Photo by Yan Krukau via PexelsThe annual review is a one-on-one meeting between an employee and their manager, dedicated to assessing the past year and setting goals for the following period. Unlike the professional interview, it is not required by French labour law, but it remains one of the most common HR rituals for managing performance and supporting team development. This guide covers how it unfolds, the questions to ask, and how HRIS software can help keep track of it.
What is an annual review
The annual review, sometimes called the annual performance review, is a structured conversation between an employee and their manager, usually organized once a year as part of a company-wide HR campaign. It covers three areas: a review of the goals set the previous year, an assessment of individual performance, and the definition of new goals for the period ahead.
It differs from informal check-ins through its formalization: a written report, signed by both parties, is kept by the company and serves as a reference for the following review. This document also tracks the employee’s progress over several years, and often feeds into decisions about pay, internal mobility, or the skills development plan.
Most companies hold this review once a year, often at the end or start of the fiscal year, as part of a campaign common to all teams. Some organizations add a mid-year check-in, sometimes called a mid-year review, to verify that the goals set remain achievable and adjust them if the scope of the role has changed in the meantime. This double cadence is never required by law: it is a matter of HR policy, generally decided by the HR department in consultation with line managers.
Annual review vs. professional interview: what’s the difference
Confusion between the two meetings remains common. The annual review focuses on performance and goals, with no specific legal requirement; the professional interview focuses on the employee’s career path and development prospects, with a frequency and obligations set by French labour law. The two can be held in the same session, provided the two parts are clearly distinguished in the report. The full guide on the professional interview covers the legal frequency, the employer’s obligations, and the applicable penalties.
Why hold an annual performance review
The annual review addresses several needs for both the company and the employee. On the management side, it provides a regular framework to objectify individual performance, identify high-potential employees, and prepare talent management decisions. On the employee side, it is often the only formal moment in the year when the work accomplished is explicitly recognized, and where expectations going forward are clarified.
When done well, the annual review also supports broader social dialogue: it gives employee representatives material to track the company’s evaluation practices, and feeds workforce and career-path planning. A rushed review, reduced to a mere administrative formality, has the opposite effect: it demotivates the employee and deprives the company of information useful for managing its teams.
For the HR function, the annual review also remains one of the few sources of structured, comparable information across departments: unlike informal feedback gathered along the way, review reports make it possible to objectify findings across an entire population, for example to spot a department where goals are almost never met, or a team where reported satisfaction drops sharply from one year to the next. This material then feeds into leadership decisions on training, organization, or staffing, well beyond the individual case of each employee.
How to prepare and run an annual review
The quality of an annual review depends largely on its preparation, before, during, and after the meeting.
Before the review: preparation
The manager should reread the previous year’s report, gather concrete facts about the period, and prepare possible goals for the year ahead. The employee also benefits from preparing their own assessment beforehand: notable achievements, difficulties encountered, training needs. A short questionnaire sent a few days before the meeting, through dedicated software, lets both parties arrive with well thought-out points rather than discovering the topics on the spot.
During the review: the structure to follow
An effective structure generally follows this order: a reminder of the framework and duration of the meeting, the employee’s assessment of the year followed by the manager’s, a discussion of difficulties encountered and ways to address them, then the setting of goals for the next period. Goals benefit from following a SMART logic (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound) to remain usable at the next review. The manager also addresses the employee’s wishes regarding training and development, even though these topics formally belong to the professional interview.
After the review: report and follow-up
The report formalizes the points discussed and the commitments made on both sides: validated goals, training actions planned, follow-up deadlines. It is signed by the manager and the employee, who may add their own comments. Follow-up does not stop at the signature: a mid-year check-in, even an informal one, helps verify that the goals remain relevant and adjust them if the role or team’s situation has changed.
Can an employee refuse or contest their annual review
An employee can refuse to take part in an annual review when it is not required by their employment contract or by a collective agreement applicable to the company, since no general legal obligation imposes it. In companies where an agreement or a custom makes the review mandatory, a repeated refusal may, however, be considered a breach of the employee’s contractual obligations.
On the substance of the report, an employee can contest elements they consider inaccurate or disproportionate, by noting them in writing at the time of signature or in the following days. In case of a persistent disagreement, particularly if the evaluation affects pay or role progression, the employee can turn to employee representatives or, as a last resort, bring the matter before the labour court to contest an evaluation they believe is unfounded or discriminatory.
How HRIS software helps manage annual reviews
As soon as a company grows past a few dozen employees, manually tracking annual review campaigns quickly becomes a source of oversights: invitations never sent, reports scattered across individual files, goals never revisited the following year. Dedicated annual review software centralizes campaigns, sends automatic reminders to managers, and keeps a history available from one year to the next.
This centralization also supports collective steering: aggregating goals by team, identifying employees who missed their review, and exporting data to feed the best HR software already used by payroll and training teams. Training commitments made during the annual review can then be directly linked to an LMS platform to track actual completion, rather than remaining a single line in a paper report.
Frequently asked questions
Is the annual review mandatory for the employer?
No, the annual performance review is not mandatory under French labour law, unlike the professional interview. It can nonetheless become a contractual obligation when a collective agreement, a branch agreement, or the employee’s employment contract explicitly provides for it. Many companies still generalize it, because it structures the conversation around performance and goals.
How does an annual performance review unfold?
The review generally unfolds in three stages: a review of the past year (goals met or not, notable events), a discussion of difficulties encountered and the employee’s needs, then the setting of goals for the following period. The manager and the employee then co-sign a report that formalizes the commitments made on both sides.
What questions should be asked during an annual review?
The most useful questions cover whether the goals set the previous year were achieved, successes and difficulties encountered, the employee’s sense of their workload and environment, their training needs, and their expectations for the coming year. Avoiding closed questions produces more constructive answers and opens a real dialogue rather than a simple check-up.
What points should be addressed first at the start of an annual review?
It is recommended to start by recalling the framework and duration of the meeting, then to let the employee speak first about their assessment of the year before the manager gives their own feedback. This order prevents the manager’s evaluation from steering the whole conversation from the outset and makes for a more balanced discussion.
How should you write a good comment in an annual review report?
An effective comment stays factual, relies on concrete examples observed during the year rather than general impressions, and clearly distinguishes what relates to the result achieved from professional behaviour. It avoids vague phrasing like “good work” in favour of precise observations, useful for tracking progress from one year to the next.