Employee Performance Evaluations

Four Primary Types of Employee Performance Evaluations
There are four primary types of employee performance evaluations used in organizations today. They are: 1) Top Down, 2) Peer-to-Peer, 3) 360-Degree and 4) Self-Assessment. Please note that it is not necessary to choose only one type of employee performance evaluation method and some organizations successfully use all four. An explanation of each type follows:

1. Top-Down Employee Performance Evaluations
Top-down employee performance evaluations tend to be the most common and most effective, because they involve the assessment of an employee by a direct manager. Top-down employee performance evaluations are most useful when given by an employee's immediate supervisor - someone who works with that employee everyday and knows his or her strengths and weaknesses. The top-down employee performance evaluation becomes less effective when given by a Human Resources manager who has only second-hand knowledge of an employee's performance.

One offshoot of top-down employee performance evaluations are "matrix" employee performance evaluations, where multiple managers rate the same employee. This is a good choice when the employee works for multiple managers, or engages in various fixed-time length projects.


2. Peer-to-Peer Employee Performance Evaluations
Peer-to-peer employee performance evaluations require employees at the same level to review each other. The thinking behind peer-to-peer employee performance evaluations is that nobody knows a worker's ability better than his or her co-workers. While this can be an effective review format for some groups of workers (for example, a team of doctors working on a research project together, where specific content knowledge is required), it can also cause controversy because of the way it affects future group dynamics. When evaluating the use of these types of employee performance evaluations, consider the maturity level of the employees involved and the long-term effects that could result from the source of negative reviews getting back to the team members.

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