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Organizations seek to develop high-performing employees who are productive, engaged, and committed to their job. While continual feedback is critical for developing these top performers, many companies find that continuous feedback is not effective at all times. One of the major reasons for the same being, not all employees work directly with their immediate managers daily. This is where 360-degree review scores over other forms of the feedback systems and, hence, has gained acceptance among many companies.
Some companies remain skeptical of embracing the 360-degree review process. However, considering the pros and cons of 360-degree feedback, when done properly, the pros outweigh the cons, hands down.
This blog post offers insight into what is 360-degree feedback; the purpose of adopting a 360-degree feedback system, and how a 360-degree review can be helpful for an organization and its employees. Above all, its role in developing a work culture of an organization.
The 360-degree feedback, also known as a 360-degree review process, is an employee assessment framework that enables the organization to better understand employee performance and perceptions from both internal and external stakeholders using a variety of anonymous and private appraisal tools.
It serves as a mirror, revealing to employees their skills and talents, and weaknesses. The 360-degree review system not only assists employees in developing self-awareness but also in determining the extent to which their perceived inadequacies influence various stakeholders.
The 360 degree performance review mechanism enables you to hear from all stakeholders. In contrast to conventional performance assessment, wherein managers (direct/indirect) make the final verdict on an employee’s performance, the 360-degree review method enables you to receive inputs from colleagues, customers, suppliers, and a variety of other stakeholders.
This eliminates any prejudice a specific supervisor may have against an employee or vice versa. It focuses more on an employee’s performance and contribution to the team and to the business.
Employees are the organization’s face and hence, their conduct and performance influence a company’s productivity and external stakeholders. The 360-degree review process can bring any form of mistakes or aberrations to notice and the concerned employee will have to work on it. Thus, the process enables personal development and aids in a company’s productivity.
According to Forbes, over 85% of Fortune 500 organizations employ 360-degree feedback as a foundational aspect of their entire leadership development process. Thus, a 360-degree review can influence employees and management.
Let’s begin a quick check-in on the positive impact of a 360-degree performance review on organizations.
If you simply look at an employee from a particular viewpoint, you will miss out on important details. As a talent manager, the side you see may differ greatly from the one shown to others. However, using a 360-degree review, you can gather those additional viewpoints and use them to create a more complete picture of an employee’s performance.
With a more comprehensive overview in hand, you may approach your performance assessment from multiple angles.
Perhaps an individual may be a higher-level manager but has difficulty communicating with his superiors. Alternatively, maybe, an employee may get peers’ admiration but they may be hesitant to speak about his improvements, upfront.
This is where a 360-degree performance review can help to gather information on various aspects of an employee’s engagement, performance, and behavior and communicate the same to the concerned person. Without 360-degree feedback, the employee may remain oblivious to these indispensable facts, from a variety of sources.
Adopting the practice of a 360-degree performance review enables employees to provide feedback on one another’s work. This creates an atmosphere conducive to conversation and enables the resolution of issues. Effective communication increases a company’s likelihood of retaining the top employees.
Managers and higher management usually look for the best in every employee and encourage them to improve. You can share company values with all employees through a 360-degree review process and ask employees to get their performance aligned with the company values.
To translate your values into practical measures, you can use 360-degree review software like Engagedly to help employees to understand where they are going wrong.
Engagedly’s 360-degree employee evaluation platform allows sharing of valuable feedback to employees. The best part is that the feedback is a one-to-one process. This confidentiality feature, coupled with constructive feedback, makes employees to retrospect and changes themselves to align with company values.
Agile refers to anything that is always evolving, adaptable, relevant, and updated, which is how your approach should be toward the performance assessments.
360-degree feedback may assist you in achieving that agility by providing a more comprehensive image of your employee. A single-view performance assessment evaluates an employee from a single perspective (only from a manager’s perspective).
When you invite many opinions on an employee, you get a more thorough and fast assessment, which enables you to perform an agile employee analysis and conclude better for a review process.
When you promote business values, openness, and the pursuit of a whole picture, you are fostering an atmosphere where transparency and a continuous performance assessment approach are supported by everybody.
These elements contribute to the growth and development of the business, as well as increased employee productivity.
The following are some of the most significant advantages of a 360-degree feedback system for employees:
They bring diverse views of all stakeholders to light, not only for an individual employee but for the whole business. This promotes openness and frequent communication amongst all stakeholders.
This assessment approach enables employees to focus on their “weaknesses,” fix their “mistakes,” and ensure that their future actions do not negatively impact other stakeholders. This also promotes Kaizen – continual and systematic improvement.
Kaizen is a technique of producing continuous improvement based on the notion that tiny, continual beneficial adjustments may yield substantial gains.
Training sessions may be planned and customized based on employee input. This increases employees’ motivation to attend more training. This step also enables organizations to save money by eliminating training sessions that do not offer value to employees and also by establishing a matrix-based work model.
Matrix management is a style of management in which employees are accountable to multiple managers rather than a single supervisor. It does away with the one-boss, vertical structure that most businesses use and replaces it with a system in which employees report to several superiors across departments and projects.
360-degree feedback systems enable multifaced communication and help to identify and correct mismatch in plan execution. Junior-level employees may also offer areas for development for management-level employees. Communication gaps caused by hierarchy are reduced.
It helps avoid misunderstanding and cultivating a positive team spirit in order to progress on an individual level, which may result in team growth. Ego disputes and workplace turmoil may be avoided by taking everyone’s opinion into account.
A 360-degree feedback system enables continuous improvement and growth, not just as a person, but also as a team. Because everyone taking part in the process has the chance to share their ideas, it increases responsibility and motivates participants to assist one another in improving and becoming better at their work.
It gives an opportunity for evaluating and discussing how an employee contributes significantly to their stakeholders. This demonstrates to the organization and its employees how their contributions make a difference and why they should continue to do what they are doing.
The framework enables employees to enhance their performance while simultaneously maintaining their existing outstanding quality productivity.
A 360-degree feedback system helps foster a healthy discussion about individual contribution and, subsequently, increasing remuneration. When an employee gets excellent responses from all stakeholders, statistical evidence of the individual’s contribution is provided, and pay may be determined appropriately.
A 360-degree feedback system instills in employees a sense of importance in the business, as all stakeholders recognize and value all contributions. It may serve as an effective means of recognizing employees, assisting them in identifying areas for development, and providing an opportunity for personal growth and exploration. Subsequently, employee retention increases and workforce productivity grows as a company grows.
Employees must recognize that not all feedback can be rosy and favorable, as a 360-degree review entails constructive feedback that’s in the employee’s best interest. Since 360-degree performance review entails reviews of all junior and senior employees; peers, and customers, employees have to get in the groove of handling negative criticism and learning from their errors. They can take the help of the in-charge managers and HR personnel for the same.
Satisfactory work culture is gradually becoming a must for employees in today’s working environment. Without a suitable workplace culture, a company will surely lose bright individuals. Diverse and robust workplace culture is critical for long-term corporate success.
Thus, how can your business establish and maintain a positive workplace culture while retaining its core workforce? The solution is to implement a robust 360-degree performance review system across your organization.
Implementing a 360-degree review system enhances your organization’s working culture. Continue reading to see how a 360-degree feedback system may help you enhance your workplace culture.
A 360-degree feedback system assists employees in developing self-awareness and identifying their strengths and flaws. Employees may also get an insight into unknown talents and limitations via this approach.
Increased employee self-awareness benefits both an employee and his company. This is because employees who can clearly perceive their own progress within the organization are more likely to work harder and remain loyal to their employer.
Organizations that employ a 360-degree feedback system foster an open work environment. This culture fosters employee collaboration in aspects such as task execution methods; interpersonal interactions with subordinates; peers and superiors, and so on.
It enables employees to feel secure and comfortable enough to express their ideas about their jobs and colleagues. Since the standard feedback procedure is the same for all employees, nobody worries about being suppressed for their thoughts, which fosters a strong sense of trust between the employee and the organization. Thus, an open work environment benefits not just employees, but also the organization.
A well-designed 360-degree feedback system contributes to the establishment of a culture of a continual dialogue between employees, colleagues, and supervisors. It lets all employees in your business to feel heard and their needs satisfied.
Collecting information on your employees in order to better understand and align them with your organization’s ethos and goals is one way to enhance your organization’s workplace culture.
When employees feel heard, they are more inclined to be happy with their workplace culture.
One of the most serious risks to an organization’s working culture is prejudiced conduct against an employee by peers and superiors. Typically, traditional feedback procedures focused on collecting input from a single source.
However, when your organization adopts a 360-degree performance review system, you may collect input from a variety of sources, including peers, subordinates, supervisors, direct reports, and sometimes even customers, relieving individual bias against employees.
Employee satisfaction also rises when employees understand they will be evaluated fairly in a performance review system.
Your first step should be to analyze and strengthen your current performance evaluation system. If you are still following the paper-based assessment process, consider shifting to a digital 360-degree review process.
Engagedly’s 360-degree performance review software is worth a try. It simplifies the 360-degree review process by allowing stakeholders at all levels of the organization to submit real-time feedback–including management, managers, fellow employees, and direct reports. It also allows to share a company’s mission, vision, values, and goals with the employees.
Engagedly’s 360-degree review platform may assist businesses in developing their managers in novel ways, as well as give a channel for employees to voice praise or worry about their frontline managers.
Want to know how Engagedly can help you manage your hybrid employees better? Request us for a demo.
