360 degree performance appraisal

Another method of gathering feedback for you performance appraisals would be to conduct a 360 degree performance appraisal.  This process requires you to put some questions together to form a survey to submit to people that work directly with your employee.  Typically the survey is sent to 10-12 people that the employee works with, this would include peers, subordinates, and possibly management.  This method of employee evaluation takes the pressure off of the manager and gives the employee a 360 degree view of their performance and how they are perceived by others.  Questions are put together based on job responsiblities and how they interact with the individuals on the survey.  These are supposed to be anonymous for the person providing the feedback.  This tool has been valuable in evaluating employee’s performance.  It is a great tool to use when you want to gather feedback from others on an employee’s work performance.

Depending on the employee’s role the 360 survey questions should include the core competencies of their role in the organization.  Areas that might included could be:

Teambuilding and Relationship Building, Task Management and Execution or Communication Skills.

All of these topics could be included.  The bottom line is to compile a list of survey questions that you would like to know the answer to from your employee’s customers, peers and direct reports.  Then go up the chain to yourself and your managers to see how they are perceived above you.  This tool is valuable in measuring the performance and perception of the employee far beyond the manager / employee relationship.  It is very useful in the employee’s growth and reaching their potential.

This 360 degree performance appraisal can be done via email, a simple web survey (if you have an IT staff to put it together for you) or your HR group can facilitate and gather the feedback and then present it to you in an anonymous fashion, so the feedback providers can feel at ease their names won’t be used.  I believe this method of performance appraisal should be used as a tool vs. the only form of appraisal, however I prefer this method over the one-sided manager/employee performance appraisal, because it truly gives the employee more information of what people think, than just your (the manager’s opinion).