INTRODUCTION

Performance can be measured in many ways. One of the ways that most organizations

use is performance appraisal. According to Longenecker (1997), most organizations throughout

the world regardless of whether they are large or small, public or private, service or

manufacturing, use performance appraisal, with varying degrees of success, as a tool to

achieve a variety of human resource management objectives. Bennett (1987) defines

performance appraisal as the "assessment and analysis of employees' past successes and

failures, and the estimation of their suitability for promotion or training" whereas Yong (1996)

defines performance appraisal as “an evaluation and grading exercise undertaken by an

organization on all its employees either periodically or annually, on the outcomes of

performance based on the job content, job requirement and personal behavior in the position”.

This appraisal could be done annually, twice a year or depends on the need of the organization.

Performance appraisals are essential for the each and every organization. Its purpose is

to review performance of employee for over a period of time. Through feedback get from

performance appraisal, the employees know how well they are doing their job and they can use

the information to improve future performance. Besides that, another purpose of appraisal is to

facilitate decision. It provides information to assist in the Human Resource decisions such as

promotions, transfers, retentions, layoff and salary. Other purpose is to determine individual

training and development needs. From appraisal, employees knew what kind of training, skills

and competencies that they need to give greater contribution to the organization. Lastly, the

most important reason for an organization to have a performance appraisal system is to improve

organizational performance. It allows the organization to communicate performance

expectations to all employees and assess exactly how well each person is doing. When

everyone in an organization is clear on the expectations and knows exactly how he is

performed, it will result in an overall improvement in organizational success.

There are several types of performance appraisal namely General Performance

Appraisal, Technical/Administrative Performance Appraisal, Manager Performance Appraisal,

Employee Self-Assessment, Project Evaluation Review and Sales Performance Appraisal.

Besides these, there is another type of performance appraisal that can make evaluation

of performance becomes more effective which is the 360 Degree Performance Appraisal.

Sometimes called “multi-rater”, the 360 Degree Performance Appraisal is a formal process

whereby an individual receives feedback from multiple individuals or “raters” who regularly

interact with the person being reviewed. The employee’s performance is evaluated by others

such as manager, subordinate, peer, team, customer as well as themselves. What it simply

means is that when it comes to appraisal time, everyone in the organizational chart is able to

appraise everyone with whom they work, including those who supervise them. Input will be gets

from all angles as it name. For better understanding of how 360 degree appraisal is established,

we provide example of established organization that uses 360 Degree Performance Appraisal.

We choose Yum! Brands Inc. Formerly known as TRICON Global Restaurants, Inc., Yum!

Brands together with its subsidiaries, operates as a quick service restaurant company in United

States and internationally. It develops, operates, franchises, and licenses a system of

restaurants, which prepare, package, and sell various food items.

As many other types of performance appraisal, the 360 also has its own pro and cons.

Therefore the aim of this paper is to discover the advantage and disadvantage of 360 Degree

Performance Appraisal to the individual himself as well as the organization as a whole.

1.0 COMPONENT OF 360 DEGREE PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

According to Bohlander V Snell (2010), there are six integral components while doing

360 degree performance appraisal. The components include of 360 degree performance

appraisal which is peer, manager/supervisor, subordinate, team, customers and employee itself.

Figure 1 shows the relationship between raters. An employees will do self appraisal and get

appraisal from his or her manager, peer, subordinate, team or customer.

Figure 1: Relationship between raters.

1.1 Manager/Supervisor Appraisal

Manager/Supervisor appraisal has been the traditional approach to evaluating and an

employee’s performance. In most instances, supervisors are in the best position to

perform this function, although it may not always be possible for them to do so.

Managers with many subordinates often complain that they do not have the time to fully

observe the performance of each of them. These managers must then rely on

performance records to evaluate an employee’s performance. If reliable and valid

measure are not available, the appraisal is likely to be less than accurate. In addition,

research has shown that the ratings managers give employees they have known for less

than one year are less reliable, which can be a drawback when an organization uses

focal performance appraisal. (Bohlander & Snell, 2010) The Defense Management

Engineering College (DMEC) has made the following statement that its shows the

confident level of their employees when they conducted a manager/supervisor appraisal.

(http://www.opm.gov)

1.2 Self-Appraisal

Self-appraisal is a performance appraisal done by the employee being evaluated,

generally on an appraisal form completed by the employee prior to the performance

interview. Self-appraisal is an important part of the process where the employee himself

gives the feedback or his views and points regarding his performance. Usually this is

done with the help of a self-appraisal form where the employee rates himself on various

parameters, tells about his training needs, if any, talks about his accomplishments,

strengths, weaknesses and problem faced. Self-appraisal should ideally include the

accomplishments, the goals achieved, the failures, and the personal growth (i.e. new

skills acquired, preparation for the future etc.), the obstacles faced during the period, the

efforts for removing them, the suggestions, and the areas of training and development

felt by the employee (Bohlander & Snell, 2010). Mitchell International, a provider of

software and data solutions, self-assessment is used as an optional component of the

performance appraisal process. All employees need to complete self-appraisals to

provide input into the performance review written by the manager( Lawler-King).

1.3 Subordinate Appraisal

This is the appraising program that the performances of managers are being evaluated

by their employee. It is more appropriate for developmental than for administrative

purposes. From this kind of appraisal, we can assume that the employee is the one who

are very in good position to appraise their managers because employee are in frequent

contact and have a close relationship with their superiors. All the good and bad of the

managers can be seen by the employees without any obstacles. The judging criteria

including the manager’s leadership, oral communication, delegation of authority,

coordination of team efforts and interest in his or her subordinate (Bohlander & Snell,

2010). But in this appraising process, it cannot be deny that some of the disadvantage

are also appeared such as subordinates will not be truthful in the performance ratings for

fear of repercussions, managers will be over-concerned with pleasing subordinates in

order to achieve positive ratings, managerial authority will be questioned, managers'

ratings will reflect their popularity among the workers, not their abilities, subordinates are

not capable of assessing manager's performance and will, therefore, skew the ratings,

subordinates' ratings will be based on the weight of their workload (Bohlander & Snell,

2010). In others perspective, there are three important conditions necessary for the

successful implementation of an upward appraisal system. First, managers must be

supportive of the use of subordinates' appraisals; therefore, a participative style of

management is beneficial. Second, the statements of the feedback survey must be

representative of the managerial areas that subordinates are able to evaluate. Finally,

subordinate appraisals work most effectively with another feedback source, such as

peers, supervisors, or customers.

1.4 Peer Appraisal

For peer performance appraisal is a perform review process where the data used in an

individual’s review is generated by a number of his peers. These may be other team

members or individuals on the same pay grade or role. The purpose of peer appraisal is

to provide high performance work organizations and to provide a comprehensive

performance management system that fits the culture. Besides, the annual objectives

establish both by the individual and the team, is the basis for the evaluation. Peer

performance appraisal differs from traditional performance appraisal in about every way.

For instance, feedback is fast and frequent from team members who know the job and

the person. This essentially means the opportunities to make excuses or to camouflage

what is really going on are basically eliminated. The advantages of this peer appraisal is

to increased use of self-directed teams makes the contribution of peer evaluation the

central input to the formal appraisal because by definition the supervisor is not directly

involved in the day-to-day activities of the team. (Bohlander & Snell, 2010). American

Medical Association use Medical Peer review  to make peer evaluation of clinical

teaching skills for both physicians and nurses. (Dippe, S.E.et al.,1989).

1.5 Team Appraisal

For Team performance appraisal is based on Total Quality Management concept that

recognizes team accomplishment rather than individual performance. Team projects are

a shared responsibility, and team performance appraisals reward success or punish

failure when judging a group venture. The key reason to use a team performance

appraisal is to obtain data an employee performance, whether that performance is good

or bad. A team performance appraisal is best used to avoid attributing success or failure

to a single employee performance is good or bad. A team performance appraisal is best

used to avoid attributing success or failure to a single employee working on a project.

Project leaders might be responsible for more than the average participant of a business

project, but a project lead need not be the only one to reap the benefits of a job well

done. (Bohlander & Snell, 2010). Real Dolmen, a Belgium’s largest ICT companies use

team appraisal to evaluate which they  expertise in various sectors such as infrastructure

sector and technologies like the Microsoft stack and Java. They evaluate by given a

task to two team to make a new software for their company and had given a designer to

develop it. Then evaluate by looking how creatively both of team.

(http://www.silverlightshow.net)

1.6 Customer Appraisal

The customer appraisal is based on Total Quality Management concepts and seeks

evaluation from both internal and external customers of the organization. Internal

customer is those people and employees who might use organization services and

products, who reside in the same organization. Internal customer can provide feedback

about value added by employee. This appraisal is important for both developmental and

administrative purpose. Internal clients may include supervisors, subordinates, co-

workers, and representatives from other departments. For example the computer

department and human resources department serve internal needs to each other.

Organization may have performance goals such as the completion of work orders on

time. Therefore, the evaluation of employee can be seek from the goals. (Bohlander &

Snell, 2010)  

External customers on the other side are outside organization or individual that receives

a product or service from the organization. It may include clients, suppliers, consultants

and customers. It is important to have external customer appraisal in order for

improvement. This is because if the external customer do not satisfied with the service

or product of the organization, they can take their business elsewhere and the will be

loss for the organization. This appraisal usually used by organization that involved with

outside people and profit are gain from them. For example, customer evaluates

restaurant personnel or customer service officer. (Bohlander & Snell, 2010).

Customer appraisal usually done in organization that provides service. For example, in

hotel, customer may give feedback on how their front office staff such as receptionist

performed.

2.0 CONSIDERATION WHEN MAKING 360 DEGREE APPRAISAL

There are several things to consider when implementing 360 degree performance

appraisal.

2.1 Rater

When implementing this scheme, there is something that organization must take it

seriously which is the number of raters. This is important to know the number of raters

because if the amount of raters are small it probably will affect the overall result at the

end because that was show the person who are being rated get the wrong feedback

because it is not from a majority voice. Others element is the samples of rater needs to

be large enough that individual sources cannot be identified. (http://www.psytech.com)

2.2 Questionnaire

The questionnaire needs to be relevant to the raters and their day to day involvement

with the individual. A well-designed questionnaire should offer respondents the

opportunity to indicate where they have not had the opportunity to observe a behavior, or

where the behavior is not relevant to the job, so as not to force them to guess. While the

majority of 360 degree feedback processes involve the use of a questionnaire, it is

possible to run very effective programs without the use of questionnaires. However,

these programs need to be managed with extreme caution and require a mature

organizational culture and the support of a good facilitator. (http://www.psytech.com)

2.3 Feedback Format

Feedback can be provided through aggregating the ratings and presenting an average

‘score’ on each question. While this preserves anonymity, it does have the disadvantage

of failing to identify important differences in perspective. Ideally, the ratings of the

different groups are presented separately, and the range of the ratings for example

highest and lowest as well as the averages included so that these differences in

perspective are identified. Some questionnaires include a free-written section in which

other observations or comments may be made. This can help to throw more light on the

ratings, but again the person giving the feedback needs to be sensitive in managing this

information. (http://www.psytech.com)

3.0 MISTAKES THAT MAKE 360 DEGREE PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL TO FAIL

Appraiser or appraisee may make several mistakes when conducting 360 degree

performance appraisal. Some of them are:

3.1 Ineffective Assessment Items

When employees want a very good data somehow they didn’t ask the right questions to

get it. Thus, manager needs to consider organizational expectations as well as job-

specific competencies. Moreover, the assessment items need to be well written to gather

the data that organization is looking for. When have a poorly written items, the data

might yield useless data. (http://www.custominsight.com/360-degree-feedback). People

often speak of the merits of performing a systematic evaluation but don’t actually do it

too often, 360-degree feedback systems are implemented with the expectation that

they’ll translate automatically to improved management effectiveness better team and

individual performance, and enhanced relationships between people and their

managers, staff, team members, customers, and others. Moreover, only through follow-

up and evaluation will an individual or organizations learn to what extent a behavior

changes was successful and whether it had an impact on performance. Despite the

growing popularity of 360 degree feedback and other multi-rater systems, few

companies rake the time to evaluate systemically the impact and effectiveness of these

powerful interventions. Scattered comments from respondents or feedback from senior

management are often the only form of evaluation that takes place (Scott Wimer) .

3.2 Lack Of Alignment With The Organization's Vision, Mission, And Strategy

If the things that are measuring are not important to the organization's vision, mission,

and strategy, then employees will not be developing competencies that are aligned with

the direction of the organization. Because they didn’t know what the purpose of their

organization want in the future. The superior think their employees cannot know more

details about the organizations vision, mission and strategy because they think it not

necessary. Their superior might be not tell the employees what to do and from that the

employees will be not together with their co-workers to achieve what organizations

vision, mission and strategy. (http://www.custominsight.com/360-degree-feedback). It

can cause great confusion if you don’t make sure people know whether the feedback will

be used for evaluation or development purposes. Other organizations use 360-degree

feedback as a vehicle for performance management, typically as an adjunct to existing

systems. Sometimes, 360-degree feedback falls somewhere in between; it’s purpose us

for development and evaluation (Scott Wimer)

3.3 Lack Of Senior Level-Support

If the leaders of organization do not vocally support and encourage participation in the

program and express their belief in the benefits it will provide, the 360 initiative will never

get off the ground. (http://www.custominsight.com/360-degree-feedback). The survey

was conducted by AMA Enterprise, a specialized division of American Management

Association that offers advisory services and tailored learning programs to organizations.

“While program complexity and cultural differences were noted by some survey

respondents,” said Sandi Edwards, Senior Vice President for AMA Enterprise, “most

cited a lack of executive support, which is problematic now that nearly all best-in-class

organizations today need their leaders to think and act globally.”

3.4 Lack Of Communication

There must be a communication with both management and employees. If management

do not tell them what, why, how, and when, they will not be comfortable with the

program. Therefore, manager must get buy-in at all levels of the organization to make it

work. (http://www.custominsight.com/360-degree-feedback). Besides that

communication in the written form of a letter or email takes time to be formulated and

then sent to various individuals; this may take hours or days. Once the communication is

received, it could then take even more time to be reviewed by the recipient. Voice mail

messages are another example of communication that isn't instantaneous and could

result in a delay of information. This delay could cause a loss of time or money. (Jennifer

F. Bender, 2011). Complete communication is especially important with 360-degree

feedback. Given that some feedback can seem threatening, it’s important that its

purpose be communicated clearly. To avoid potential misunderstanding or feelings of

betrayal, it’s also essential to communicate clearly about confidentiality issues.

3.5 Fear / Lack Of Trust

When a feedback process is new and unfamiliar, people may not treat their ratings of

others with the concern for accuracy necessary for such systems to work. Only later, it

might be discovered that feedback providers were engaged in a ratings game, which can

prevent future trust of multi-rater evaluation. Often, participants are afraid to get

feedback or if respondents are afraid to provide feedback. Communication helps reduce

fear. One of the most effective ways to reduce anxiety is to use a neutral third party to

administer the program. The world is in a crisis of trust, according to Steve Covey. Trust

is lacking in financial markets, in employee-management relationships and between

CEOs and companies. As a result, costly regulations and laws are increasingly

implemented to oversee relationships, at an estimated annual cost of 1.1 trillion dollars,

according to Covey. Dale Carnegie & Associates emphasize that lack of trust between

employees and management reduces employee performance. Building trust and

credibility should be a goal of all organizations and all partners in any relationship that is

expected to produce desirable results. (Sara Mahuron, 2011).

Others issue is when some employees may feel that there is not a mutual understanding

of what is expected of them and what management actually evaluates. They may also

lack trust in the ranking (measurement used for performance objectives). For example,

an employee who has an objective to decrease the number of defect errors may not

understand a particular formula (numbers and methods) management uses to determine

the errors.

3.6 No Follow-Up

Follow up is important to know whether the program has been a success. Plan to solicit

additional feedback six to twelve months after the initial data are collected. The potency

of the 360 degree feedback program is in the follow up. Once the data has been

collected, it must be analyzed and delivered to the target of the survey. Then, that

person must develop a set of measurable goals. Without a follow up process in place,

the data becomes useless. Plus, the employee doesn’t develop competencies in areas

in which weaknesses have been identified. Worse, the peer group can become less

willing to participate in future surveys. (http://www.custominsight.com/360-degree-

feedback).

3.7 No Accountability

Developmental goals are meaningless unless people are held accountable for achieving

them. Make sure employees and understand how to create Specific, Measurable,

Attainable, Realistic and Timely (S.M.A.R.T). (http://www.custominsight.com/360-

degree-feedback) Specific is specific goal has a much greater chance of being

accomplished than a general goal. To set a specific goal, the organization must answer

the 4W1H questions. Measurable establish concrete criteria for measuring progress

toward the attainment of each goal that set. When measuring the progress, it is

important to stay on track, reach target dates, and experience the exhilaration of

achievement that spurs on to continued effort required to reach the goal. Attainable is

when people identify goals that are most important and begin to figure out ways that can

make them come true. Employees will develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial

capacity to reach them. They begin seeing previously overlooked opportunities to the

achievement of goals. To be realistic, a goal must represent an objective toward which

they are both willing and able to work. A goal can be both high and realistic. Employee is

the only one who can decide just how high the goal should be. But be sure that every

goal represents substantial progress. Timely stresses the importance of grounding goals

within a time frame, giving them a target date. A commitment to a deadline helps a team

focus their efforts on completion of the goal on or before the due date.

(http://topachievement.com/smart.html)

3.8 No Development Plan

If management fails to do anything with the data, it will be wasted of time of both

participants and respondents. Every person who receives feedback needs to create

some developmental goals based on the feedback he or she received and remember

those goals need to be both measurable and achievable.

(http://www.custominsight.com/360-degree-feedback) To improve the development plan

start by identifying the gaps. The best way for an individual to get the perspective of

everyone around them is to use a 360 feedback survey and report. These surveys often

point out gaps between the perceptions of various rater groups. All good 360 feedback

reports include the information needed to identify significant and consistent differences

between rater groups (self, supervisor, co-workers, direct reports, etc.). next is to

Recognize real strengths. There are things we do so well and effortlessly that we often

forget we possess a talent. The 360 feedback report helps identify an individual's highest

scores as seen by others. However, each person needs to interpret what his or her real

strengths are (Scott Wimer).

3.9 Inappropriate Delivery Feedback

The idea of a feedback program is to help employees perform better. Negative feedback

can be demoralizing and counterproductive. If feedback is not provided in an appropriate

manner, the program could backfire. It is recommended to use professional, neutral

coaches to deliver feedback. (http://www.custominsight.com/360-degree-feedback).

Some others mistakes regarding to the use of the 360 degree feedback, it is probably

the multi rater feedback that is based on the idea that the people can feel safe providing

the anonymous feedback. One thing that causes the great confusion if you do not make

sure people know where the feedback will be used for evaluation or development

purpose. In the organizations use 360 degree feedback strictly as a development tool

and there are no repercussions for people getting negative feedback (Scott Wimer) .

3.10 Poor Planning

There’s a danger in being too ambitious too soon when introducing any major change in

an organization. Most 360-degree feedbacks systems represent a radical departure from

the way people are traditionally given feedback and managed. The concept of upward

feedback to a supervisor or manager and collecting information from peers, staff, and

customers may be considered radical in top down cultures. If the program is not well

thought out, it will not run smoothly. There are many logistical issues to consider before

launching a feedback program. If the employees perceive that the program is not well

planned, credibility of manager will be undermined. (http://www.custominsight.com/360-

degree-feedback) This possibility for a poor evaluation is difficult to accept, but it is

important to look into it fully. It is not sufficient to accept management’s comments.

Manager need to find some trusted people with whom he have worked with and ask for

their frank input. (http://workingwithinsight.wordpress.com/about-ps/)

4.0 WHEN TO COMMUNICATED THE FEEDBACK

Ideally the 360 degree process would be designed so that the individual receives

feedback as soon as possible after that feedback was given. Having shorter turn-around

times maintains the momentum of the process as well as motivation for the individual.

Given the pace of change in many organizations, shorter turn-around times will ensure

that the feedback is still relevant for the role. When planning the timing of the feedback,

it is important to ensure that people receive it when there is support available to interpret

the results(Aine Gray).Providing a report without support, particularly prior to a weekend

or going on holidays, is far from ideal, and can have strong negative consequences. If

the feedback facilitators do a number of feedback sessions, they can provide very

valuable information about the themes across the sessions. This would evidently need to

be done without compromising individual confidentiality. This information could feed into

the management development process to help tackle some of the wider organizational

issues(Neil,1999).

5.0 ADVANTAGES

The 360 has its own advantage over the other types of performance appraisal. Some of

them are as follows.

5.1 Provide More Comprehensive and Accurate View of Performance

Research obtained by Roberto Rivera’s research project, A Change from Single Source

to Multi Source Evaluations (1996) indicated that multi source assessments are the

wave of the future. A traditional performance review, where one supervisor assesses a

subordinate, is no longer seen as an effective means of obtaining accurate feedback for

employees. The feedback get from the 360 degree appraisal is more honest, reliable

and valid rather than feedback come from traditional appraisal which is comes from one

point of view only. 360 degree feedback is viewed as more accurate because, by nature

of the process, it offers feedback on observed behaviors and performance from a circle

of raters, as opposed to subjective viewpoints from a single individual. The accuracy of

the 360 degree process depends on whether the appraiser interacts regularly with the

employee and whether the employee reveals himself to others. Since employee can be

different with each person, it would follow that there is a benefit to having many

respondents involved. The view of most practitioners is that the use of more raters leads

to more accurate results for the individual (Church, A.H. & Braken, D. W.,1997). The

collective opinion gives perfect, objective and overall ideas on employee’s performance

throughout the time. This is because the feedback providers interact regularly with the

employee at work. When employee is reviewed by many people, the combination of the

opinions can be approximate to an ‘accurate’ view. The ratings from different

perspectives also provide a more complete picture of the participant's capabilities than

just one perspective. Besides, there are certain skills are best judged by peers and staff,

not by manager alone whereas leadership qualities are perfectly judged by peers and

subordinates rather than seniors. This is especially critical when the supervisor does not

have the opportunity to observe all areas of an employee's performance. 

5.2 Acceptance of Feedback

While traditional performance reviews offer a single or limited viewpoint, the 360 degree

review offers feedback from many sources. Sometimes the feedback gives repeating

and consistent messages. When a learner sees a consistent pattern of feedback, that

feedback is more likely to become reinforced and is more difficult to write off as invalid

(Alexander, D.M, 2006). Therefore, there is a possibility that multi-rater feedback from a

360 degree review is more likely to be accepted by the employee. Survey conducted at

Wilson Fire and Rescue Services personnel shows that 98.4% were willing to accept an

evaluation from their peers and subordinates. This is because it is nature of people to be

open to accept even the bad feedback from people he feels close to him. Once an

individual accepts feedback there is an increasing likelihood of behavioral change and

performance improvement.

5.3 Minimize Bias and Discrimination

One person performance appraisals are subject to claims of bias or partiality. Unlike the

360 degree appraisal, there are many people involve in giving rating and opinion.

Research done by Parker T.R(1998) indicate that the more appraisers an employee has,

the more likely the biases of the raters will tend to cancel one another out, and the more

their perspectives will combine to give a complete, accurate and honest picture. For

example, if there is only one person who rate the performance, the person tends to be

bias or prejudice to the people he appraise. The appraiser may give high marks for

employee he likes and if the appraiser disliked the individual they may decide that this is

a good time to get even by giving low mark for the employee. According to Frank

Snyder, it can reduce the possibility of discrimination of race, age and gender in

organization as feedback come from diverse group of people in different job function.

The "horns and halo" effect, in which a supervisor rates performance based on her most

recent interactions with the employee, is also minimized. Besides that, the feedback that

comes from multiple sources also has a more powerful impact than information from a

single source. People cannot ignore if there is many people has same opinion.

5.4 Motivate Employees and Enhance Self-Development

Feedback get from appraisal is more likely to lead to specific developmental actions. The

motivational component here is particularly important, because no matter how accurate

the feedback actually is, little will be gained unless it results in positive change and

development. Employers will be more strongly motivated to change work behaviors to

obtain the esteem of their co-workers. Feedback also may be motivating for people who

undervalue or underestimate themselves.

There are a number of ways in which emotions, or the affective states, are involved in

the motivation of behavior. Motivation is the force that energizes, directs, and sustains

behavior. Being receptive to feedback is clearly an important gateway to learning and

practicing strategies for personal improvement. Staying out of defensive modes is

essential to moving on and changing behavior. In order to be persistently successful,

people and organizations need to adapt continually to their environment .This requires

information from the environment. The more active and open the feedback loops, the

more effective the adaptation and change can be. If employees are motivated, they will

be willing to enhance themselves.

5.5 Richer Understanding of Performance

The 360 degree appraisal allows participants to gain valuable insight into how their

performance is perceived across different groups. People will behave differently when

interacting with different groups and even the same behaviors could be perceived

differently. Understanding these differences across roles can be very helpful in

developing, or more consistently engaging in, certain behaviors in certain situations. 360

degree gives clear understanding of personal strength and area that need improvement.

It is aimed at improving performance by providing a better awareness of strengths and

weaknesses.

The employee receives feedback from multiple sources in anonymous form, compares

them with self-ratings, gets limited coaching and sets goals for improvement. When it

provides more rounded feedback from all levels of the organization, the teams become

more efficient as member learn how to work more effectively together and they become

more accountable to each other and can provide valuable feedback to each other on

how they are performing (Frank Snyder, 2005).

5.6 Reinforce Organization

360-degree performance appraisal has the greatest impact when used to evaluate and

improve the performance of whole organizations. Companies can use data collected

from the programs to monitor consistent patterns or areas of weakness for employees

within the organization. Organizations also can develop more effective training programs

targeted at collecting common areas of weakness for employees throughout the

organization or in specific departments (Neil,1999). The 360-degree feedback method

may provide a more objective measure of a person’s performance. Including the

perspective of multiple sources results in a broader view of the employee’s performance

and may minimize biases that result from limited views of behavior. 360-degree

feedback focuses on skills needed across organizational boundaries (Hillary,1999).

When the employee of the organization completely know about the process and the

determination of this appraisal program, they will put more effort to make a good

relationship between not only just their peer but will give their fully attention of

responsibility towards all the top manager, subordinate, and the team member because

they know this all person will evaluate them in this 360 degree appraisal program and

indirectly will effects their working performance. At the end will make the organization

more productive.

6.0 DISADVANTAGES

The 360 has its own disadvantage over the other types of performance appraisal. Some

of them are as follows.

6.1 Time Consuming

This evaluation may absorb vast amounts of time and resources, and they make virtually

everyone unhappy. In terms of time, it may be conservatively estimated that it takes

three or four hours a year to formally evaluate each employee. Their emotional

significance spreads far beyond the few work hours they take. This evaluation process is

more administritively complex. This evaluation requires many raters unlike the traditional

evaluation, and therefore requires more time on the part of the entire organization. The

giving and receiving of feedback can intimidating to some employees and therefore

requires significant training of both the persons conducting the rating as well as those

receiving the evaluation. This training also adds to the time the organization must invest

in order for this system to be a success.

6.2 Dishonest Feedback

Employees also may not feel comfortable offering honest feedback of supervisors. This

same dilemma could exist in employee-to-employee evaluations. Without an anonymous

system, backlash from supervisors or retaliation from colleagues could limit workers'

willingness to share true feelings in the feedback process (Neil,1999). In some

instances, managers control virtually every aspect of the appraisal process and are

therefore in a position to manipulate the system. For example, a supervisor may want to

give a pay raise to a certain employee or the supervisor may just “favor” one worker

more than another. In order to justify this action, the supervisor may give the employee

an undeserved high performance evaluation and perhaps a less favored, but productive,

employee a lower rating, or he supervisor may want to get rid of an employee and so

may give the individual an undeserved low rating. In either instance, the system is

distorted and the goals of performance appraisal cannot be achieved. In addition, in the

latter example, if the employee is a member of a protected group, the firm may wind up

in court. If the organization cannot adequately support the evaluation, it may suffer

significant financial loss.

6.3 Elements of Sabotage

Ilene Gochman, director of Watson Wyatt’s organization effectiveness practice, says,

“We’ve found that use of the 360 is actually negatively correlated with financial results.”

(Patrick J. Kiger, 2006) GE’s former CEO Jack Welch maintains that the 360-degree

system in his firm had been “gamed” and that people were saying nice things about one

another, resulting in all good ratings. (John F. Welch Jr, 2001) Another critical view with

an opposite twist is that input from peers, who may be competitors for raises and

promotions, might intentionally distort the data and sabotage the colleague. Yet, since so

many firms use 360-degree feedback evaluation, it seems that many firms have found

ways to avoid the pitfalls. The value of the responses from a 360 degree will depend

largely upon the question that are asked. Individuals need to feel comfortable with the

process, they need to believe they will be rated honestly and treated fairly. If these

assurance are missing, implementation problems may occurs. Managers may attempt to

sabotage the process by pressuring their peers and subordinates into refusing to

participate in the rating process. Grievances (or even lawsuits) may be filed if ratings are

used for decision about raises or promotions. Dissatisfaction with the process may be so

great that it takes a toll on morale. (HR Magazines, 1998).

6.4 Issue in Confidentiality

Many firms outsource the process to make participants feel comfortable that the

information they share and receive is completely anonymous, but the information is very

sensitive and, in the wrong hands, could impact careers. Another common error is not

protecting the confidentiality of the people interviewed. It is critically important that both

the feedback results and the source of the feedback remain anonymous. Breaching

confidentiality can destroy the integrity of the system. Effort should be made to keep all

other information anonymous. If respondents believe that specific answers may be

attributed to them, they may not be as honest or objective as they should be. They need

to be assured that their responses will be delivered to the employee in a constructive

way, so that the employee will be able to incorporate the feedback into his or her

developmental improvement plan.

(http://www.boston.com/jobs/hire_authority/110606.shtml). Part of this involves ensuring

that the process maintains high levels of confidentiality so that the individuals feel can be

and excuse the cliché which is open and honest. It is important that anonymity and

confidentiality of 360 Raters be guaranteed to ensure that they cannot be identified by

the Appraisee. Without this assurance, Raters may either not responds, or they fudge

their responses to avoid potential friction. (http://www.appraisal-smart.com/360-Degree-

Feedback-Appraisal-FOQs.htm)

6.5 Employee Interpersonal Conflict

There is a conflict between an individual’s desire for personal growth and the wish to

have one’s self-image affirmed. People want to feel good about themselve, they

naturally strive for personal excellence for what they believe will work best for them (Lee,

2006). If the feedback is positive, it affirms their self-concept of competence and

success. Positive feedback serves to reinforce the current performance. If the feedback

is unfavorable, to minimize its importance they may engage in defensive behavior for

example is not ‘hear’ it (denial), they will be demoralized, and apportion blame

elsewhere, example someone else didn’t do their part, the system was flawed, the

supervisor misunderstands or is too critical or biased. Self-development requires

openness and “hearing” constructive feedback, and willingness to experiment and

change. However, openness to criticism may conflict with one’s objective of receiving

raises, bonuses, and promotions when they are tied to one’s performance appraisal

rating. Our internal communications are very important as they play vital roles in

determining our self-esteem and self-perception. If you apply yourself, it is possible to

improve your intrapersonal communication to assist in altering and improving both of

these, thereby improving your confidence and therefore your quality of life. (Sheryl

Faber, 1998) According Robert R. Wright M.S. (2010) Conflicts with peers at the

workplace are escalating in both rate of occurrence and intensity among nurses (referred

to as horizontal violence), especially among new nurses. Conflict with nurse peers

seems to have more detrimental effects on nurses than conflicts with others because

nurses cannot simply withdraw from interaction with ‘difficult’ colleagues. As such,

conflicts with other nurses are a substantial source of conflict in the workplace for nurses

and are a major contributor to negative workplace environments.

7.0 360 DEGREE PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL IN YUM BRANDS INC.

Yum! Brands Inc. is the organization which owned and franchised the KFC, Pizza Hut,

A&W, Long John Silver and Taco Bell brands worldwide. Yum! management faced the

challenge of spreading their "customer maniac" philosophy to 850,000 workers as Yum!

Has 33, 000 restaurant that serve 22 million customers around the world each day and

plans to open 1000 restaurant per year. Customer maniac is a term coined by Yum

management to describe what they are after in employee performance.

In order to achieve its goal of turning its workers into customer maniacs, Yum! has

identified customer-oriented dimensions such as speed, cleanliness and hospitality. The

performance criteria most valued at Yum! are teamwork, communication, and

leadership. Therefore, in order to roll the 360 degree system out to worker, Yum!

decided to hire a company called Kenexa to developed a new version of Yum's appraisal

tool. This web-based 360 degree system works in 50 different languages and it is easy

to use for manager around the world. The system collects evaluations and feedback on

worker’s performance from peers, managers, subordinates and customers. The web-

based forms emphasize written feedback to workers and the focus is on the

development of workers into customer maniacs.

To begin the process, an email is sent to employees asking them to submit a list of

people who could serve as raters. Supervisor review the list and settle on about a dozen

f people. Then, questionnaire is sent to the rater. Their rating and comments are use to

make a report. Manager and employee then will have discussion on the result, with the

manager taking the role of coach. (http://www.swlearning.com) This system is not only

use by the worker but also use by the CEO to get feedback. When Yum! CEO, David

Novak asked people for his performance feedback, 120 employees responded and the

report was 65 pages long. Like everyone else, he uses the information to improve his

future performance. All the data is collected at Yum's headquarters, giving the company

a valuable snapshot of the capabilities of its management and where organizational

development efforts should be focused. 

CONCLUSION

Unlike traditional approaches, the 360 degree feedback focuses on skills needed across

organizational boundaries. Also, by shifting the responsibility for evaluation to more than one

person, many of the common appraisal errors can be reduced or eliminated. Software is

available to permit managers to give the ratings quickly and conveniently. The 360-degree

feedback method may provide a more objective measure of a person’s performance. Including

the perspective of multiple sources results in a broader view of the employee’s performance and

may minimize biases that result from limited views of behavior.

Having multiple raters also makes the process more legally defensible. However, it is

important for all parties to know the evaluation criteria, the methods for gathering and

summarizing the feedback, and the use to which the feedback will be put. An appraisal system

involving numerous evaluators will naturally take more time and, therefore, be more costly.

Nevertheless, the way firms are being organized and managed may require innovative

alternatives to traditional top-down appraisals.

To be effective, 360 Degree Feedback needs an environment and culture of openness,

trust and mutual support. If the organization sees learning and the acceptance and

management of change as keys to business success this can also help. In such an ‘open’

culture the 360 system can operate anonymously and confidentially. For 360 Degree systems to

be successful, people have to feel able to speak freely without fear of reprisal. Managers in

particular need to be willing and open about receiving upward feedback.

Clearly the 360 degree feedback process is popular. The perceived benefits of

implementing such a program will only be realized if it is utilized in the right organizational

climate with the appropriate expectations for success. In the wrong environment, without the

presence or proper training of feedback coaches and raters, the results can be injurious.

Organizations should carefully weigh all the costs, including process related as well as the cost

of behavioral outcomes. Success of such a program is predicated on implementing and

sustaining long term behavioral change and development. Careful consideration should be

given to the design of the process as well as to the implementation in order for the process to

drive performance behaviors and performance outcomes.

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