360 Degree performance appraisal

What is 360 Degree?

360-Degree Appraisal is basically a Multi-Rater Appraisal and Feedback System. Almost every Fortune 500 Company is using this in some form or the other. In this system:

• The candidate is assessed periodically (once in a year and some times even half yearly) by a number of assessors including his boss, immediate subordinates, colleagues, internal customers and external customers.
• The assessment is made on a questionnaire specially designed to measure behaviors considered as critical for performance.
• Others do the appraisal anonymously and the assessment is collected by an external agent (consultant) or specially designated internal agent.
• The Assessment is consolidated; feedback profiles are prepared and given to the participant after a workshop or directly by his boss or the HRD department in a performance review discussion session.

T.V Rao and team as Top Management Styles And organization Effectiveness program started 360-degree feedback in mid-eighties at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad; it was not branded till 1998 as 360-degree appraisal. Once it was branded in the US as 360-degree appraisal, it caught the attention of many corporations and today a large percentage of Fortune 500 companies use it in some form or the other. Experiences with it as a development tool have been good, though experiences as an appraisal tool are mixed.

Objectives of 360 Degree Feedback

It is possible to aim at the following through 360-degree or MAFS:

• Insights into the strong and weak areas of the candidate in terms of the effective performance of roles, activities, styles, traits, qualities, competencies (knowledge, attitudes and skills), impact on others and the like.
• Identification of developmental needs and preparing development plans more objectively in relation to current or future roles and performance improvements for an individual or a group of individuals.
• Data generation to serve as a more objective basis for rewards and other personnel decisions.
• Reinforcement of other change management efforts and organization effectiveness directed interventions. These may include: TQM efforts, customer focused or internal customer satisfaction enhancing interventions, flat structures, quality enhancing and cost reducing interventions, decision process changes etc.
• Basis for performance linked pay or performance rewards.
• Alignment of individual and group goals with organizational vision, values and goals.

Aid in:

• Culture building.
• Leadership Development.
• Potential Appraisal and Development.
• Career Planning and Development.
• Succession Planning and Development.
• Team building.
• Planning Internal customer satisfaction improvement measures.
• Role clarity and increased accountabilities.
  

Advantages of the 360 Degree or MAFS

360-Degree appraisal systems have certain advantages. These advantages are not substitutes for those of traditional appraisals but in addition to them. Normally MAFS should be viewed as supplements to the regular KPA or KRA based appraisal systems rather than as replacements of the same.

Additional advantages offered by MAFS are:

• It is more objective than a one-person assessment of traits and qualities.
• It adds objectivity and supplements the traditional appraisal system.
• It provides normally more acceptable feedback to employee.
• It can serve all the purposes served by the traditional appraisal system like identifying the developmental needs, reward management, performance development etc.
• It helps focus on internal customer satisfaction.
• It has the potential of pointing out the supervisory biases in the traditional appraisal systems.
• It is a good tool for enhancing customer service and quality of inputs and service to internal customers.
• It provides scope for the candidate to get multiple inputs to improve his role, performance, styles and ideas and enhances the acceptability of the individual.
• It is more participative and enhances the quality of HR decisions
• It is suitable for new organizational cultures being promoted by most world-class organizations (participative culture, learning culture, quality culture, competency based performance culture, team work, empowering culture, leadership culture, etc.)