What does Cynthia in marketing really think of your work? Or how about Larry two cubicles over? Does he still blame you for giving him those faulty numbers last week? With more companies turning to 360-degree reviews to evaluate their employees, requiring feedback from a boss, co-workers, and even customers, you're more likely to find out exactly where you stand – 10 times over.
When it works, those who are rated say 360-degree performance reviews help them hone their strengths and weaknesses and even find blind spots. But this peer review system can also pave the way for vindictive comments, office-wide animosity and feelings of being singled out.
______
THE GOOD...
A few years ago, Andrea Joyce, a marketing manager in Toronto, sat down with her boss at the creative agency where she then worked. Ms. Joyce had just been through her most recent 360-degree feedback review and was ready to hear the results.
“Now I'm going to mention something – and you're going to know exactly where this is coming from – so I ask you to not talk to her about it. But you need to know this,” started her manager.
It turned out one person in accounting had a few choice things to get off her chest about Ms. Joyce's professionalism. “Doesn't respect my timing,” was one comment. “Doesn't seem to understand the process I need to go through,” was another.
It would have been easy to get defensive, but instead Ms. Joyce says she took the pointed criticism and used it to turn her actions around, complying with accounting's deadlines to make everyone's lives easier.
“The very nature of 360s requires a certain level of maturity,” Ms. Joyce says now. “I like hearing what people have to say even if it's a bit negative.”
______
THE BAD AND THE UGLY...
But what happens when the comments are extremely negative – or downright mean? It can happen, says Ed Muzio, author of Four Secrets to Liking Your Work: You May Not Need to Quit to Get the Job You Want (Pearson/FT Press, Feb. 2008) and president of HR consulting firm Group Harmonics, Inc. in Albuquerque, N.M., which administers 360-type surveys. Sometimes a group of employees take offence at something their direct supervisor says and decide to band together, much like what happens in academia when students go after a professor for giving them poor marks.
“The same thing can happen in corporate, right? A group can get together and say ‘we're going to lambaste you,'” he says.
And because comments are usually confidential, some markers feel less inhibited about letting it fly. In face-to-face conversation – or even confrontation – many people couch their criticism with something along the lines of, ‘I really liked how you showed initiative back there at the meeting, but I wish you had (insert disparagement here).'
Mr. Muzio says raters who are unhelpful or overly critical usually sharpen their poison pens when they have something to gain from putting another employee down. Companies can stop these comments before they start by ensuring the 360-degree review is used solely for professional development, as opposed to tying it in with compensation or promotion.
That's how they were meant to be used back in the 1940s when the U.S. Armed Forces first started administering 360-degree feedback to support staff development. When computerization made it simple to collect data online and collate results quickly, the concept took off in the 1990s and companies generated 360-degree reports to determine everything from salaries to specific training issues like how so-and-so handles herself in meetings.
“If you want useful information, you want honest information. It's counterintuitive, but the best way to get that is to say, ‘It's not going to go anywhere except to the person, and that person won't know who you are,'” Mr. Muzio says.
______
THE RATINGS GAME
So who should get chosen to rate you? According to one 2004 study by Lominger Limited Inc. that looked at rater accuracy, the most accurate ratings come from knowing a person long enough to get past first impressions, but not so long that the close relationship clouds judgment. The best candidates are co-workers, subordinates, managers and clients who have known the employee for one to three years.
A good selection of raters should include at least eight to 10 people to really get a good panoramic view of performance – and also so the person being rated can't guess who said what.
Who should rate you is one thing, who actually does may be another. Mr. Muzio, when he worked as a manager at Intel Corp. years ago, says he was expected to coach employees on topics such as choosing your feedback providers, marketing your accomplishments to your manager and how to “spin” your failures to look like successes. Employees routinely drafted summaries of their accomplishments – and listed the colleagues who worked with them at the time. One way to get good feedback, to be sure.
Then there were the brokered feedback deals – I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine – that went down to get good reviews.
“You have this process designed to give real feedback and yet you're teaching everyone how to run the process to their advantage,” he says now, noting that many companies work their 360-degree reviews this way. “Once you tell people this is connected to your annual compensation, it starts to get managed.”
Self-rating is also popular, although it's usually done to demonstrate to an employee that how he thinks about himself probably differs from how he's seen by others.
In fact, self-ratings tend to be a scale point or more higher than those from peers, whether it's because people have inflated views of their ability or simply because they know their weaknesses and don't want to point them out for fear that other people might clue in too. In reality, the more humble employees tend to be the star performers. A 2003 Lominger study found that the more effective employees tend to underestimate their abilities, perhaps an indicator of higher internal standards.
______
WHEN TO RATE
Shane Belford, an employee development professional in Toronto, has been using 360-type reviews for about 20 years at a number of organizations. He's a big proponent of them because – done right – he says they work.
“It's a positive thing to confirm what people are saying to each other,” he says.
Mr. Belford shies away from online or canned forms and instead goes low-tech. He simply asks people to write honest and candid comments that will help the employee to do a better job. Yet if you're going to go one better, ask for comments continuously throughout the year rather than waiting until a designated review time.
“You could get some great feedback from people in March, but the appraisal doesn't happen until December,” he says. In the meantime, those useful comments are forgotten.
Joyce says a staggered approach works for her, too. Today she works in marketing at a downtown Toronto financial institution and for about three weeks each year, gets hit with a stack of 360 reviews to complete.
“You just get overwhelmed. Some of them you can never get to,” she says.
The best time to get the 360 ball rolling, however, is when the organization needs a kick in the pants. Two years ago the B.C. Safety Authority in New Westminster, B.C., shifted its strategic focus from inspecting technology like escalators to educating little kids how to use them. The former government organization is now a leaner business with 265 employees scattered across 30 offices. It had to change how its leaders managed. They needed to be able to get results quickly and have strong interpersonal skills. Very non-government.
Since it started gearing up for 360-degree reviews two years ago, the B.C. Safety Authority completed 40 reviews. Diane Sullivan, vice-president of human resources, says the reviews help shift the corporate culture more quickly because they give a framework for discussion.
“We haven't always had good frameworks about how you give constructive feedback to help somebody to grow and develop in their career,” she admits. “This has given us the language and tools to frame that discussion in a positive way.”
______
THE FOLLOW-UP
After collecting good comments or bad, the last thing a company wants to do is hand them over to the employee in question and let that person decide what to do with the information. A good human resources administrator helps that employee use the feedback and formulate a plan. That way the employee feels that she has control over the comments rather than allowing them to control her.
“The employee really needs to feel they're supported and the company is really trying to help them grow. If they don't have a plan in place, that's when the employee feels vulnerable,” Ms. Sullivan says.
