ABSTRACT
The previous chapter looked at the issue of who should appraise, and touched on the issue of multi-level, multi-source appraisal. The latter has undoubtedly taken off in a big way in the last few years, usually under the banner of 360-degree feedback. This generally means an individual being rated by subordinates, peers, superiors and – sometimes – clients or customers, as well as doing a self-assessment. A few British companies began using it, sometimes in a more limited form that was essentially upward feedback from subordinates, in the early 1990s. Mention of these schemes in the press sparked off great interest: one of the organisations involved had more than 500 calls and letters from other companies as a result of a few column inches on their system in a national newspaper. Since then, 360-degree feedback systems have spread with tremendous speed across both public and private sectors.
