Employee evaluation forms that ask the right questions to the right people

An employee evaluation form (also called a performance appraisal form, performance review form, or employee assessment form) is a structured document used to assess an employee's work performance, skills, and development areas. It can take the form of a paper document, an Excel spreadsheet, or — increasingly — an online form within a dedicated HR tool.

In Calamari, you build your evaluation form in an intuitive creator, choosing from open-ended questions, rating scales, and single-choice questions. The system automatically distributes the form to participants and collects responses in one place.

Start by defining the goal of your review (development conversations, promotion decisions, quarterly check-ins?) and decide who should be involved — managers only, peers, or the employees themselves. Then choose question types that match each goal: rating scales for measurable comparison, open-ended questions for context and reflection, and single choice for structured data.

In Calamari, building an evaluation form takes three decisions: what questions to ask, who should see them, and what type of feedback to collect. Most companies configure and launch their first review cycle within a few hours.

The difference comes down to how many perspectives are included. A 90° review collects feedback from the manager only. A 180° adds self-assessment. A 270° brings in peers. A 360° includes everyone — managers, peers, direct reports, the employee and even external clients or partners.

In Calamari, you don't need to choose a model upfront. By combining self-assessment, peer review, and manager summaries, you build exactly the format that fits your organization — and you can expand it over time as your review process matures.

Yes, and this is where Calamari's evaluation form creator stands apart.

Each question in your form can be filtered across four dimensions: the evaluated person's team, their position, the evaluator's team, and the evaluator's position. You can also filter by review type (self-assessment, peer review, external review).external review).

In practice: you launch one annual review for the whole company, but the marketing team sees questions about analytics, the sales team gets questions about targets, and cross-team peer reviews focus on collaboration. No need to duplicate forms or run separate review cycles for each department.

Four types: open-ended (free text response), rating scale (e.g., 1–5 with descriptive labels at each end), single choice, and multiple choice (predefined options with descriptions). You can add a description and justification to each question, and participants can comment on their answers.

You can also use variables — {firstName}, {lastName}, {position} — so questions feel personal: "How would you rate working with {firstName}?" instead of "Rate this person."

Yes. For any numerical scale, you can add a description to each level – not just to the minimum and maximum values.

Simply click "Add descriptions to scale levels" to define what, for example, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 mean in the context of a given question. This way, raters don't have to guess what the difference is between a "3" and a "4" – each level has a clear definition, which results in more consistent and more comparable results across your organization.

Running reviews without a dedicated system means creating separate files for every person, manually sending them around, chasing participants for responses, and spending hours compiling results.

In Calamari, you configure the evaluation form once, and the system distributes it to participants, sends reminders, and collects all responses in a single dashboard. Managers get ready-made summaries instead of inbox chaos.

Companies that switch from spreadsheets or generic survey tools to Calamari save significant time on every review cycle — time that goes back to actual development conversations.

Yes. After feedback collection closes, managers can create an optional summary with their own guiding questions (e.g., "What was this person's biggest win this quarter?"). The summary becomes the starting point for a constructive development conversation – not just a document for the archive.

Most companies build their first evaluation form and launch their first review cycle within a few hours. If your company already uses Calamari for time off or attendance, employee data, teams, and positions are already in the system — no imports needed. Our Customer Success team helps you set up your first review process and answers questions at every step.

You can try the Performance Reviews module free for 14 days — no credit card required. Calamari's pricing is modular: you only pay for the modules you need. Detailed pricing is available in our calculator on the pricing page.

No. The form creator is designed so that an HR professional without any IT background can create and launch a review process independently. You pick a question type, write your question, optionally set filters for specific teams — and save. If you need help, our Customer Success team is available via chat and email, including during your free trial.