How to Rate Officers Better

By Charlie

Some thoughts on OERs, and why we should switch to a 360-degree evaluation method:

The appraisal system used by the military consists of the Officer Evaluation Report (OER). This evaluation is conducted by your rater (your immediate supervisor) and your senior rater (usually the boss of your immediate supervisor. This system of rating officers puts your future career into two hands. You are required to state your job description, your goals and what you hope to accomplish at the beginning of a rating period, and what you actually accomplished at the conclusion of the rating period. The OER is done once annually, or whenever your rater changes.

Good raters take many things into account, such as how you interact with others, how you match up with the Army values, fitness scores, and general performance. This, however, can be colored by the prejudices and viewpoints of your rater. Often, you only meet your senior rater once or twice a year, especially if you are in the reserve component. Bad raters can derail an otherwise promising career, if they hold a negative opinions, or generally dislike the person they are rating. Often, one bad OER is enough to sideline a good officer, simply because he was unlucky enough to serve under a bad rater.

A more favorable system to implement would be a 360 degree evaluation process, also known as multi-rater feedback. This allows a person’s evaluation to encompass reviews from not only a “rater” boss, but also a person’s subordinates, peers, clients, and organizational hierarchy. This allows a reviewer to get a more complete picture of a person, and removes a singular rater from being able to determine the fate of a career. If an officer’s boss personally dislikes a subordinate, but he gets top marks from everyone else, it put’s the boss’s review in context, and would likely generate questions from the senior rater over the rating ability of the boss.

Additionally, the 360 degree evaluation process could bring to light skills that may be very useful to an organization, but may not be in a job description. Say someone has to be a liaison to an Iraqi unit, and he can speak functional Arabic. That may not be in the job description (and thus no training funds allotted for language proficiency) but it may have been a key factor for success. This process can reveal skills and abilities that are useful for certain positions, which makes succession planning easier, and develops new training requirements, making the organization more efficient.

The Army used to use this in the 1940’s, but abandoned the effort because collating paperwork from multiple sources was difficult, and a single-rater OER was much simpler. Now, with internet technology, this type of rating system is much more feasible to implement, and can be accomplished through current IT infrastructure.

As an example of this, lets look at an Army captain who serves as a signal officer in an infantry battalion. His rater is the battalion XO, a combat-arms officer who does not know much about communication other than how to operate a radio. If the signal officer performs his job well, the XO will likely give him a reasonably favorable review on a traditional OER. Now let’s use a 360-degree reviewing process, and involve his higher-echelon counterpart, the brigade S6, who is a major and a signal officer, who gives the captain an excellent rating based on his technical proficiency. If we involve his section, they can comment on his leadership and management style, and his ability to explain complex technical issues in “English.” His peers in the battalion, other captains and the company commanders, all give him high marks for working with them to resolve communication issues. Now the 360 degree review is given to his senior rater, the battalion commander, who now has a more complete view of this officer and how he has performed, rather than the original OER from one rater that would have communicated a generic, but reasonably positive review.

Here is another example of how this method is superior. Let’s look at an Army infantry platoon leader, an LT, who routinely sucks up to his company commander, volunteers his platoon for the toughest assignments, earned the Expert Infantryman’s Badge, scores expert in marksmanship and fitness, and has impressed the battalion commander in a field operation. This LT would normally excel in the traditional OER process, because his rater and senior rater have the impression that he is above and beyond the standard. Using the 360 review process, let’s say that his platoon sergeant reports that the LT dumps much of his work on him, and leaves work as early as possible. Some of his squad leaders complain that they always get stuck with volunteer duty while the LT is off sleeping. His fellow LTs don’t like the guy, and see him as a show-off and a spot lighter. Now this review hits his senior rater’s desk, and it gives him a very different view than the traditional OER would give.

Overall the 360 review process can reveal much more about a “total person” and the reasons it was originally abandoned have been overcome by technology. A web-based rating system would be easier to operate, and give senior raters better information about their subordinates.

February 15, 2008 01:23 PM National Guard

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Comments

I suspect your second example is the reason we'll never see it - too many officers really, really wouldn't want their peers and subordinates rating them. Especially their enlisted subordinates.

For that matter, are you really going to get an honest answer out of a PSG.... when the xLT is his rater on the NCOER?

Methods for preventing abuse would definitely need to be worked out.

SSG Jeff (USAR) · February 15, 2008 03:52 PM

We tried this once as an exercise in the defense I work for as a civilian, several years ago at a leadership offsite. Our civilian HR manager led the exercise and the senior military and SES civilians were rated in this manner. I did not see results but watercooler talk and anecdotal evidence made it appear to have been a useful exercise - what the general population workforce knew about the senior leaders - this one is a great technical guy but a poor manager, this one is an aye-hole, this one is all around good to go etc... I agree with the comment above, that it would be difficult to sort through the 'jealous' negative ratings versus the honest ratings, and subordinates rating their superiors. On the other hand, in a sense, you work for your platoon sergeant and squad leaders just as they work for you. If a leader is not creating better junior leaders and giving them the opportunities to excel and grow, you are just maintaining status quo and not making the unit, no matter the level or size or type, better than when you picked it up. Leaders should have no bad feelings about less than stellar ratings, leadership is a growing and learning process just like technical skills, and the military as a whole should be ruthless about weeding out poor leaders and finding and developing good ones, or potential good ones. I was a poor leader until I received an active career-ending fitrep, then went on in the reserves learning from that mistake and I did pretty well. Just ask my peers!

chris · February 16, 2008 04:36 AM

The Navy's been talking about this for a couple of years now. My biggest problem is how the enlisted would rate their officers. If the ratings are anonymous than Seaman Dirtbag is going to give the officer who sent him to mast a bad rating. On the other hand if names are attached then nobody's going to give LT Tyrant a bad rating for fear of retribution.

Maybe there needs to be a check block "I decline to rate this person at this time." If most of those blocks are checked it would tell the senior rater the guy doesn't have the trust of his subordinates and/or peers.

Dirtyblueshirt · February 16, 2008 05:40 AM

I do not support a 360 degree evaluation process as noted above because it makes it even more of a popularity contest of peers and supporters than a job evaluation by supervisors.

The current system is pretty good and I even use a similar methodology in my now civilian job. The key point, as always, is using the evaluation system correctly and for the purpose intended.

But the problem with any rating system is that regardless of the system it is always sujective of human nature and political influences. So changing the system isn't going to change how certain people will use it to their own ends.

Lawrence · February 16, 2008 07:28 AM

I work in Human Resources, both as an internal resource and, in another life, advising companies as a consultant. In general we use 360 performance reviews as more developmental in nature (i.e., what does the person do well, what do they need to work on) rather than as a determinant in their overall performance evaluation. While it would be theoretically nice to get that type of information included in a performance evaluation, there is too much opportunity for a disconnect between goals stated by the reviewee, goals interpreted by the providers of the 360, and performance interpretation on the part of the person consolidating the feedback to come up with an overall rating.

Another problem is that in the corporate world there is usually enough "cover" for subordinates to remain anonymous. In the military I wouldn't imagine this is the case since there are direct lines of command and a more familiarity with the members of a particular unit (I'm speculating on this point as I have not served in the military).

I see real value in a 360 but, since the end result comes down to the person's boss who has to consolidate all of that feedback into a rating, it is probably information that is best used in a skill (interpersonal, technical, combat, etc.) development role as opposed to being something that plays a large role in a person's rating. Since those ratings are paramount to military personnel (I believe they are even more important than in corporate life - please correct me if I'm wrong on this) I can't see introducing this type of added variable. As mentioned, it all comes down to the evaluator and then what the person does with the feedback provided. A crapy system will work if administered well and a good one will flounder if not adhered to.

Kevin · February 16, 2008 03:35 PM

This is a bad idea from the start. The intentions are good, but these types of evaluations have been attempted in the civilian sector in multiple facets, which all crashed and burned. The bottom line is that there will always be spot-lighters who use every opportunity to "sell" themselves whenever a superior is around - but integrating input from surobdinates and peers into a military leader's evaluation will do more harm than good.

If you're in the military, you understand that a Soldier's "duty" is to complain - it's part of the terroritory. You also understand that you'll always be better than some and worse than others, regardless of how good you think you are. Giving true underperformers an opportunity to affect the outcome of their Platoon Leader's OER (or peer's OER, for that matter) will negatively affect the morale of the officer and will ultimately lead to retention issues for the military.

Nate · July 23, 2008 10:46 PM