众包绩效评估的是与非

    不论你的公司叫它360度反馈、多渠道反馈，还是众包绩效评估，你都可能被要求填写一个表格，表扬或者嘲弄你的同事和上司（也包括下属）。这种做法源自二战期间的德国军队，流行于上世纪90年代的美国。而随着科技的发展，在线调查问卷淘汰了繁重的书面工作，这种方式也变得越来越容易操作。

    2012年的一本畅销书《众包的绩效评估：如何利用社会认同的力量提高员工绩效》（The Crowdsourced Performance Review: How to Use the Power of Social Recognition to Transform Employee Performance）则对这种方式的流行起到了推波助澜的作用。这本书的作者埃里克•莫斯利是人力资源咨询公司Globoforce的CEO，公司客户包括金融软件公司Intuit、安进公司（Amgen）、毕马威会计事务所（KPMG）和宝洁（Procter & Gamble）等。去年，莫斯利在《哈佛商业评论》（Harvard Business Review ）上发表了一篇极具影响力的博客文章，大谈360度反馈的好处。他重点谈了“群众的智慧”，声称“认可是员工自然而然拥有的东西——他们希望认可同僚出色的工作”，他们是“及时的、重要的见解”的源泉。

    或许如此吧。据专家估计，美国三分之一到二分之一的公司目前都在使用某种形式的众包绩效评估——然而多年以来，大量研究一直在质疑让员工彼此评估是否公平、准确、有效。

    例如，有一项研究列出了众包绩效评估不可靠的四个主要理由。其中一条是人们“更关心完成任务能够获得的奖励，而不是评估的实际内容。”换句话说，拿到这些360度评估表的时候，大多数员工只是想赶快完成这个任务。但众包绩效评估最大的问题在于，一旦遇到员工起诉公司的情况，从法律层面来看，这种做法会让事情变得更加扑朔迷离。

    劳动仲裁律师事务所Fisher & Phillips的律师奈舍巴•吉特灵说：“员工的绩效评估是雇主应对歧视索赔的第一道防线。”如果公司认为自己进行解雇、降职或发放低于平均水平的奖金有合法的、非歧视性的理由，详细的绩效评估资料可以为它的观点提供支持。

    相反，吉特灵说：“同事之间的评估，尤其是在社交网络环境下，可能会歪曲事实。”首先，员工无法像上司一样，对同事的职责、绩效目标或是否成功实现目标等有着清晰的认识。人们缺乏足够的信息准确判断同事的工作，因此，吉特灵认为，他们会将评估变成“一次人气竞赛。对于不喜欢的同事，他们可能会给出差评，而对于喜欢的同事，他们可能会给出夸大的分数。”

    2010年一起有关性别歧视的集体诉讼案，也就是陈•奥斯特诉高盛（Chen-Oster v. Goldman Sachs）一案让这个问题得到了广泛关注。原告称高盛的众包评估制度“允许令人难以接受的主观性与偏见”，称这种做法使得男性屡次选择他们的朋友进入绩效评估排名的前列（可以获得丰厚的奖金），从而把女性排除在外。

    吉特灵认为，众包绩效评估的吸引力很大程度上源于“管理者不喜欢进行绩效评估。他们太忙，而且害怕传达坏消息。”但她补充说把任务下放给员工会“增加公司的法律责任。收集员工的反馈是可以的——只是公必须有明确的文件记录，表明公司采取的任何措施依据都是管理者的评估。”如果你是一名管理者，那么对下属工作的评价只能以你的评估为准。（财富中文网）

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓   

    Whether your company calls it 360-degree feedback, multi-source feedback, or crowdsourced performance reviews, chances are you've been required to fill out a form designed to let you praise or pillory your peers and the people above you (as well as your subordinates, if you have any). The practice, which originated with the German military during World War II, spread through American companies in the 1990s. It's since been made easier by technology, with online questionnaires cutting out the cumbersome paperwork that used to be involved.

    A 2012 bestseller, The Crowdsourced Performance Review: How to Use the Power of Social Recognition to Transform Employee Performance, added fuel to the fire. Author Eric Mosley is CEO of human resources consulting firm Globoforce, which counts Intuit (INTU), Amgen (AMGN), KPMG, and Procter & Gamble (PG) among its many big clients.

    Extolling the virtues of 360-degree feedback in an influential Harvard Business Review blog post last year, Mosley pointed to the "wisdom of crowds" and declared, "Recognition is something that comes naturally to employees -- they want to recognize their peers for great work" and are a font of "timely, measurable insights."

    Maybe so. Experts estimate that between one-third and one-half of U.S. companies now use some form of crowdsourced performance appraisals -- despite reams of research over the years that cast serious doubt on whether letting employees rate each other is fair, accurate, or useful.

    One study, for instance, noted four primary reasons why crowdsourced reviews tend to be unreliable. One of them was that people "care more about the rewards associated with finishing the task than the actual content of the evaluation itself." In other words, faced with one of those 360-degree forms to fill out, most employees just want to get it over with.

    The biggest problem with crowdsourcing performance appraisals, however, is that the practice can muddy the legal waters if an employee sues the company.

    "Employees' performance reviews are an employer's first line of defense against discrimination claims," says Nesheba Kittling, an attorney at labor law firm Fisher & Phillips. Detailed documentation of job performance "provides support for an employer's contention that it had legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons" for, say, a firing, a demotion, or a smaller-than-average bonus payout.

    By contrast, Kittling says, "Peer-to-peer reviews, especially in a social networking environment, will likely distort the truth." For one thing, employees often don't have as clear an understanding of other people's duties, their performance goals, or their success at meeting those goals as bosses have. Lacking enough information to judge colleagues' work accurately, people tend to turn evaluations into "a popularity contest," Kittling says. "They may be giving bad reviews to coworkers they don't like, and inflating the 'grades' of those they do."

    The issue came up in a widely-publicized 2010 sex discrimination class-action suit, Chen-Oster v. Goldman Sachs. The complaint alleged Goldman's (GS) crowdsourced review system "permitted unacceptable levels of subjectivity and bias," which the plaintiffs said led to men repeatedly voting their friends into the top quartile of performance -- where the juiciest bonuses go -- and shutting women out.

    Kittling believes much of crowdsourcing's appeal arises from the fact that "managers don't like giving performance reviews. They're too busy, and they dread delivering bad news."

    But handing the task off to employees' peers "just increases companies' legal liability," she adds. "It's okay to solicit some feedback from coworkers -- as long as there is a clear paper trail showing that any action the company takes is based on a supervisor's assessment alone." If you're a manager, your appraisal of your subordinates' work still has to be the only one that counts.