Peers subordinates customers self among additional

Peers, Subordinates, Customers, & Self
Among additional sources of infor-
mation are coworkers and subordinates, customers and clients, and the employees
themselves.
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Peers and subordinates. Coworkers, colleagues, and subordinates may well
see different aspects of your performance. Such information can be useful for
development, although it probably shouldn’t be used for evaluation. (Many
managers will resist soliciting such information about themselves, of course,
fearing negative appraisals.)
■
Customers and clients. Some organizations, such as restaurants and hotels,
ask customers and clients for their appraisals of employees. Publishers ask
authors to judge how well they are doing in handling the editing, production,
and marketing of their books. Automobile dealerships may send follow-up
questionnaires to car buyers.
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Self-appraisals. How would you rate your own performance in a job, knowing
that it would go into your personnel file? Probably the bias would be toward
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Human Resource Management ✽ CHAPTER 9
the favorable. Nevertheless, self-appraisals help employees become involved
in the whole evaluation process and may make them more receptive to feed-
back about areas needing improvement.
360-Degree Assessment: Appraisal by Everybody We said that perfor-
mance appraisals may be done by peers, subordinates, customers, and oneself. Some-
times all these may be used in a technique called 360-degree assessment.
In a “theater in the round,” the actors in a dramatic play are watched by an audi-
ence on all sides of them—360 degrees. Similarly, as a worker, you have many people
watching you from all sides. Thus has arisen the idea of the 360-degree assessment, or
360-degree feedback appraisal, in which employees are appraised not only by their
managerial superiors but also by peers, subordinates, and sometimes clients, thus
providing several perspectives.
Typically, an employee chooses between 6 and 12 other people to make evalua-
tions, who then fill out anonymous forms, the results of which are tabulated by com-
puter. Or, using a Facebook-style program such as Performance Multiplier or
Twitter-like software called Rypple, employees can solicit evaluations through social
networking–style systems. 127 The employee then goes over the results with his or her
manager and together they put into place a long-term plan for performance goals.
Incorporating 360-degree feedback into the performance appraisal process has ad-
vantages and disadvantages. Recent research found that “improvement is most likely to
occur when feedback indicates that change is necessary, recipients have a positive feed-
back orientation, perceive a need to change their behavior, react positively to feedback,
believe change is feasible, set appropriate goals to regulate their behavior, and take ac-
tions that lead to skill and performance improvement.” 128 At the heart of the process is
the matter of trust. “Trust determines how much an individual is willing to contribute