Editorial summary. This is our text summary of an article published by gnews-performance-review. Charts, figures, and the author’s full voice are at the original — read it there .
Editorial verdict
Vendor-influenced. The poll is small and self-selected, but the finding that 71% of employees embellish self-reviews is directionally plausible — treat the headline numbers with caution and the qualitative themes as illustrative rather than definitive.
Executive summary
This article reports on findings from a KickResume poll of 1,365 employees globally, examining honesty and candour in workplace self-performance reviews. The central argument is that most employees engage in some form of self-presentation management during reviews, with 71% admitting to less than full honesty. Key findings indicate that employees most commonly make themselves appear slightly better than reality (38%), focus disproportionately on strengths (18%), or suppress authentic feedback on sensitive topics including manager performance (36%), career intentions (23%), salary expectations (22%), and personal struggles (18%). Only 29% described themselves as fully candid. The report positions this behaviour as a response to perceived unwritten workplace norms rather than deliberate deception. Despite this honesty gap, employees express genuine desire for meaningful review processes, with 39% indicating that value depends on how managers act on feedback rather than the review form itself. KickResume CEO Peter Duris frames the solution as treating performance reviews as relationship-building tools, emphasising personalised manager follow-through as the critical factor in review effectiveness.
Key insights
- 171% of employees admit to some degree of dishonesty in self-reviews, with the most common behaviour being presenting themselves slightly more favourably than reality.
- 2The topics employees most avoid disclosing — manager feedback, real career goals, salary expectations, and personal struggles — mirror the broadest sources of workplace tension and perceived risk.
- 339% of employees believe the value of performance reviews depends not on the self-review process itself but on what managers do with the information afterwards, elevating managerial follow-through as the pivotal variable.
Practical takeaways
- Organisations using self-review processes may be receiving systematically skewed input, with employees self-censoring on topics most relevant to workforce planning, retention risk, and manager effectiveness.
- Managerial response quality and personalisation appear to be the primary determinants of employee perception of review value, suggesting that process design alone does not drive engagement with performance systems.
References
- KickResume (2024).KickResume Employee Self-Review Poll.
Source & Provenance
gnews-performance-review
Not specified
December 2, 2025
Industry Report
Global
Original source metadata is preserved. AI analysis is generated separately.
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