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I’m fairly positive you have consumed plenty of pieces about 360 degree assessment technologies. They are certainly fashionable with writers and readers alike.

360-degree feedback adds value to organizations and their development because of the unique, facilitative role these systems can play vis-a-vis the following significant trends in organizations: moving from an inside-out to an outside-in orientation, the changing nature of work, and the changing role of management and leadership. The timing for 360 degree feedbackworks best if the subjects, the employees who were assessed, first receive feedback, preferably supported by training. Shortly after, supervisors receive the reports with the instruction to hold reports for a few days before conducting coaching sessions. A little time allows both employees and supervisors to think about the results and prepare for a thoughtful discussion. It’s important to remember that 360 degree feedbackshould not be used as a performance management tool to determine salary increases or bonuses. It’s a tool for improving individual development and engagement. Focus on the strengths of your employees and put actions in place to help them improve further. Stick to the goal of positive change and don’t fall into the trap of using the programme to just highlight failures and shortcomings. One important way an organization can address process concerns is by creating an appeals procedure. Employees want to know that an appeals process is in place, and they want to know how it works with the 360 degree feedbacksystem. The appeals procedure offers a valuable step in process validation. A variety of these processes have been developed. You can go horribly wrong with 360 degree feedbackdata if you are not careful. Think about your audience and whether they are all going to be happiest with numbers or charts? With lots of detail or less? With more data or less? With full dense pages or more space? You know your people so simply match their needs. This part of the report can look very different if you are dealing with financial analysts in the City compared with curators at Christie’s and different again with supervisors in a retail environment. When the statements in a 360 degree review are too predictable and apparently only positive or negative, raters can start answering on autopilot. Shuffle the statements so it takes a little time to process things and avoids an expected response given blindly.

 

Conventional appraisal systems can seriously affect and be affected by superior-subordinate relationships. Factors like reviews being based on recent performance while employees expect an evaluation of the entire year’s performance also leads to a deep-seated mistrust of traditional annual reviews. The use of 360-degree feedback requires much more from managers and other recipients of such feedback than if they were dealing only with feedback from their immediate supervisors. First of all, there is a great deal more information to interpret. Then, the ratings may be inconsistent, not because they are unreliable but because the manager has different roles and relationships with different constituencies. Also, the ratings are averaged by source (except for the supervisor), so the manager will have a picture of what subordinates or peers think on the average. With so many things that can impact a 360 feedback rating, you might ask yourself what is the point? Well, regardless of these factors it is giving you a solid indicator of your reviewers’ opinions or at least the opinions they are prepared to register right now. It is giving you a broad view of opinion so you get the whole picture – not just what your boss thinks. 360 degree feedbackis a tool that should be used to assess an individual’s competencies, strengths and weaknesses. It is performed with other stakeholders in the business supplying feedback confidentially using web tools to fill out surveys and questionnaires. Businesses can use this data to help provide structured analysis and development plans over a period of time. It helps leadership and promote an open business culture. People need to feel in control of their destiny - that is why a clear understanding of 360 appraisal is important to any forward thinking organisation.

 

Personal Experiences

Exactly who is participating in 360 degree feedbackis a hot topic. You may assume that the most senior person should be included along with those below them but this is a risky line to take unless the most senior individual is truly and honestly eager for this feedback. It is also debatable whether this is truly the best thinking. You should also use your existing feedback and communications mechanisms to offer any support to 360 degree participants as and when it is needed. This can help identify any misunderstandings about the process, verify the overall purpose and clarify how the results will be communicated to other employees. Make sure you finish the 360 degree review properly with a name and number for people to refer to if they need support (or link to resources) and include the appropriate development planning worksheets or guidance. The best approach here is to make sure that the worksheets are aligned with the programme and the 360 degree feedbackprocess it is connected to. In a traditional way, the appraisal was the responsibility of human resource management only, but now the objective of 360-degree performance appraisal is to collect anonymous feedback about the employee from their superiors, colleagues, and peers also from the customer. This holistic approach helps to evaluate the performance and well-being of employee who is working for the organization. An employee's supervisor-only performance appraisal may not truly reflect the individual's actual job performance. High-performing employees may receive poor appraisals that limit their opportunity for rewards such as pay increases and promotions due to the idiosyncrasies of the supervisor. Most people can relate examples of employees who have had their career lives shattered by a single, possibly biased, supervisor. Keeping up with the latest developments regarding 360 degree feedback is a pre-cursor to Increased employee motivation and building the link between performance and rewards.

The respondents in a 360-degree feedback process are kept anonymous, identifiable only to the initiators (like CEOs or Human Resource departments) of the feedback process. It is also them who filter out comments or information that does not constitute constructive feedback. The experience of 360 feedback is fulfilling and satisfying, even cleansing, unless there is fear entering the process, in which case there can be a confusing mix of emotions and misgivings about the process. There is the phenomenon of “reviewers’ regret” which 360 project management teams have observed as some reviewers phone to ask if they can adjust their feedback now they have slept on it. Sources, methods and communicators of 360 data need to be respected and credible. And it needs to be mutual! The message surrounding the data needs to be respectful too. There is always a good reason why things are the way they are and data delivered from this position will land much better than data combined with a general air of “This is so bad and wrong!”. The key is the way the listener is being considered and the opinions about them, as this will impact the willingness to hear the messages and explore the options. Flatter organizational structures can see managers and team leads supervising upwards of 20 individuals at a time, and that can create difficulties in assessment when you're relying on just a direct manager's feedback. 360 reviews provide a more rounded view of an employee's behaviors and contributions. If you are one of the recipients in a 360 review, work on your curiosity as well as your emotion. Even if you feel like some feedback is totally unfair or simply wrong, don’t get emotional. At this stage, you should not try to think of the reasoning behind. What you do here and now is to simply record what is said. The specificity/anonymity conundrum takes another turn when the idea of 360 degree feedback system is involved.

 

Not A Single-Source Performance Assessment

The goal of 360 surveys is to help employees understand how their work, skills, and behaviors affect people of all levels at their organization. 360 surveys can offer a comprehensive view of performance, and more importantly, identify areas for improvement. For the individual employee, a 360 degree feedbacksystem broadens perspective to include opinions others have on their ways of work and improves team dynamics and productivity as instances of both formal and informal communication tends to increase after the implementation of a 360-degree feedback process. 360 degree feedbackprojects can be a bumpy experience for an inexperienced project manager. Challenges can emerge at every stage. The initial buy-in and engagement can be highly tricky. Senior leaders can think 360 degree feedbackis a good idea without truly understanding what might be involved and where it might take them or their people. They might start to realise there are sensitivities and difficult information emerging from the process and start to have misgivings. Their commitment might then waver. Most organizations initiate the use of 360 degree feedbackas a developmental tool in a manner that can help employees. Developmental applications are illustrated across the top of Figure 3-1: performance development, performance coaching, TQM, and organization intelligence. It seems hard to create an argument against improving the quality of information to employees if the result is better employee development and job performance. The use of 360-degree feedback in organizations has increased dramatically in recent years. Today, most people have heard of it, and many are familiar with its basic elements and procedures: a person's performance is rated by a range of co-workers, including supervisors, peers, subordinates, and occasionally customers; these are fed back to the person and compared with self-ratings; development goals are set, often in connection with a strategy for achieving these goals. Sometimes, the ratings are used by the organization to make administrative decisions about such things as pay raises and promotions. Developing the leadership pipeline with regard to 360 feedback software helps clarify key organisational messages.

Setting up 360 degree feedbackcoaching sessions for everyone who participates is a good way to be sure those who need support get it automatically. It is also a useful way to be sure you know how it is going, what the issues are arising from 360 degree feedback, and it allows you to understand the whole data set. These sessions can be run by anyone trained in 360. The 360-degree feedback makes managers better. It’s clear that 360 reviews are extremely helpful for employees. But they are just as helpful for managers. By giving employees a safe place to provide upward feedback to their managers, 360 reviews keep leaders accountable for their management decisions and impact, and deliver the insights they need to better manage their teams. Feedback is important because it both directs employees’ attention to learning and development, and supports motivation by helping them to see their progress towards goals. So it’s important that feedback is given regularly. Many organisations are moving towards more continuous feedback, rather than relying on annual or six-monthly reviews, which is a positive change. 360 degree feedbacksystems are becoming a fad in the sense that organizational trials of the new model are accelerating. Whether they continue depends on the productivity impact of the feedback. If the 360 degree feedbackprocess does indeed improve productivity and create better evaluations for managers and employees, the fad will grow into a trend and even become the standard operating procedure for assessing and developing people at work. As we know, feedback is important for growth. However, what makes 360-degree feedback extra valuable is that it is one of the most practical ways to create a feedback-rich environment and provide a comprehensive review for each individual. Researching what is 360 degree feedback is known to the best first step in determining your requirements and brushing up on your understanding in this area.

 

Outcomes Of 360-Degree Feedback

Encouraging the exchange of honest and constructive feedback is the way forward for businesses seeking to build a high-performance culture. Correctly implemented, the 360 degree approach will inspire employees to note their strengths and weaknesses and encourage them to push their boundaries. 360 degree feedbackdata tells you lots about you – a technicolour view of your reviewers’ perspectives. None of these perspectives are right and none of them are wrong, they are all valid in what they are, and together they form the broad picture. This picture is usually based around relevant factors and is attempting to provide highly specific feedback on behaviours that are all very important to the future of the organisation. If you’re able to handle feedback and not get too upset about it, you’ll want to know how others see you. The key to handling feedback is to develop a growth mindset and look at it as an opportunity to grow. One can unearth additional intel on the topic of 360 degree assessment technologies on this NHS article.

 

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