Pros and Cons of a 360 degree Evaluations

[JayDudley]

We're thinking of implementing a 360 degree evaluation for all employees. My question is this,....who has been doing this and has it been successful.?
This type of evaluation is where instead of evaluations always going down hill i.e. Chief on down these go both ways. If you have any constructive responses it would be greatly appreciated.

[Halligan84]

What are you going to use it for? It is not a performance evaluation, more for insight into personal development needs. I've taken and given them, not bad as long as the participants put some time into it.

[JayDudley]

They are to be used by us (Fire Commissioners) to get a feel of what is going on for all three shifts. The evals will be seen only by us and information is gathered and presented to the Fire Chief for him to handle. NO NAMES WILL BE USED only situations that need to be handled. Once the evals are looked at they will be destroyed. The main reason is the non communication between shift with the 48 -96 schedule things were left to fester between shifts.
I hope this was explained correctly. This is by no means meant to fire anyone...just so we as a Fire Commission get a feeling whats going on.

[NewHampshireFF]

There really aren't any cons to 360s, as long as they are handled and explained well.

The problems basically end up being:

1. Managers having ego issues with being evaluated by their direct reports;
2. People using the promised anonymity to trash people;
3. Lack of true anonymity.

1 and 2 can be dealt with through education.

3 can be hard, if you have a small organization. And employee only has so many peers and direct reports.

Be prepared for the Chief to hate this idea. Many Fire Chiefs think they're Gods, and should have the same amount of accountability as Gods (none). The idea of a line firefighter, or even an officer, weighing in on a Chief's performance is very difficult for a lot of Chiefs to wrap their heads around.

[JayDudley]

The evals will have a name attached. The only ones seeing the evals will be the Fire Commissioners and if anything comes up that needs some attention it will be passed on to the Chief to handle. If it involves the Chief then he will sit down with us and we'll get it taken care of.

[NewHampshireFF]

Honestly, that doesn't sound to me like an actual perfomance evaluation process. It sounds like you're going looking for problems, and the discussions, if they happen, will be punative.

Performance management is about providing information to employees so that they can do the best job possible, not searching for "problems." If you design a process that essentially says, "spill the dirt"...well, you'll get covered in dirt.

[JayDudley]

This is not and will not be punitive evaluations. The main purpose is communications and understanding what needs to be done. For the last few months there has been grumblings as to what needs to be done and what is not being done. This is to pin point the problem and rectify it. When you start having good employees leave and nobody will say why....you start having problems. There is an exit interview that is done but that is too late in the process and we need to get a handle on what is the problem.