Q. What is 360 degree appraisal?

360 degree appraisal: this appraiser may be any person who has through knowledge about the job contents, content to be appraised, standards of the contents, and who observes the employee while performing a job. The appraiser should be capable of determining what is more important and what is relatively less important. He should prepare reports and make judgements without bias. Typical appraises are: supervisor, peers, subordinates employees themselves users of service and consultants. Performance appraisal by all these parities is called 360 degree performance appraisal.

a. Supervisors: Supervisors include superiors of the employee, other superiors having knowledge about the work of the employee and department head or manager. General practise is that immediate superiors appraise the performance, which in turn is reviewed by the department head / manager.

b. Peers: peer appraisal may be reliable if the work group is stable over a reasonably long period of time and performs tasks that require interaction.

c. Subordinates: the concept of having superiors rated by the subordinates is being used in the most organizations today, especially in the developed countries. Such a novel method can be useful in the other organization settings too provided the relationships between superiors and subordinates are cordial.

d. Self appraisal: if the individuals understand the objectives they are expected to achieve and the standards by which they are to be evaluated, they are to a great extent in the best position to appraise their own performance.

e. User of services customers: employee performance in the service organizations relating to behaviours, promptness, speed in doing the job accuracy, can be better judged by the customers or users of services.

f. Consultants: sometimes consultants may be engaged for appraisal when the employees or the employers do not trust supervisor appraisal and management does not trust the self appraisal or peer appraisal or subordinate appraisal.