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Peer appraisal (also referred to as peer review), is based on the idea that the best people to comment on someone’s performance are their immediate colleagues, rather than a line manager who may not have a complete picture. Peer appraisal can provide new information and a different perspective on individual performance, and is recognized as a particularly useful feedback tool in self-managing and cross-functional teams. This article provides a brief overview of peer appraisal, considers the advantages and disadvantages of this approach and offers advice to help organizations introduce and conduct peer appraisal successfully.
What Is Peer Appraisal?
Peer appraisal is part of a growing management trend that is aimed at improving empowerment by encouraging employees to voice their views on the performance of their immediate team members. Typically, feedback for a particular individual is gathered from colleagues who are employed in a similar role or level of responsibility. Many commentators argue that peer appraisal is as important as feedback from superiors and subordinates, as it is often more meaningful for an individual, and can strengthen team relationships. [1]
Benefits and Challenges
In addition to improving team communications, peer appraisal has a number of important benefits:
- It provides feedback from multiple perspectives, providing employees with a greater depth and focus upon their performance.
- It provides an objective and honest measure of employee performance.
- It can encourage development of team orientated environment with greater individual participation and motivation to reach shared goals.
However, peer appraisal also has a number of notable disadvantages:
- It can be time consuming to complete effectively. This can be addressed by planning reviews in advance and scheduling in adequate preparation time.
- Reliance on subjective opinions and perceptions can dilute the objectivity of peer appraisal. Training should be provided to ensure that reviewers are able to provide fair, objective evaluations of their colleagues.
- It can be impractical to hold 1:1 interviews with each member of an individual’s peer group. This can be addressed by introducing a peer review questionnaire or feedback pro forma.
- There can sometimes be resistance to peer reviews, as some employees who feel that their colleagues don’t like them believe they will be rated poorly by them. This can be addressed by allowing employees to be involved in selecting and agreeing the composition of their review group.
How to Make Peer Appraisals More Effective
If your organization is considering introducing peer appraisal, either as part of an existing performance review framework or as a stand-alone process, the following steps will help to ensure that it is implemented as smoothly as possible:
- Construct logical peer groups: Peer appraisal cannot be meaningful unless participants have a clear understanding of the role in question, and its outcomes. Organizations structured in teams, therefore, may be better placed to introduce an effective peer assessment framework.
- Identifying reviewers: It is also important to determine whether feedback should be provided by peer reviewers on a named or anonymous basis. This will depend on the level of trust within your organization. Many organizations start with anonymous feedback and gradually progress towards named feedback once employees are familiar and comfortable with the process.
- Communication is critical: For peer appraisal to be successful, clear communication of the benefits of the process, why and how it is being introduced, and what is expected of employees, is paramount.
- Plan ahead: Forward planning is essential. In the early days time must be built in so that appropriate training and piloting can take place.
- Introduce things gradually: Peer appraisal can represent a significant change in some organizations, particularly where top-down appraisal has been the norm. Remember that employees and managers need time to adjust to a more open form of peer appraisal, as well as being offered training and ongoing support.
- Lead by example: Show employees that your organization is committed to implementing peer appraisal by piloting it with the management team first. This will increase awareness and visibility, before the process is rolled out to the rest of the organization.
- Provide comprehensive training: All participants should be trained to understand how the peer appraisal system operates and what their respective roles are. It is particularly important to provide adequate training for the role of peer reviewer. Training should address how to give feedback appropriately, and should encourage participants to show compassion and sensitivity for their colleagues.
- Encourage a culture of constructive criticism: Peer review should be conducted in a supportive environment, where individuals seek to learn from their peers in order to improve their performance. Managers should encourage and reward those who initially participate in reviews and make useful contributions, regardless of the review outcomes.
References[1] Maury Peiperl, 'Getting 360 Degree Feedback Right', Harvard Business Review (January 2001)
