Why Having Peer Reviews in Your Business is Beneficial

You’ve probably heard about peer reviews in relation to academics and scholarly publications, but you may not have heard about peer reviews in a business. A peer review simply means that one’s peers review a person’s work. In the world of publishing, this method of review is used to substantiate claims so that laypeople can trust that what is published about complex subjects is true.

In business, a peer review helps employers to find out how an employee’s performance rates are based on the interactions the employee has with their peers. Peer review is one of many data collaboration tools that can be used to connect different departments and teams. Using peer review and other data collaboration tools, employers can get a better sense of what is happening on a day-to-day basis among their staff.

How Peer Reviews Work

A peer review is usually conducted by team members who work closely with one another. This is because these are the people most likely to have firsthand knowledge of one another’s performance.

In most cases, a simple anonymous survey can be sent out asking each employee to rate the performance of their peers. These surveys should not name employees directly or insinuate that a particular employee is being targeted for review. Instead, these surveys should be general, but they can ask for specific feedback regarding recommendations to improve performance.

The benefit is that employers who are not able to interact with and monitor daily performance can get a better “on-the-ground” sense of what is going on in an organization. Feedback can also assist in helping employers craft training materials to improve productivity.

The Potential Pitfalls of Peer Reviews

Perhaps the biggest drawback surrounding peer reviews in business is the potential for bias. When you ask a team member to review the performance of their team, they are more likely to provide positive feedback as opposed to negative feedback. This can color their responses unnecessarily and lead to the creation of a false impression of reality.

Likewise, if a particular employee has a personality conflict with another employee, the potential exists for negative feedback to be given simply out of spite. This can once again provide a false image to employers regarding what is going on.

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