Employees Seeking Anonymity For Performance Appraisals

hi all,
I am a student working on performance appraisals. i was supposed to collect informations for a 360 degree appraisal. well the assessment part requires the subordinates appraising their superiors. most of them fear of their superiors for a threat possibility and hesitant to appraise them. even most of the star performers of the organization have the same feeling. they are ready to appraise them only if you promise anonymity. well that it self hinders the idea of appraising. how is that the performance appraisals to be done or such situations be handled?????
Pankaj.
MHRM

360 Degree appraisals should be a well thought out execution or else you will have more issues in hand than benefits. Appraisals cannot be foolproof, judgement is not devoid of prejudices. Coming to the point of "subordinates" evaluating superiors - if there's not a imminent need to know "WHO" is appraising,ANONYMITY may bring in FAIRNESS and serious PARTICIPATION from people. BOTTOMLINE - we need data to evaluate performance, identify areas of improvement, charting Developmental plans, devising compensation and reward strategies. FOCUS should be on how the data collected aid in achieving your Organisational objective on Performance management, career development, compensation and reward management.
Hope this helps

Hi!
Anonymity in Appraisals may create more complications than expected.
People who are afraid to be identified when they rate someone (esp. subordinates rating superiors; or employees rating friends; suppliers rating contact employees) within their organization can be properly protected by HRD.
As a matter of fact, the appraisal sheets are supposed to be confidential and the identities of raters are supposed to be known only to HRD. Only summaries of feedbacks and results of the evaluation are supposed to be show to the ratee.
Anonymity can be a cause for people to malign others, or accuse peers they want out of the organization for whatever allegations. Organizations must make sure that the PA or PMS is not used as a tool by unprofessional employees for vengeance or serve their evil intentions.
Best wishes.
Ed Llarena, Jr.
Managing Partner
Emilla Consulting

Hi Pankaj,
I understand your anguish and to some extent my colleagues have given their views which are pretty helpful.
I have a suggestion, as 360 degrees appraisal requires a sense of maturity on the part of the employees & factors like trust & understanding in the organization takes times depending upon the cultural values.
Having said that , it is recommended that you conduct 180 degrees appriasal in which both the rater & ratee assess themselves and then compare the results which leads to meaningful discussions .
This is a good tool to start with.
Cheerio
Rajat Joshi

SUBORDINATES appraising the BOSSES is always a problem
area.
A number of approaches have been tried before, successfully.
If there are more than one subordinate, you can remove the
individual names and summarise the core factors. [ OPTION]
Secondly, the subordinates should be trained to use descriptive
words in appraisals and not judgemental words.
EXAMPLES
DESCRIPTIVE
-boss did not provide feedback on performance at any time.
JUDGEMENTAL
-boss is a poor manager of people.
BECAUSE WHAT WE ARE SEEKING FROM APPRAISALS
-not criticism , but critique.
-not focus on personality, but focus on improvement areas
-not focus on faults, but on development for the future.
THE WHOLE PURPOSE IS TO MAKE EVERYBODY LOOK GOOD.
REGARDS
LEO LINGHAM

Sir very true that 360 degree require a sense of maturity on the part of the employees in the organization.
What i think is even a great amount of maturity is required in 90 degree since the only asseser is "The Boss". He need to understand how greatly or badly it can affect an individual whether rated high or low.
Company where i am doing my summers is one of the biggest company involved in various sectors. They realy have a good PMS, but still employees come up with same.
I really have a question: Is it really possible not to be biased?
Here I saw people doing Performance assessment online; Boss was in Goa and subordinate in Mumbai, L is not got assessed but his L+1 is done with his PA.( Here in this company they have a tradition not to be recognized as boss or subordinate its L+1 and L and L ‘s bosses boss as L+2 and so on.)

Regards
Neha

DUNCAN,
technical skills or capacities may be get good feedback
behaviour is conditions specific so disclosure in ql & qn form is not harm ful if build upon strentgh or not weakness
secondly does L+ i it work in down ward directions only

Pankaj,
This concept is working well in my Company. To begin with we were also cynical about its efficacy.
We have to reassure subordinates writing a 360 degree report that the information will remain only with the management and in no way will it be shared with the concerned seniors. (HR has a very serious role here).
While discussing with the concerned seniors on whom this report has been written, it is not required to be divulved who wrote what ! Seniors know that this is a process in the organisation, and will accept it as a natural process.
Go ahead. It will work well.
Regards
Prem Goswami

360 degree feedback can be either anonymous or open. The basic formula in deciding what is right for your organization is use open if there are high levels of trust and maturity. If there are low levels, use anonymous.
360 degree, as with all other aspects of a performance management system, must be professionally implemented and conducted, otherwise you will get more trouble than benefit. A part of this is that the 360 degree results must be debriefed by a competent manager/supervisor or an independent professional supervisor. We are talking about people’s sense of self-worth, a highly charged emotive area. Please appreciate the risk risks involved.
Vicki Heath
http://www.businessperform.com

Since the discussion for performance appraisal, the discussion to be kept confidential is going on. I would like to put forth my doubt. As you know we have in Performance Appraisal process, something known as Peer Appraisal Ratign form, where the peer of the employee will be rating him on the various parameters. Can anyone of you help me in how do we keep the peer or ask the peer to keep the information (whatever he has rated confidential) and not to be shared with the employee.
As you know, almost all the people will be close to each other and will divulge out information, stating this is what has been stated there, this is how i rated you. How we can we prevent the information from being passed or from being divulged out.
Responses are awaited.
Regards
Julie