Literature Review on 360 Degree Evaluation / Feedback

31 December 2013, Singapore: Few days ago, an ex-staff of mine asked me for help in one of her Master in HRM assignment. The topic was 360 degree evaluation / feedback. Happily I shared with her my previous 360 degree evaluation but since it is an MBA program I felt that I need to provide her some secondary research for her to complete her 360 literature review.

I manage to find and retrieved one of my previous collection ... "Performance Management Under The Microscope" by Christopher Mills (2002) - a publication Singapore HR Institute (SHRi)

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Extracted from page 9 and 10 ... 

360 degree feedback come formally into recognition in the 1980s. An early example from the RCA Corporation linked thier hybrid system to a 'talent inventory' of behaviours used by all of their 7,500 managers. Each manager was confidentially rated by a group of five to seven employees in his or her "work network" on two dimensions: overall performance and critical incidents using a standard alphabetical and interval rating system (Lazer & Wikstrom, 1977)

360 only became popular in the early 1990s and was used initially by UK and US based corporations for development of senior management. In two studies of performance appraisal practices in Singapore and Malaysia, appraisal was seen as one-sided because people who actually saw what was happening did not carry out the review (Mills, 1994 & Mills, 1995a op cit). It was suggested that input from peers, customers and the team they worked in would provide a more accurate and complete picture of how effective they had been at their job.

Today, some team based organizations and progressive companies use 360 for development and potential purpose. The downside of its use is often administrative. Employees often have hectic schedules and getting them to complete a 360 questionnaire may take some follow up and cajoling. Eager to get HR off their back, employees tend to complete the survey in a hurry. This raises concerns of what is known as 'central tendency' where respondents tick off the mid point for every question and the results become less valid

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I hope the above 'extraction' will be helpful for those doing their '360' HRM assignment. The book was written in 2002, now is 2014 - I believe with the maturity of e-technology, the administrative concern of managing a 360 program has been greatly reduced.

In today context, I think senior leadership will be more concern about the cost involved in running or maintaining an e-360 evaluation / feedback program.

Time now is 11.15 pm, 31 Dec 2013 ... I would like to take the opportunity to wish my reader a Happy New Year and a blessed 2014!

-The End-