Seeing ourselves as others see us is the real benefit to getting multi-rater feedback. Traditional performance reviews can strike fear into the hearts of employees, supervisors, and HR managers alike. The right idea is there -- to provide guidance on what employees are doing well and how they can improve. But the execution? Well, what sounds great on paper doesn’t always translate into effective, productive conversation.

Multi-rater feedback expands beyond the limited viewpoints of a supervisor telling an employee that she’s excelling, failing, or somewhere in between. It allows for a wider spectrum of perspectives and provides a clearer, more in-depth picture of an employee’s performance. And the execution of the review is key to making it effective.

The multi-rater feedback process serves as a perfect companion to your performance review system. Performance reviews give you a look backward at what employees have accomplished during the past year. Multi-rater feedback will give you a look forward toward what they can improve on to be even more productive in the year ahead