A sample 360 report has come across my desk recently. It's not one generated by our Talent360 software and its source shall remain anonymous.
What's got me 'putting pen to paper' is this idea that in addition to asking raters in a 360 review to rate someone's behaviour against a particular indicator, it also asks them to rate how important it is to the role. So let's get this straight, a direct report rates their manager on a number of behaviours, such as communication style, team working, support etc, OK so far, and then gets to offer their opinion on how important it is to their manager's role? I'm all for getting feedback on what makes a good leader or manager but its not done in the context of a 360 on an individual that then appears in their feedback report.
Firstly, what qualifies the direct report to determine and trade-off which of these indicators are more important to performance in the other person's role? Secondly, the views expressed are not necessarily going to create a consistent picture of what is important - my direct reports might have a different view than yours when it comes to importance of a behaviour in a role. So where does that leave us?
Similarly, if a behavioural indicator is rated as important by one group of raters (such as peers) but not by the manager group, where does that leave the poor individual with these conflicting messages in their feedback report.
We think this is completely bonkers and a great example of what could be done not what should be done.
If an indicator is considered to be important to high performance in a role, then this should be validated by those who hire, promote or performance manage thse folks, not the poachers turned gamekeepers! (If input from staff is required to find out their views, then management culture and employee engagement surveys are the way to go.)
With Talent360, an indicator can be marked as 'key' and therefore the scores (whatever they might be) should be taken in the context of an important characteristic and acted on accordingly.
I'd be delighted to hear a rational case to support the 'rater determines how important' argument, but not in jest please as I'll end up tearing out what little hair I have left!
