360-Degree Feed Back Scenario

In this phase the raters are educated on the reasons a performance management system is being put in place and provided information on the appraisal form and the actual performance management system. They are also trained on how to identify and rank job activities, how to observe, document, and measure performance, conduct a performance review, and most importantly minimize rater errors. The focus on rater error training is essential as it points out and identifies biases and lack of knowledge or program understands that leads to rating employees incorrectly. There are several types of errors that can occur and in the preparation phase employees are educated on how to prevent making these errors. The final step that occurs prior to implementing the performance management system is pilot test; this is imperative to do in order to identify errors, issues, and any improvements that needs to be made before implementing the system to the entire organization which can save the company money in finding issues

3600 feedback is a process in which someone’s performance is assessed and feedback is given by a number of people who may include their manager, subordinates, colleagues and customers (Michael Armstrong 2009:644). The debate surrounds a point of whether it offers a means of overcoming the traditional limitations of appraisal.

Although performance cannot be judge alone with 360-degree assessment, it provides a commentary aspect that will assist an organization in Leadership Development and Succession Planning. Including the 360-degree appraisal in the performance management process will provide a broader perspective about an employee’s performance and detail to annual appraisal. In addition, the technique facilitates greater self-development for an employee. Moreover, it enables an employee to compare his or her self- evaluation about performance with the perceptions of others.

Helping performance raters avoid bias is an important factor in creating a legally sound performance management system (Aguinis, 2013). All people leaders will be required to attend yearly and bi-yearly training to help manage the performance of employees. They will also be required to justify their ratings to their direct leader. Once the leader approves the rating, the performance review will be made available to the employee. The employee will be able to leave feedback and sign the performance review. Once signatures have been received the performance review will not be

Next, the 360-Degree Feedback is also used to measure an employee’s performance. Through research, the 360-Degree Feedback sole purpose as David Bracken states is to “be seen merely as a tool or used as a one-time event. Rather, it must be understood as part of an ongoing process of assessment, performance evaluation, and discussion of performance with supervisors, subordinates, peers, and others.” More so, the 360-degree feedback is useful when considering the employee’s feedback and leadership skills.

The Halo effect and Rater bias are two potential performance appraisal problems that can cause potential rating errors (Dessler, 2008). These errors in the evaluation render the appraisal, less valuable for the employee and for the company.

I am going to discuss the key features of a 360 degree performance appraisal. Some of the key features are that it measures are;

Recently, I had the employees in my department complete a 360 review as part of the annual review process. Indeed, when the 360 review is conducted by an outside entity, analyzed, and reported; then, the feedback is both meaningful and truthful (Zenger & Folkman, 2012). Interestingly, the items I felt I was most proficient needed the most work.

A 360-degree feedback system is also known by a number of other names such as a multi-rater feedback, multisource feedback, or multisource assessment. Using this model involves providing feedback from a number of sources and directions on the hierarchical organization chart such as including superiors, sub-ordinates, customers and peers. Therefore this model is able to collect a variety of different perceptions about an individual's performance. A literature review was conducted that examined the 360-system from different perspectives of the evaluation sources and finds that though the system can provide more comprehensive sets of data that sometimes the complexity of which serves to provide no value. However, in many cases, if administered properly the 360-degree evaluation system can be a valuable tool used for professional development in an organizational setting.

Giving and receiving feedback has long been considered to be an essential skill for managers and leaders. Employees need to know how they are doing as they strive to achieve their organisation’s goals. They need to know how they are doing, whether the performance is up to standard, and if not, how they can improve.

360 degree feedback system as a performance evaluation tool as long as the understanding of its intent is understood. “There are three key steps in the successful implementation of 360 degree feedback systems in an organization. The three steps are that it must fit the organizations culture, make it psychometrically sound, and used with care” (“Best Practices”, 2012). It is also important to train the feedback providers to be sensitive, respectful and polite. Treating employees in a friendly and respectful manner and offering constructive advice will make them more open to accepting the performance

During our performance reviews, feedback was solicited from many entities in which we directly worked with. These individuals commented on various areas of our work and how well we completed tasks. We typically had around 4 or 5 other coworkers or managers provide feedback in regards to our performance. However, I must admit that I was not privy to what the system was actually called back then until I recently began these courses in Human Resources Management. Hence, the 360 degree feedback system can save managers a lot more time to focus their attentions on greater developmental areas for employees when using this approach because more and more people participate in the feedback process. Another advantage of the 360 degree feedback system is that is promotes team development (Heathfield, 2018). Thereby, this process helps team members learn to work more cohesively and effectively together. Likewise, another advantage is that the 360 degree feedback system is one of the key methods in fully assisting in comprehending personal as well as organizational developmental needs for the organization. A huge advantage of this system is that it reduces discrimination (Heathfield,

More so, 360 degree feedback processes are usually unnamed in regards to the raters providing feedback and thus employees receiving the feedback have no aid if they want to further understand the reasoning behind the feedback. Moreover, they have no one to ask for explanation about vague and obscure comments or for more information about particular ratings and their rationale. Second, this feedback system focuses heavily on the negatives and weaknesses more so than strengths and positive aspects of the employees behaviors, performance, and actions (Heathfield, 2018). Third, a pivotal disadvantage of the 360 degree feedback systems is that there could be much lack of rater experience and ineffectiveness. More so, a disadvantage to this system is that organizations do not provide adequate and sufficient training in regards to the methods in which to provide and receive feedback, thus this can cause for the many ways in which raters go wrong (Heathfield, 2018). Certainly, raters may inflate ratings to make an employee look good or they may deflate ratings to make an individual look bad. According to Heathfield (2018) all the more, raters may simply get together to make the system artificially inflate everyone’s performance (Heathfield,

Whenever organizations are faced with evaluating an employee’s job performance they sometimes fail to provide objective feedback that improves their performance. Appraisals are often linked to reward such as promotions and pay raises, so when the system does fail, employees lose trust in the organizations decision making process, and this can lead to employee backlash. We also need to look at rater bias and poor implemetation as reasons for failure as well. Rater biases involves harshness, and tendencies that may be too lenient. Errors like this are caused by appraisers who rank all employees either too high or too low, or rank all employee in the middle of the scale so employees won’t be upset.

Next, is the 360-degree feedback method. This performance appraisal method “enables the employee to receive feedback from his superior, his peers, and his subordinates” (community for Human Resource Management, 2016). This method can be helpful in identifying your work ethic from several different aspects. It can provide a basis for improvement, getting input from others that watch you work and work with you everyday.