Letter to NST on the adoption of 360 by the government

Dear Mr Editor,

New Strait Times

360 performance appraisal is inconsistent

It was a bad decision to introduce 360 as the staff performance appraisal method  by the Malaysian government..  Definitely not after Key Peformance Indicators and Key Result Areas has been adopted and practiced. 

With 360 appraisal, performance appraisal goes back to the old subjective opinions of the appraisers.  All the disadvantages of judgemental assessment would come into play.  Some of them are helo and negative effects, central tendency and confrontation avoidance.  Assessors are prone to be influenced by initial impressions and recent performance.  To make matters worst, subordinates views are now taken into consideration by this model.  What is the value of the subordinates appraisal who definitely lacks the competency to evaluate his boss performance?

Being performance orientated government, appraisal should be on the output or outcome based results.  It is more objective devoid of cronism and favouritism..  If ministers are evaluated through their Key Performance indicators,  staff appraisals should be using the same tool. .  Performance measure facilitate benchmarkings which are useful in promotion, recognition and intervention purposes.

I suggest the Malaysain government should reconsider its decision.

Thank you.

Dr Arriffin Mansor

ABM Consult

012-2786282

arriffin@gmail.com