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Organizations often avoid conducting a 360 degree feedback as they find it more complex and difficult to understand. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be. In the post-pandemic normalcy, feedback in different forms have become a necessity for smooth functioning. 360 Degree Feedback is a powerful tool by which organizations can help their employees enhance their skills, performance, and thereby help them understand things about themselves better.
True intuitive expertise is learned from prolonged experience with good feedback on mistakes. – Daniel Kahneman
So in order to upgrade your intuitive expertise, let’s understand 360 degree feedback a little better, how to frame the questions and what are the benefits of 360 degree feedback for your company.
In simple words, 360 degree feedback is a feedback collection process through which people can ask for insights from all stakeholders they work with. These stakeholders include an employee’s manager(s), direct reports (if any), clients, vendors and peers. Every participant answers to the same set of questions. As a result, at the end of the process, the employee receives a report that depicts the perceptions of her/his colleagues, and what feedback they have to share about her or his performance. The questions typically revolve around key goals, strengths and weaknesses, asking participants to rate on a scale and share a paragraph or two. The responses remain anonymous and completely confidential.
Now that you know how truly simple 360 degree feedback essentially is, let us take you through how you can whip up some good questions for the process to be truly effective.
This feedback process can be conducted manually or you can choose to have a 360 Degree Feedback tool in place. Either way, framing the questions right is the key to collecting valuable data. We would like to list out a few factors that will guide you here:
To help you with some examples, at Engagedly, we have a very simple framework where we ask all participants some of these simple questions.
We would love to know your thoughts on the above mentioned framework. Please share them in the comment section below.
After understanding the feedback process and how we can frame good 360 feedback questions, we come to the point where we answer for you why you should consider having this in place.
While you might find useful insights from the feedback received from your manager/supervisor, it is just one person’s perspective at the end of the day. Receiving feedback from peers, clients and vendors also, will give you a more holistic view of your performance; what’s working for you and what you need to work on.
Employees who receive feedback more frequently from a wider audience grow more comfortable in receiving them with an open mind, and get a better shot at refining their skills and performance.
Adopting the 360-degree feedback process for your organization would open up doors to a free-flow of communication. It will allow your employees to feel more confident in sharing their inputs and perspectives, and build richer connections between them. Moreover, problems can be addressed and resolved more quickly.
Organizations that encourage transparency and better communication are many times more likely to retain their best workers.
Here is a staggering insight for you:
According to Engagedly research, 98% of employees fail to engage in the face of little to no feedback.
360 degree feedback provides employees with valuable inputs about what changes can help them grow in their careers. With this process in place, your employees can get multiple opportunities to learn what they are doing well and what needs improving.
We will end this piece with one very important reminder for you and your organization.
This is a common misconception many harbour while considering 360 degree feedback. People think they can conduct this instead of a performance review. That can’t be the case.
A 360 degree feedback is meant for the benefit of the employee who’s being reviewed only. It’s not meant for the manager to evaluate her or his employee based on this feedback, or consider salary changes. If a manager has certain performance issues with an employee, they should discuss them transparently, not through the 360 feedback. It is not a process for evaluating if an employee is meeting basic job requirements.
So, if you’re ready to implement and conduct 360 degree feedback in your organization, and want to simplify the process with the help of a tool, check out our FREE demo on 360 Degree Feedback Software.
Want to know how Engagedly can help you? Then request a demo from our experts!
