5 Tips For A Successful Peer Feedback

While we cannot stress enough about how important it is for employees to receive feedback from their managers, peer feedback is also important. In fact, its slightly underrated. Colleagues or peers know each other better than their managers do! They work closely with each other on a daily basis and have a better understanding of each other’s strengths and weaknesses than a manager can know.

In this article, we will share some tips to make peer feedback effective and impactful.

Why Is Peer Feedback Important?

Peer Feedback when done right has numerous benefits. It helps in the following:

• Team Building
• Multiple Sources of Feedback
• Reduces Bias In Feedback 
• Drives Employee Engagement
• Removes The Fear Factor
• Self-Evaluation and Development
• Increases Job Satisfaction
• Improves Morale Of The Employee

Here are some tips for you to keep in mind so as to reap the benefits of peer feedback.

Prepare On Time

If you are giving feedback to your peer, it is essential to prepare well for it. Feedback in any form helps your peers to develop and understand themselves better. A feedback discussion without preparation tends to be unorganized and ineffective for the recipient. It ends up being a waste of time for both the giver and the receiver of feedback.

Preparing ahead of the peer feedback process will help you stay focused and on track. Draft the points to be addressed before the meeting. Give them some real-life examples so that they can understand better. It will help them feel that you have put in efforts for the process.

Also Read: Remote Onboarding: Essentials To Know

To The Point

According to recent research by SAP, 76% of employees were motivated by positive feedback from their peers.

While the above statement is true in many cases but it is not always helpful. ‘Feedback Sandwich’ is often a great way to not let your peers feel overwhelmed and unmotivated. It is the art of delivering constructive feedback or criticism between two positive feedback. But in doing so, your colleagues tend to ignore the criticism and focus on the positive feedback instead. They develop a false opinion about themselves that they are doing good and need no improvement. Instead of the feedback sandwich, be direct and straightforward with your points. It will help them focus in the right direction. Give them examples of how they could solve the issues with their strengths.

Be Consistent

For peer feedback to have an impact, it should be a consistent and ongoing activity. It should be a part of an employee’s continuous or ongoing performance management process. When the process is regular, it will help you to share feedback on recent activities. It will help you to share constructive feedback about others. Moreover, it makes your peers more open and receptive to receiving feedback from others. The process is known to foster communication and improve collaboration, which leads to easier problem solving and higher productivity among teams. It also helps to track the growth, progress, and wins of everyone on the team.

A real-time feedback software will make receiving and sharing feedback with your peers easy and simple. It will help to keep the process ongoing and consistent.

Use Passive Voice

While using passive voice is not recommended in writing, it is useful while giving peer feedback, especially constructive feedback. Using passive voice makes the feedback non-personal and focuses on the action instead of the person. Your peers will be more open to receiving feedback that doesn’t criticize them. For instance, consider the below examples:

1) “You didn’t provide supporting data to the claims you made in the report.”

2) “The report would have been more useful with additional data.”

While both the examples want to highlight the same thing, the second one is more accepting and impactful as it focuses on the problem instead of the person.

Also Read: Top 7 Performance Appraisal Mistakes Managers Make

Summarize And Follow Up

At the end of the feedback session with your peer, summarize the points discussed. Formalize or document the points and create a plan of action for your peers. Email the points after every discussion or track them in a real-time feedback software. This will help your peers to understand the process better and remove any misunderstandings if any. It also helps them understand the expectations from the process.

Follow up with your colleague and discuss whether they need any help. It will help your colleagues to stay encouraged, motivated, and productive.

Do you want to know how Engagedly can help you with Peer Feedback? Then request a live demo.

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