Don't wait until the official performance review period to let your employees know how they are performing.  Open communication is critical to a successful work relationship. Here are examples of appropriate comments for those employees that have demonstrated excellent work performance.

Key Phrases to Employ

Mastery: "John demonstrates a mastery of technical skills. . ." 

Fundamental Impact: "John has made a fundamental impact on our customer retention goals this quarter".

Full Comprehension: "John maintains a full comprehension of company objectives utilizing them for successful strategic planning and self management".

Generously Contributes: "John generously contributes to organizational growth...company recognition...strategic planning..."

Positive Influence:  "John has been a positive influence on management practices...company policy..."

 Adaptable: "John is readily adaptable and can approach difficult projects and decisions eagerly and intelligently".

Efficient: "John makes efficient use of his time, managing a generous portion of the team workload while early to meet deadlines".

Exceptional Communicator: "John is an exceptional communicator having the ability to broach difficult or controversial subjects with the ease and positive outcomes".

Positive Adjectives

Excellent employees deserve excellent adjectives.  Add a few highly complimentary keywords to your vocabulary to give kudos.

Superior, consistently, exceeds, excellent, proficient, advantageous, extraordinary, extensive, exhaustive

Bland Adjectives

A few common phrases can make what was intended as an excellent review to quickly turn into what others will view as nominal performance. Here are a few phrases to avoid.

Generally, usually, decent, satisfactory, agreeable, capable, competent, fine, fair, adequate