Bowland Solutions provide an online 360 degree appraisal system . We get to see a lot of completed feedback and often we give debriefing sessions based on that feedback. What do we see?
Well, one of issues that interests academics is whether the role a person plays influences their responses. For us mere mortals, there is probably no surprise that it does.
We have found that bosses consistently score lower. Because you see the same person play out multiple roles (sometimes they respond as a peer, sometimes as boss, etc) you can isolate the role influence. Clearly you can't rely on it happening on each appraisal but, overall, bosses score lower.
In my previous article on scoring in 360 degree appraisals I warned against averaging scores from a 360. Here is another reason why it doesn't work well. If the boss is scoring in a range 1-4 and everyone else tends to score in a range 2-5 then you are not comparing apples with apples if you combine their scores.
What to do? We recommend that you use a bar chart style report that shows the boss' score clearly. When feeding back, armed with your new knowledge, you can place the boss score in context and you can see any consistent underscoring over the whole appraisal.
In a future article we will also discuss how boss' write narratives compared with others - and that gives you the main clue on how to interpret the scores.
Brendan
Find out more about 360 appraisal systems with Bowland Solutions
