The Best Employee Reviews: 360 Degree Review

To give an over view of what the 360 degree review is, it is basically a way to give performance reviews, but instead of coming from one person, it can include multiple peers giving their evaluations. This could include supervisors, coworkers, management, customers or clients.

The advantage to this type of review is it "Provides well-rounded feedback from peers, reporting staff, co-workers, and supervisors. This can be a definite improvement over feedback from a single individual." (Heathfield, 2006, pg 2) If an individual has an issue with a person, no matter how neutral they say they are, this can have an effect on the review. A 360 degree can provide an individual with many sources as to how that person performs at his job. A 360 degree review can also keep any cultural issues that may an issue out of the equation. I also feel that a 360 review using customers to give feedback may spoil the weight of the review or validity of the review. For instance, let's say you are eating in the restraint, and your food arrives cold, you are upset and fill out a feedback form complaining about the waitress that just delivered your food late. As a customer, you may not understand that it was the cook's fault for leaving your food sit too long on the side and the waitress had no idea your food was cold. A customer, supplier, or client who may have had a bad experience with one of Ace's consulting global sales personnel may not be able to truly give a good feedback of their performance if the situation was out of the global sales person's control. I have to continually say to myself how reliable these evaluations are?

Based on my own past experience and dealing with sales personnel, I tend to rely more on quantitative data to base my performance reviews. Are you making your sales goals? Are you hitting your target accessory volume? What is your closing rate at this month? Then I look at such things as, are you completing your paperwork correctly, turning in reports on time? Completing assigned projects on time? If the answer to any of these questions is no, then I like them to explain to me why these items are not being met. Then I look at everyone else's performance data and see if they are any trends that could be a result in economic conditions. For instance, my market dictates a slump at Christmas time and I expect to see numbers fall during this time. I feel that in sales a quantitative measures are best, if customers and happy with their performance they will continue to purchase from them, if not they will go elsewhere. I also feel that quantitative measures can remove any bias that people may have due to cultural issues.

References:

Heathfield, Susan M., 2006, "360 Degree Feedback: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" [Electronic Version] retrieved on March 6, 2006 from http://humanresources.about.com/cs/360feedback/l/aa042501a.htm

Thompson, Leigh L., 2004, "Making the Team, A guide for Managers, Second Edition", Pearson Education Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 07458.