
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 28, 1993                   TAG: 9303260096
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: F-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BY FRANK SWOBODA THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

JOB PERFORMANCES BEING EVALUATED FROM NEW ANGLES

Sooner or later it was bound to happen. In the touchy-feely world of total-quality management, high-performance workplaces and customer satisfaction, it was only a matter of time before someone came up with the idea of "360-degree feedback."

The new approach to job-performance reviews is fast becoming the newest fad in employment training and job evaluations. A new survey by Wyatt Co., a nationwide consulting firm, shows that 26 percent of the companies interviewed are now using some form of the new evaluation approach, and interest in it is growing at other firms.

"It's growing fast; we're getting a tremendous amount of interest in it," said Wyatt consultant Edward Bancroft in the company's Chicago office.

Just what is 360-degree feedback? It's simple. Instead of getting evaluated on your job performance by your boss, you're now going to be judged by everybody: your boss, your co-workers, your subordinates and even your customers. You'll be hit from all 360 degrees.

In the past, said Bancroft, performance reviews were "a matter almost entirely between a worker and his or her direct supervisor."

But that approach didn't tell the full story of someone's performance on the job, and Wyatt surveys show an increasing number of companies becoming dissatisfied with the old approach.

So now, as companies become more customer-driven, Bancroft said, the broader approach to job evaluations "supports the customer focus of total-quality management."

Talking about total feedback and doing it are quite different things, however. Bancroft said Wyatt advises companies to begin slowly with the new evaluation system, using it initially as a "developmental tool" for training and other similar projects, but not for individual job-performance evaluations.

This way, he said, everyone becomes used to the system, learns how to use it and accepts it.

First, he said, the company needs to focus on precisely what it wants to get out of such a system.

Then it needs to develop an infrastructure for obtaining and handling the evaluations it gets from the various levels of the corporation.

For example, Bancroft said, subordinates had to be guaranteed anonymity in their evaluations of their bosses. "They have to be protected in exchange for their honest opinion," he said.

He tells of one company where employees went to their managers when the new system was installed and said, "You take care of us, and we'll take care of you." That, obviously, defeats the whole purpose of the plan.

Therefore, Wyatt tells its clients to make sure they create a system for handling the evaluation process so everyone is aware that it produces results. "Employees take a risk when they make an evaluation," Bancroft said. "If nothing happens, then they're not going to take that risk."

He said it was equally important to have a demonstrable system when dealing with the evaluations from customers outside the company.

"Employees should sit down with a manager and decide which customers to talk to," Bancroft said. The obvious reason is to make sure you get an honest customer evaluation, and also to make sure that you are not flooding your customers with time-consuming requests for evaluations.

by CNB