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The Journal: 360 Degree Appraisal Evaluate Employee Health & Safety Performance

Submitted to

Professor Dr. M. Mahmodul Hasan

EMBA 602.1

Human Resource Management

22 August 2015

Submitted by

Name ID Group Name Signature

Tahmina Shafiq 152 1892 090 The Tuna Tasters

1

360 Degree Appraisal Evaluate Employee Health & Safety Performance Agenda:

360 degree appraisal might help organization evaluating employee conformance to

health & safety practices that effect performance.

Executive Briefing:

Companies can achieve competitive advantage through highly developed employee

skills, distinctive organizational cultures, management process and systems. Human

Resource (HR) plays an important role and one of the important aspects of HR process

affiliated with the captioned subject is evaluating employee health & safety

performance. In this study, we will explore how we can evaluate employee health &

safety performance using the 360 degree appraisal. The repercussion of this study

reveals the evaluation process and eventually concludes with some suggestion for HR

professionals to make the performance appraisal process more effective and objective

oriented in measuring employee health & safety performance by using 360 degree

appraisal tool.

2

Management Tools

The performance management systems (PMS) that solicit the input and advice of others

besides the immediate supervisor are referred to as 360 degree appraisal. The 360

degree appraisal collect information from a variety of people with whom the employee

has frequent contact or are familiar with the employee performance. This device seeks

performance feedback from sources such as the person being rated, supervisors, peers,

team members, customers, and suppliers. The evaluation asks each participant

questions about the employee’s behavior across a broad array of job related

competencies, which also is extended to include health & safety that impact the

performance.

Figure 1.1: 360 Degree Appraisal

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The health & safety has increasingly become important at workplace and thus become

an integral part of HR in implementing at individual level. The passage of the

Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) dramatically changed HR role in

ensuring that physical working conditions meet adequate standards. Managers,

supervisors and employees are responsible for the establishment and maintenance of

good health & safety practices. Work systems and rules to assure good health & safety

practices are to be promulgated and enforced including through the disciplinary

process if necessary. To be most effective, rules on health & safety practices should be

clearly communicated to all employees: through postings, meetings, training sessions,

etc. Job descriptions and performance criteria should clearly state that good health and

safety practices are part of the employees' job expectations.

Figure 1.2: Performance & Development and Health & Safety Planning

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Performance appraisals should evaluate the employees' conformance to health & safety

rules and recognize good practices. Evaluation includes knowledge on the following,

however not limited to:

It is important for the rater and the employee to understand the occupational health

issues to determine whether the declining job performance is related to lack of

competencies or occupational health & safety issue. Most organizations consider

withdrawal behavior i.e. absenteeism or accidents to be indicators of poor performance,

even with all other factors being equal. The absence or illness records at the work

nowadays not only reflect how employee dedicated to work and it’s duties but also

reflect employee’s relation with occupation health & safety. The rater and the employee

should have the understanding of stress, causes & symptoms of stress, how to reduce

stress, burnout, ergonomics injuries or musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), mental

health etc. that are affecting employees as a result of their job. The 360 degree feedback

can be used to identify health & safety aspect of the employee that impact their

performance and also determine training needs. Its confidential nature and broad

perspective make this appraisal tool more credible to many employees than traditional

performance appraisal systems.

Companies can also ensure that its policies are not adversely affecting employees, by

developing a plan to deal with the issue and by training its managers in identifying

troubled employees. The 360 degree feedback can also be a useful tool to identify any

health & safety issue that is affecting the employee performance. A 360 review is most

useful when its results are specific, actionable, and timely. That’s why it’s essential to tie

every person’s results to their action plans.

Employee knows and follows job safety procedures.

Employee attends required health & safety training.

Employee proactively promotes safety at work.

Employee promptly reports accidents, injuries, close calls, unsafe practices, unsafe

conditions, threatening behaviors, and emergencies to supervisor.

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HR Technology

Computers have been playing an increasing role in performance appraisal for some

time (Sulsky & Keown, 1998). There are two main aspects to this, first Aspect is in

relation to the electronic monitoring of performance, which affords the ability to record

a huge amount of data on multiple dimensions of work performance (Stanton, 2000).

Not only does it facilitate a more continuous and detailed collection of performance

data, but it has the capacity to do so in a non-obvious, covert manner. Second Aspect is

in mediating the feedback process, by recording and aggregating performance ratings

and written observations and making the information available on-line; many software

packages are available for this. The use of IT in these ways undoubtedly helps in making

the appraisal process more manageable, especially where multiple rating sources are

involved, but it also raises many questions about appraisees' reactions and possible

effects on PA outcomes. Mostly, the evidence so far is positive.

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The software provides information in following ways:

One version of the report goes directly to the employee, but a separate version is for

the manager’s eyes only.

It is possible to evaluate multiple people at the same time, which saves time and

increases the accuracy of their feedback.

The system automatically highlighted attention to areas of improvement or

strengths.

Logic statements were included to label every competency as either a clear strength,

unrecognized strength, recognized weakness or a blind spot based on pre-

determined scoring thresholds. This makes it easier for managers and employees to

understand what the scores mean.

The company can create Likert scale-based questions and also can add competency

for health & safety according to their own industry and business requirement.

There is a lot of software available to conduct the 360 Degree appraisal such as:

Impraise

3sixtylite

RealTime360

Bugscore360

C3 Statistical Solutions

36 Dollar 360

PeopleGoal

Spidergap

LeaderNation360

HRToolbench

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Below is an example of software which can be used to conduct 360 degree appraisal:

Description Snapshot

Create project. It will show. The

project dashboard provides an at-

a-glance overview of the progress

for each 360 degree assessment

project. Simply click into each

project and follow the step-by-

step instructions for setting up

and managing each 360 degree

assessment.

One can enter individual

participants in the 360 degree

assessment manually or by using

Excel spreadsheet. The system

automatically builds the rater

relationships. Click and drag the

rater to the correct rater group

and the system takes care of the

rest.

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Description Snapshot

The 36 Dollar 360 has ten built-

in, validated competency models

designed to help develop and

improve the workforce of almost

any type of organization. For

organizations with unique needs,

it’s easy to enter custom

competency models and

questions. Not only can the

company create Likert scale-

based questions, they also add

open-ended questions to

encourage more descriptive

feedback. The company also add

competency for health & safety

according to their own industry

and business requirement.

A snapshot obtained for

compliance for each person in

360 degree assessment. With

this, one can quickly see who has

completed the assessment and

who hasn’t. Conveniently send

email reminders to participants

who have not completed the

assessment. Once the assessment

is complete, authorized

employees can access and view

reports that summarize results.

Reports are emailed to

participants.

(A details step-by-step process is available in Appendix B.)

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HR News: Inbound and Outbound

The ultimate goal of any business is profit; however the profit should not be earned at

the expense of safety and health at the workplace. Work-related accidents lead to losses

in both human and financial terms. All companies must comply at least with

occupational health and safety laws of their country developing internal systems,

arrangements and guidelines. In the specific ready-made garment (RMG) sector, the

generalized system of preferences (GSP) facility in the US market has been suspended

over factory safety issue. Buyers from across the world are pressing for ensuring

workplace safety following the Tazreen Fashions fire and the Rana Plaza collapse.

Following the recent incidents, there are significant initiatives are observed. The Accord

on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh (the Accord) was signed on May 15th 2013. It

is a five year independent, legally binding agreement between global brands and

retailers and trade unions designed to build a safe and healthy Bangladeshi Ready

Made Garment (RMG) Industry. The Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety was

founded by a group of North American apparel companies and retailers and brands

who have joined together to develop and launch the Bangladesh Worker Safety

Initiative, a binding, five-year undertaking that will be transparent, results-oriented,

measurable and verifiable with the intent of improving safety in Bangladeshi ready-

made garment (RMG) factories. Besides garments factories other leading companies

like PRAN, Square, GlaxoSmithKlein etc. taking health & safety measures which takes

HR professional role more demanding.

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Targeted health & safety programs addressing serious risks that transcend national

borders, such as pandemic policies and crisis plans focused on terrorism and

natural disasters.

General health & safety standards imposed across worldwide operations, such as a

global code of conduct safety provision, a set of company cardinal safety rules, or a

manifesto on health & safety principles like global policy on occupational health

and safety.

Multinationals’ workplace health and safety concerns increasingly transcend national

boundaries. Proactive multinationals are now starting to take steps toward aligning,

across their worldwide operations, those aspects of health and safety with a cross-

border dimension. In general, these headquarters-driven cross-border health and safety

initiatives fall into two categories:

Legal Trends

Labor and employment laws don't mandate performance appraisals, but they do

prohibit discriminatory employment actions. The legal implications of performance

appraisal often vary from one state or national jurisdiction to the next. Nevertheless

there are principles of equity and fairness that should be upheld in any good evaluation

process. The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, to assure safe and healthful

working conditions for working men and women; by authorizing enforcement of the

standards developed under the Act; by assisting and encouraging the States in their

efforts to assure safe and healthful working conditions; by providing for research,

information, education, and training in the field of occupational safety and health; and

for other purposes.

Therefore, so far as the health & safety performance evaluation is concerned, while

developing performance management systems, Human Resource (HR) professionals

should ensure that all employees should know about health and safety performance

expectation from them and the criteria of evaluation and also the cost of variations.

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Future Focus

More research is needed on the psychological implications of giving and receiving 360

degree appraisal (London & Beauty, 1993; Yammarino & Atwater, 1993). This research

should be targeted toward issues such as rater psychology, self-awareness, and

feedback receptivity. The research should also focus on the overall impact and design of

360 degree appraisal, including possible effects of electronic administration and

customization. Every indication is that the use of 360 degree appraisal will continue to

grow (Brecken, 1994; Budman & Rice, 1994; Hirscch, 1994; Hoffman, 1995; McGarvey

& Smith, 1993). Further experience with this technique will lead to new ideas and

methods but also may identify pitfalls to avoid. As 360 degree appraisal is used more

for performance appraisal, the repercussions of errors in the process become greater.

(Jones & Bearley, 1996). Therefore, to fairly evaluate 360 degree appraisal, one must be

aware of its benefit but also be cautious of its complexity.

We would expect to see the following new uses and advances being made over the next

couple of years:

Solution

It is very important that the employer understand the importance of health & safety at

the workplace since it directly impacts the employee performance. Human Resource

(HR) professionals play an important role in presenting with facts and figures of health

& safety implication at workplace to the management and help the organization to have

New uses: possible use within the recruitment industry as a recruitment

tool/ component.

Drag and drop: The development of a simple (online) way of turning

feedback into a development plan – By simply dragging any development

ratings will automatically populates the empty columns with development

ideas.

Increase Competencies area: Adding more criteria for competencies to

evaluate employee Health & Safety performance.

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healthy & safe workplace. In many companies, health and safety responsibilities are

within human resources department. In order to meet these responsibilities, human

resources must understand health & safety responsibilities of employers, managers and

employees, implement personnel management policies, ensure everybody fulfills their

responsibilities, develop appropriate hiring, training & performance appraisal

practices, develop recruitment process and retain those employees who cares about

own well being and of others.

The 360 degree appraisal process works best when survey questions are customized to

the company using it. Companies gearing up to employ a 360 degree appraisal system,

HR should run a company-wide campaign describing the benefits of the process and

outlining measures taken to ensure fairness and anonymity.

Participants in the evaluation process should receive training regarding the

interpretation of survey questions, the importance of confidentiality and the

importance of complete honesty in ratings. Appraisals should not be used to

discriminate against employees. Managers and supervisors required to conduct staff

appraisals should be trained. 360 degree appraisal results should be fair, accurate and

supported by evidence and examples. Employee should have the opportunity to

comment on their appraisal result, to express their agreement or otherwise, and to

appeal the result or at least request a review. Employees who receive a poor

performance appraisal result should be given a reasonable chance to improve.

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References

1. Jeffrey A. Mello, Strategic Human Resource Management (4/e) - 2014

2. David A. DeCenzo & Stephen P. Robbins, Fundamentals of Human Resource

Management (11/e)

3. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/360-degree-feedback-1928.html

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/360-degree_feedback

5. https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/3-ways-technology-simplifies-360-degree-

feedback/

6. https://adminguide.stanford.edu/chapter-7/subchapter-5/policy-7-5-1

7. http://shr.ucsc.edu/procedures/performance_sup/index.html

8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_appraisal

9. http://www.performance-appraisal.com/legalaspects.htm

10. https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=OSHACT

&pid=2743

11. http://definitions.uslegal.com/e/employee-performance-appraisals/

12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_appraisal#cite_ref-Staw_40-0

13. http://www.qualtrics.com/qualtrics-360/

14. https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/3-ways-technology-simplifies-360-degree-

feedback/

15. http://www.capterra.com/360-degree-feedback-software/

16. http://www.trainingzone.co.uk/topic/360-degree-feedback-tools-then-now-and-

future/169704

17. http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/2015/04/11/88375

18. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accord_on_Fire_and_Building_Safety_in_Bangla

desh

19. http://www.bangladeshworkersafety.org/about/about-the-alliance

20. http://www.internationalsosfoundation.org/?wpfb_dl=19

21. Fletcher, Clive. Performance appraisal and management: The developing research

agenda. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology74 (Nov

2001):p.482.

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22. Francis J. Yammarino and Leanne E. Atwater. Self-perception accuracy:

Implications for human resource management. Humane Resource Management

32:2&3, Summer 1993

23. Fleenor, John W. and Prince, Jeffrey Michael. Using 360-degree feedback in

organizations: annotated bibliography

24. Health & Safety guide for human resources professionals prepared by Canadian

Center for Occupational Health & Safety.