Peer Evaluations- Venting

[Rose_Queen]

I hate peer evaluations. I hate knowing someone else is evaluating me and I hate evaluating others. I disagree with having people subjectively evaluate people when they are not the person's supervisor. My belief is that a system utilized to determine raises (and thus, financial livelihood) should be as objective as possible: use disciplinary action or lack thereof, sick calls and tardiness, and other methods of objective evaluation. If someone isn't well-liked by certain people, their annual review can be torpedoed because the system is much like a popularity contest. But what has me really tweaked this year is that the hospital decided to make peer evaluations optional rather than required. However, our unit manager never asked for our input and automatically has us doing them. If an activity is optional, shouldn't the staff have input on whether it should be done or not?

[JBudd, MSN]

The only place I ever had peer evals, I got to choose 2 to go in with me, which was very fortunate. I worked nights, so the supervisor rarely saw me, let alone knew how well I did or didn't do my work.

She started with some BS she'd heard, and my coworkers promptly rebutted it, defended me and gave me a good (and in my biased opinion :) ) accurate evaluation.

[Guest343211]

I hate peer evaluations. I hate knowing someone else is evaluating me and I hate evaluating others. I disagree with having people subjectively evaluate people when they are not the person's supervisor. My belief is that a system utilized to determine raises (and thus, financial livelihood) should be as objective as possible: use disciplinary action or lack thereof, sick calls and tardiness, and other methods of objective evaluation. If someone isn't well-liked by certain people, their annual review can be torpedoed because the system is much like a popularity contest. But what has me really tweaked this year is that the hospital decided to make peer evaluations optional rather than required. However, our unit manager never asked for our input and automatically has us doing them. If an activity is optional, shouldn't the staff have input on whether it should be done or not?

The trouble with this is they often do not have the proper tools. That is there should be clear delineations for the most objective evaluations as possible. This means there should be a more scientific, education committee evaluating these points of objective evaluation once or twice a year. This is a major issue that needs to be addressed and changed throughout all of nursing. Limit the subjective junk as much as is humanly possible.

That is the answer, plain and simple.

[P_RN, ADN, RN]

At your annual eval...do you have to sign it? I just put "I do not agree with this eval/line/comment and will not sign." I have always gotten the option of a revised paper without that comment. Just because someone hands you a paper to sign DOESN'T mean you must sign it.

[jadelpn, LPN, EMT-B]

With all due respect, what is it that the nurse manager is doing if we all are responsible for reviewing each other??? And I bet the answer is NOT putting on a pair of scrubs and helping on the unit.......

If I am going to be reviewing peers performance, and reviewing such performance is in direct relation to a raise vs. not a raise, then call me the manager and pay me accordingly.

[DebblesRN, ASN, BSN, RN]

We do peer evals where I work. They are supposed to affect your merit raise, but I can't say they have because since they started doing them, no-one housewide has gotten a merit raise. LOL Bad economy you know, so only administration gets raises and bonuses.

That aside, I think they suck. I have tried to keep in mind that the person whose eval I was filling out may have their raise affected, as well as the peer eval goes in their personnel file, so I was always nice and fair with the negatives (we are required to leave at least one thing that a coworker needs to work on.). I'd leave something like--work more towards accepting more difficult assignments, however, great improvement seen over the last year in this capacity.

If I got an eval for someone I never work with, I passed on the eval to someone else who worked with them regularly to be fair.

Where I work, we are not allowed to pick the people who evaluate us. The manager selects them and it is always another RN that evaluates us.

I have found that my coworkers use these evals as a time to get back at each other.

I consistently have a poopy peer eval. I am not sure if it is one person who keeps getting mine, or people think that I am an abhorrent nurse, or a mean hateful person in general, or what. Mine may have some really nice positive statements on it, but then some really negative ones on it as well that far outshine the positive ones. I have said to my manager every year that If I am this big a problem and/or have this many people thinking I am a bad nurse, maybe I should be fired. My manager says she doesn't agree with the assessment on my peer eval at all. I am left to feel that there are an unknown number of people that I work with who are out to get me that smile to my face and croon about how nice I am to work with, yet stab me in the back with nasty peer evals.

I have found myself being nasty on evals now if I suspect they may be one of the people who was so hard on me, and have to go rewrite them to be fair.

I personally think peer evals do absolutely NOTHING to promote teamwork or to help people improve their performance. I think it promotes a culture of hostility and mistrust between coworkers and they should be done away with. I feel like if you can't say something in the peer eval you are filling out to your coworkers face, you shouldn't be adding it to the eval at all.

I also think it is stupid that if a coworker has been doing something that applies to the entire year, instead of addressing it with them and/or the manager, they wait until the annual peer eval to address it. How can someone correct a problem if it is not known until the eval?? Also, why should one isolated event apply to an entire year's worth of work and bring someone's peer eval into a bad place?

I have to say as well, when you are in a management type of position and have to make some decisions based on patient flow, needs of staff, and/or request of management, it doesn't make you popular at all and zingers appear on your eval left and right.

[Hygiene Queen]

I don't care for them.

Sometimes I get someone I never even work with... so that's a bit challenging.

One time I got a guy who I worked with often.

Well, he was a bit of a... erm... sociopath, I think.

Anyway, the one thing I mentioned, though I felt sorta bad about it, was that he had horrendous hygiene and he stunk!

He smelled like, not so much BO, but just like unwashed... unwashed... *ahem*... butt

So, several days later, he comes up to me and hovers over me as I am sitting and very piercingly says, "Somebody gave me a very nasty review."

Oy.

I don't know if he knew I had him for the peer review or not, but I just said, "Gee, I'm sorry to hear that."

That was very disconcerting, but fortunately, he left shortly after that.

I was paranoid for weeks.

I don't put anything bad in my peer reviews anymore and I don't trust my manager to be confidential.

[sistasoul]

We have peer reviews where I work and I don't believe they effect our raises. The first year I was a nurse I had a nurse of 30 years write on my evaluation that I looked up too many things. Then I got spoken too about it. Unbelievable. I still look up things and will always look up diagnoses or meds I don't know anything about.

What I don't like about evaluations is that a lot of our raise is based on non patient care criteria such as, committee membership, certifications, writing a paper for a journal, etc.

[Julius Seizure]

I also think it is stupid that if a coworker has been doing something that applies to the entire year, instead of addressing it with them and/or the manager, they wait until the annual peer eval to address it. How can someone correct a problem if it is not known until the eval?? Also, why should one isolated event apply to an entire year's worth of work and bring someone's peer eval into a bad place?

Those are really good points. My unit has been without a manager for over six months now.....so you can imagine what kinds of things will be in the peer reviews since nobody has gotten to complain about anything to a manager for six months! I myself often find myself thinking "boy when we finally hire a new manager, I've got a few things to say to her..."

[ch1974]

Peer evaluations should be banned. An evaluation should be based on professionalism, competance and reliability, period.

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

Our peer evaluations aren't the final say, but they are considered by the manager for the final evaluation. We can submit names for who we want to do them, but that doesn't guarantee those are the people who will be assigned to them. The comments are included anonymously for us to review, and I've gotten quite a few that came out of left field. That's what I really don't like- people aren't making sense, it's rushed because we have to work them in around patient care, and let's just say some of the people I've worked with were borderline psycho.

[dudette10, MSN, RN]

I would hate to peer review someone who I think sucks. I would love to peer review someone who I think is good. If I had to peer review someone who sucks, the review would be neutral and essentially meaningless...on purpose. That's the only reason why I hate them.

[dudette10, MSN, RN]

Peer evaluations should be banned. An evaluation should be based on professionalism, competance and reliability, period.

Peer evals CAN be based on professionalism, competence, and reliability (and that's how I would do one, if forced); however, as a peer, I would still hate to say that a co-worker is unprofessional, incompetent, and unreliable because it would make me wonder if someone like that would attempt to sabotage/lie about me if my review was ever found out.