Technical Affairs

Mike Aamodt, Associate Editor

This month's column answers a reader's questions about 360-degree feedback and contains another piece of HR humor.

What is the current thinking on 360-degree performance appraisal?

Traditionally, employee performance has been evaluated solely by supervisors. In the past decade, however, there has been an increased interest in involving such other sources of feedback as peers, subordinates, upper management, customers, vendors, and support staff. The idea behind "360-degree feedback" is that supervisors don't actually observe much of an employee's behavior. For example, a sergeant may only view 5% of a patrol officer's behavior or a city manager might view only 20% of a building inspector's behavior. Over 13% of U.S. organizations use 360-degree feedback (Gruner, 1997) and its use is almost universal among Fortune 500 companies (Ghorpade, 2000).

Do the various sources provide unique information?

This is a tough question to answer. Research on 360-degree feedback has found that raters show little agreement between or within sources. As shown in Table 1, a meta-analysis by Conway and Huffcutt (1997) found that the average correlation between two supervisors is only .50, between two peers .37, and between two subordinates .30. Thus, the low agreement between sources needs to be considered in the context of low agreement within sources. In other words, if two supervisors can't agree, why would we expect a supervisor and a subordinate to agree?

Table 1
Correlations between raters

Agreement between	Correlation
Two supervisors	.50
Two peers	.37
Two subordinates	.30
Supervisors and peers	.34
Supervisors and subordinates	.22
Supervisors and self	.22
Peers and subordinates	.22
Peers and self	.19

Does 360-degree feedback result in improved performance?

Overall, the research suggests that upward feedback does improve performance (Atwater, Rousch, & Fischtal, 1995; Kluger & DeNisi, 1996; Walker & Smither, 1999). However, the effectiveness of upward feedback seems to depend on who is being appraised. For example, in a study of 252 bank managers over a five-year period, Walker and Smither (1999) found that poorly- or moderately-performing managers increased their performance over the five-year period following upward feedback. Likewise, another study found that performance improvement depends on the manager's self-ratings: managers whose subordinate ratings were lower than their self-ratings improved performance following upward feedback whereas managers whose subordinate ratings were higher than their self-ratings decreased their performance (Johnson & Ferstl, 1997). Similarly, a meta-analysis of over 600 studies on feedback found that although there was a significant effect for feedback (d = .41), equal numbers of studies showed performance declines, performance improvements, and no changes in performance following feedback (Kluger & DeNisi, 1996).

According to research, 360-degree feedback works best when:

1. Managers meet with their subordinates to discuss their upward feedback (Walker & Smither, 1999).

2. The managers receiving the feedback were initially not the top performers (Walker & Smither, 1999).

3. The managers receiving the feedback initially think that they are performing better than do their subordinates (Johnson & Ferstl, 1997).

4. The results are used for feedback rather than for decisions about compensation and promotion (DeNisi & Kiuger, 2000).

References

Atwater, L. Roush, P., & Fischthal, A. (1995). The influence of upward feedback on self- and follower ratings of leadership. Personnel Psychology, 48(1), 34-59.

Conway, J. M., & Huffcutt, A. I. (1997). Psychometric properties of multisource performance ratings: A meta-analysis of subordinate, supervisor, peer, and self-ratings. Human Performance, 10(4), 331-360.

DeNisi, A. S., & Kluger, A. N. (2000). Feedback effectiveness: Can 360-degree appraisals be improved. Academy of Management Executive, 14(1), 129-139.

Ghorpade, J. (2000). Managing five paradoxes of 360-degree feedback. Academy of Management Executive, 14(1), 140-150.

Gruner, S. (1997). Feedback from everyone: Are 360-degree performance reviews a silly fad - or a smart management tool? Inc, 19(5), 94

Johnson, J. W., & Ferstl, K. L. (1999). The effects of interrater and self-other agreement on performance improvement following upward feedback. Personnel Psychology, 52(2), 271-303.

Kluger, A. N., & DeNisi, A. (1996). The effects of feedback interventions on performance: A historical review, a meta-analysis, and preliminary feedback theory. Psychological Bulletin, 119, 254-284.

Walker, A. G., & Smither, J. W. (1999). A five-year study of upward feedback: What managers do with their results matters. Personnel Psychology, 52(2), 393-423.

HR Humor

The following are actual cover letter openings that were sent to David Todd, a senior editor at a publishing company. I'm not sure of the original source of this piece of humor but I have had it in my files for at least a decade.

1. Dear Dave,
I call you that because I feel I've known you for . . .

2. Dear Mr. Todd:
as Rod McKuen said so beautifully . . .

3. Dear Mr. Todd:
I would like to aply for the position of editoral asistent . . .

4. Dear Mr. Todd:
I have always dreamed of being . . .

5. Dear Mr. Todd:
My mother told me I should . . .

6. FLASH!
JUDY CARSON IS COMING TO NASHVILLE AND . . .

7. Dear Mr. Todd:
The Bible tells us, "See and ye shall find, " so I . . .

8. My dear Mr. Todd:
While vacationing on the Continent (a delightful time!), it occurred to me that . . .

9. Dear Mr. Todd:
Your company appears to be violating the Equal Opportunities Amendment, and to help you rectify the situation . . .

10. Dear Mr. Todd:
Your company needs help . . .

11. Dear Mr. Todd:
You don't know me, but . . .

Mike Aamodt, a Professor of Psychology at Radford University serves as our Associate Editor for the Technical Affairs column and as our unofficial humor editor. If you have a technical question you want answered/discussed, wish to comment on this month's article, or want to share a humor item please contact Mike. He may be reached by email (maamodt@runet.edu), phone (540) 831-5513 or fax (540) 831-6113.