Short answer
A performance review action plan translates an agreed discussion into work someone can actually do. Record the specific next step, the employee and manager responsibilities, the support and opportunity needed, and the evidence to review. Keep the original expectation beside the later result so progress, missing support and necessary changes remain visible.
Action card: copy these fields
Complete one card for each priority. Keep the number of actions proportionate to the work and support available. A label such as improve communication needs a clearer task before it becomes a plan.
- Work need: the example or expectation discussed in the review.
- Next step: what the employee will do differently or produce.
- Manager support: time, access, coaching, clarification or another resource.
- Opportunity: the work event in which the step can be practised.
- Evidence: an example, permitted record or observation that will show what happened.
- Review: date or event, responsible people and how feedback will be shared.
- Dependency: what must happen first and who owns it.
- Fallback: what to do if the opportunity or support is unavailable.
Replace a broad goal with a checkable action
“Show more leadership” leaves the expected behaviour open. An illustrative replacement is: “At the next agreed team handover, state the unresolved issue, confirm an owner and explain the next check.” The manager can then observe that task and give specific feedback. Adapt the practice to the role rather than using one behaviour as a universal standard.
Check the opportunity and support before judging progress
At review, first establish whether the agreed work occurred and whether the support was delivered. Distinguish a completed task, a partial attempt, no suitable opportunity and a changed priority. These describe different situations and call for different responses.
- Did the promised access or coaching arrive in time?
- Was the task within the employee’s role and available time?
- Which part was tried, and what did the example show?
- What does the employee think helped or remained difficult?
Review record: keep the expectation and result together
Do not rewrite the original goal to match what happened. Add a dated finding and the next decision beside it.
- Original action and support commitment.
- What happened, with the relevant example and date.
- Employee and manager observations, including any disagreement.
- Next decision: continue, adapt, close or seek another owner.
- Reason for the decision and the next review condition.
Close an action deliberately
Close the card when the agreed evidence supports closure or when the action is no longer relevant, and record why. A completed training session is evidence of attendance, not automatically of a changed work practice. If the task still matters, use the next work example to examine whether the learning was usable.
Why this guide is useful
Use this original template after a routine review or development conversation. It is designed for follow-through, once the meeting has clarified the work and agreed a direction. The separate conversation pack provides the agenda and meeting record. This plan is not a substitute for a formal performance-improvement procedure or its applicable requirements.
Connect the action to normal work
Acas recommends objectives that reflect the employee’s tasks and workload, alongside regular feedback and a shared written review record. Apply that starting point by checking when the person will practise, what support will be available and what else may need to change. An action without a realistic work opportunity is difficult to assess fairly.
Concrete example
Fictional example: a support adviser wants to handle complex handovers more consistently. The agreed action is to prepare the next two suitable handovers using the current checklist and ask a supervisor to review the owner, next step and unresolved question. The manager arranges feedback time within the working schedule. If no suitable case occurs before the review, they record that lack of opportunity and choose a practice case; they do not record a failure to improve.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How many actions should follow a performance review?
- Choose the priorities that can realistically be practised and supported before the next review. There is no universal count. A short plan with clear ownership is easier to follow than a long list with no time allocated.
- Is this the same as a performance improvement plan?
- No. This template supports routine review and development follow-up. A formal performance improvement process may carry specific employment consequences and needs the organisation’s appropriate procedure and responsible people.
- What if the manager did not provide the agreed support?
- Record the missing support and its effect on the opportunity to practise. Resolve or revise that dependency before drawing a conclusion about progress against the original action.