e precise and quality assessment. It is this overall input from a wide array of sources which has led company's to become involved in such rating systems.
Perhaps the most popular version of this multi-rater system is the 360-Degree system, which contends that a full circle assessment of an employee will ultimately provide management with invaluable information due to the reasoning that it is obtained via various sources. This system, in essence, is designed to take into consideration information, which is obtained throughout the various layers of an organization.
Many companies have been repeatedly turning towards the 360-Degree evaluation method because it is a means of providing a broader viewpoint of an individual's performance. This is due to the fact that input is garnered from various sources - mainly the employee themselves, their peers / co-workers, supervisors and consumers. The theory, which underlies this process, is argued most thoroughly by Jayart Kirksey (Kirksey,1994) who summarizes that such methods of employee valuation are reliable because there is less of a chance of a biased review being chronicled.
It has also been argued, in particularly by Stewart (Stewart,1996), that often times managers are not completely aware what is actually going in within the company. He also notes that at times an adversarial relationship between manager and employee occasionally surfaces, thus paving the way for an "us vs. them" mentality. Multi-rater assessments can help quell such negative emotions by giving employees the benefit of knowing that management is not the sole decision maker in the process of their evaluation.
It is this system of gathering information regarding an employee from various sources that allows human resources to be presented with an overall portrait of how an individual performs within the various areas of their job function. It has been suggested, such as by Kirksey (Kirksey,1994) that ma...