The term 360-degree feedback has gained global popularity with reports from Forbes indicating that more than 85 percent of Fortune 500 companies use 360 feedback to review their employees regularly. A 360-degree appraisal system provides an elaborate set of criteria to evaluate an employee. The evaluation report is a compilation of feedback from managers, peers, and juniors. This ensures that the data collected is detailed and provides a holistic view of the employee. Edwards and Ewen’s 1996 book 360° Feedback: The Powerful New Model for Employee Assessment & Performance Improvement is one of the earliest discussions of the 360-degree feedback systems but the multi-rater concept goes as far back as WWII.
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There are other feedback systems as well, such as the 180-degree and 270-degree feedback systems, which involve fewer categories of stakeholders, such as managers and peers, but not juniors.
What Is the Purpose of a 360-degree System?
A 360 feedback provides a comprehensive view of an individual and his presence in the workplace. Instead of the unilateral appraisal systems that allow the supervisor’s perspective to shape an employee’s career, the 360-degree performance appraisal system accounts for other individuals the employee works with, ensuring a well-rounded, data-based evaluation instead.
Apart from the multi-rater system, the 360-degree feedback system also involves multiple criteria on the basis of which the assessment is conducted. This ensures the employee is looked at from multiple angles and not just through one metric of performance numbers.
The 360 feedback system ensures that the individual becomes more self-aware while also providing companies with a base standard that can be compared with the next time the feedback process is conducted. Over time, training and management initiatives can be focused towards the current shortcomings, to help the employee grow.
What Are the Benefits of 360-Degree Feedback?
There are many benefits to using the 360-degree performance appraisal system.
- The 360-degree feedback system reduces the possible influence of bias as it considers multiple perspectives while making its calculations.
- It highlights both the strengths and weaknesses of an employee, providing a balanced review that can give management action points for the future.
- It promotes accountability as every individual knows their performance is being rated by multiple others, leaving no room for slacking off or being negligent.
- The 360 feedback encourages healthy team dynamics. It provides indications of conflicts between members that can be addressed and resolved instead of allowing them to fester.
- It supports an attitude of growth as everyone is encouraged to improve on weaknesses rather than being berated for them.
- The 360-degree appraisal system provides data that can be replicated. Feedback from highly cohesive teams can provide the benchmark for other team settings as well.
What Are Some 360-degree Examples?
The 360-degree feedback process can happen in multiple ways. A company can internally generate the metrics relevant to them, formulate questions for each one, and then select the employees to be reviewers and reviewees. After circulating the questionnaires and collating the data collected, they should be left with a comprehensive report.
A much simpler alternative is to team up with other companies that maintain the resources to perform such a large-scale endeavor. Some online 360-degree examples include:
- PerformYard: The highly customizable tool allows users to streamline peer nomination and set stages of review to simplify the entire process.
- Qualtrics XM: Provides an elaborate 360 feedback tool and diverse analytic options to interpret results.
- Reviewsnap: Allows you to incorporate a continuous stream of feedback from multiple sources—peers, managers, direct reports, and partners.
- TruScore: The platform has ready-to-go assessments but also builds assessments that are customized to suit your needs.
- Grove HR: Provides 360 feedback software that is available for free for companies with less than 50 employees.
What Is Included in the 360 Feedback?
The 360-degree feedback appraisal includes qualities that are important to the company. It is structured in a way that is customized for every group of review respondents. A manager might be better placed to answer how well an employee listens to instructions and implements feedback, but a junior might have a more in-depth understanding of his delegation skills. Some 360-degree examples in the survey include:
- Communication and listening skills
- Leadership skills
- Teamwork and collaboration
- Goal setting and achievement levels
- Empathy and soft skills
- Conflict management skills
- Creativity and application skills
- Time management and work ethic
- Self-motivation and stress management skills
- Decision-making skills
- Compatibility with the company culture
- Professional workplace behavior
What Makes a Good 360 Review?
A good 360-degree appraisal is one that leaves you with concrete and comprehensive data about your employees. If the review provides a clear picture of the company, with additional action points to work on for the future, then the purpose of the 360 feedback process is accomplished. There are a few tips to keep in mind to ensure your 360-degree feedback tool is effective.
Clear Goal
The designers of the survey need to have a clear idea of their goals and should develop their tests accordingly. The 360 feedback tool is often quite long and employees might have to go through it more than once. Ensuring your questions are to the point and do not repeat helps in efficiency.
Simple Language
Employees might not feel comfortable coming up to management when they don’t understand a question and this can result in them filling out data without understanding it. To avoid skewed results, use simple language that is easy to understand.
Professional Tone
The language should be professional of course, but the content should also pertain to qualities relevant to the workplace. Avoid personal questions and evaluations and focus on the individual’s work performance.
Approaches Peer Reviews Delicately
An article by Harvard Business Review emphasizes why honest peer reviews are hard to find as people do not want to hurt their friends or feel it might reflect negatively on them as a team. Peers are also most sensitive to the performance appraisal aspect that could hurt their colleagues’ salary prospects.
As a result, it is important that the test guarantees anonymity and also frames questions to find areas of improvement rather than criticize/punish them.
Careful Rater Selection
The number of employees who provide feedback and how they are associated contribute to the results. Employees with no opportunity to interact and observe each other will not be able to provide valid information. This is why rater selection is an important step.
Participant Training
Especially when conducted online, many reviewers might be unfamiliar with the technology and struggle to provide feedback. Conducting training and providing them with guidelines on successful execution can be useful.
Carefully Curated
Some online 360-degree feedback platforms calculate and present the data on their own but doing it manually internally might require someone to put the data together. This needs to be done carefully, and the report should be worded to encourage the receiver. Visual data depictions are always helpful and actionable points provide further direction.
With all these considerations in mind, a 360-degree feedback program should be taken up with seriousness. The process is time-consuming, requires a lot of resources, and can be stressful for those being evaluated. Companies that take it on must do so with sensitivity, and in turn, they will be rewarded with a renewed understanding of the company and its people.