After accountabilities and objectives have been determined, the next step is to define performance standards. These are yardsticks designed to help people understand to what extent the objective has been achieved. The standards provide raters with information about what to look for to determine the level of performance that has been achieved. Standards can refer to various aspects of a specific objective, including quality, quantity, and time.

Standards must include an action, the desired result, a due date, and some type of quality or quantity indicator. Standards usually describe fully satisfactory performance. As soon as a standard has been created, one can create standards that describe minimum performance and outstanding performance. Information should be available on a regular basis to determine whether the employee has reached the standard, and if not, remedial action should be taken.