIntermediate Get the prompt

The problem

Reviews get put off because they are hard to prepare. Without notes, feedback becomes vague or based on last week only.

Step by step

  1. Keep brief notes through the year: wins, problems, feedback from others.
  2. Before the review, remove anything about health or private life.
  3. Ask the AI to organise the notes into strengths, growth areas and suggested goals.
  4. Rewrite it in your own words.
  5. Plan the conversation; do not read from the AI draft.

The prompt

Help me prepare for a staff review.
Role: {role}
My notes from the year (no names): {notes}
Organise into: 3 strengths with examples, 2 areas to grow with examples, and 3 suggested goals that are specific and measurable.
Then suggest kind, direct wording for the hardest point.

Replace the {highlighted} parts with your details, or fill them in with the prompt builder.

Check before you use it

  • Every example is something that really happened.
  • Feedback is about work, not personality.

Privacy

  • Use a role, not a name. Leave out health, family and anything disciplinary or legal.

Do’s and don’ts

Do

  • Keep notes all year.
  • Use specific examples.
  • Ask the employee for their view first.

Don’t

  • Let AI write the review for you to read out.
  • Paste personal details about the employee.
  • Use AI to rate or rank staff.

When not to use AI for this

Disciplinary, grievance and dismissal processes need HR or legal advice, not AI drafts.

Tools that can help

LatticePerformance reviews and goals, with AI help summarising feedback.
ChatGPTOpenAI’s general assistant for drafting, summarising, analysing files and brainstorming.
ClaudeAnthropic’s general assistant, good with long documents, writing and analysis.

We are not paid by any of these companies, and we list well-known options, not a ranking. Features and plans change; check the provider’s site and its data terms before you sign up. See all AI tools by category.

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