The Advantages of Using Peer Groups & Coworkers in Performance Evaluations
Peer groups and co-workers can offer a comprehensive representation of an employee's performance that can help a company more accurately use that employee's talents. One form of peer group performance evaluations is a 360-degree evaluation where management, subordinates, customers and co-workers give input on an employee's performance, according to Farhaan Panagar, writing on the MBA Articles website. There are several advantages to using peer group evaluations that can enhance the effectiveness of your entire employee review process.
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Well-Rounded Review
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One of the advantages to using peer group evaluations and co-worker input on employee appraisals is that the final appraisal can be considered a more accurate representation of employee performance than if it were just the opinion of a manager. Employees sometimes interact differently with customers and co-workers than they do with management. The management team may have a high opinion of a sales associate because of his apparent good work ethic. But input from the sales associate's clients on his poor attitude and lack of client follow-up may explain the associate's low sales numbers.
Accountability
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The idea of having to submit to a peer group or co-worker performance appraisal can act as motivation to continually perform at a high level. If an employee knows that co-workers, vendors and clients have a say in how his career path develops, he is more apt to pay close attention to every detail of his business dealings. The peer group review makes every employee accountable for his complete work performance.
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Accurate Skill Evaluation
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Customers, co-workers and vendors can give the management team a more accurate understanding of what an employee is doing right and wrong. For example, a manager may see decent production numbers from an employee and assume the employee is doing his job properly. But one of his co-workers can point out that the employee does not follow safe work practices and cuts out proper work procedures to try to make production quotas. Because of the input from the co-worker, the manager knows that the employee needs further training and close monitoring.
Team Building
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When peers point out co-worker performance issues during an appraisal, that can act as motivation for the employees to work closer together to help improve each others' performance. Group performance reviews are an opportunity for management to develop mentoring programs that can help improve the team building process while also increasing employee productivity.
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