Training and Appraisals - Case Study Example

Questionnaires can also be used in this process. During the course of a weekly job role, it is understood that employees interact with different members of the organization routinely and therefore many dimensions of their attitude, motivations and competency are known by others in a way that is not by the manager in charge of their job. This is why many businesses choose the 360 degree system for feedback as it gives a much clearer picture of the productivity levels and professionalism being displayed by the employee as they perform their job role.

By including customers, which is sometimes done in this process, they can understand whether performance and professionalism targets are being met efficiently in relation to customer service. Customer service is often one of the most important competitive advantages that a business can have, therefore inclusion in the evaluation process has many advantages to the business. One health care organization utilizes questionnaires in development of the 360 degree system in order to provide clarity about each job role being assessed and analyzed.

In this process, “employees negotiate with their manager who their reviewers will be and are advised to select as broad a range as possible from people they work with on a regular basis” (Carmichael, 2009, p.74). Interesting to this approach is the ability to choose another individual in the organization that they feel could use relationship improvement to act as an evaluator (Carmichael). By doing this, they ensure that non-biased assessments are conducted to provide as much accuracy as possible.

There are critics of the 360 degree feedback system that believe employees “game” the system, meaning that they will create social agreements about rating information as a form of “mutual back scratching” (Maples, Harris & Greco, 2010, p.2). This is why there should be a non-biased person involved in the process to ensure that questionnaires and other feedback is provided as accurately as possible and identify when bias might be present. However, despite this criticism, many companies find success in these efforts and are able to have a clearer picture of what is actually happening in the employee environment when their managers/supervisors cannot be present to observe all daily functions.

Alliance Unichem Alliance Unichem operates in a very diverse, multinational and multi-cultural environment with a workforce of approximately 30,000 people nationwide. Business representatives in this company work with customers in Belgium, Greece, Turkey, Norway and Spain (to name only a few countries). After a merger occurred, the company had considerable trouble merging diverse cultures due to the many different social and cultural backgrounds of its many employee demographics. To help facilitate cultural integration, Alliance Unichem chose to launch the 360 degree feedback system.

By gaining cross-cultural perspectives as external and internal peer and management ratings, the company was able to identify key opportunities for understanding cultural principles in each region of operations. The feedback provided from