Performance reviews are daunting and painful for many supervisors to complete. They have to spend hundreds of hours (which they often don’t have) thinking about each and every employee on their team, and attempt to remember minute details about their work strategies. While it’s easy to gather a general idea of an employee’s reliability and motivation, it’s much harder to think about details, such as how they interact with one another and how often they tend to go the extra mile.

In an ever-changing workplace dynamic, it is crucial to re-evaluate how workers are judged and what method will best help them grow and improve as an employee. Regardless of seniority, there is always room for improvement — and who better to provide constructive criticism rather than those that work with you on a daily basis?

Collaboration and a strong group dynamic is crucial in the workplace. Helping one another improve on projects is a great way to become more united. Making goals social is one step in the right direction, however, it’s up to team members to come together and provide valuable feedback on a regular basis.

Managers are in charge of several people on top of their own day-to-day work duties. They may not notice every mistake their team is making — therefore, collaboration among the entire team must occur.

When you notice something that you think an employee could improve on to better the team’s overall performance, a quick and friendly chat coming from a respected co-worker can go a long way. Saying something like, “Completing this task on Mondays will help you better reach your goal of turning in fifteen reports each week,” lets your co-worker know that you’re aware of what they are trying to achieve and you want to see him or her succeed.

If a manager spends hours putting together a report to tell an employee he is not a team player or should be more proactive, this does little in terms of detailed and concrete advice. Having tons of feedback thrown your way at once has proven to be ineffective because it becomes harder for employees to correct several mistakes all at once.

Instead, a collaborative effort that encourages goal sharing and continuous feedback among employees of all levels is more conducive. While yearly performance reviews may be helpful in the abstract — giving an idea of what you should be doing in the future, continuous feedback coming from those that work with you on a daily basis will help you quickly improve as an employee.

In most companies, if there is a problem with one particular account or division, the entire team will look bad. The manager may individually face heat from his or her higher up, but the team will still be affected negatively. Therefore, workers should be encouraged to act as a team in monitoring each other’s goals and offering advice and feedback as often as possible.

What do you think? Do you agree that more collaborative efforts are better for employees?