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Research shows that positive or congratulatory feedback (clear, relevant, and honest) keeps employees motivated, engaged, and helps them perform better.
Feedback can be a game changer for your organization.
On the flip side, negative feedback can be harmful to the productivity of employees. It can put employees off the right track and make them feel disconnected from the organization.
According to Gallup research, four out of every five employees who receive negative feedback are looking for a job change.
How can managers then ensure the feedback process is effective and provides employees with the zeal to perform better?
Enter 360-degree feedback.
An unbiased multi-rater process with the potential to help employees recognize their strengths, weaknesses, skills, and personal attributes that help them achieve their goals. It also highlights the specific competencies that can be improved for performance enhancement.
The first commercial use of 360 degree feedback dates back to 1950, when Esso Research and Engineering conducted surveys to gather feedback from multiple sources and were able to create a process-driven performance management system. Over the years, it has gained wide acceptance and is used by the majority of organizations as an employee development tool.
In this article, we will discuss the intricacies of 360-degree feedback and unpack the following:
360-degree feedback or multi-rater feedback, is a system wherein an employee gets feedback not just from their managers but from multiple stakeholders, both within and outside the organization.
It is anonymous and confidential feedback shared by multiple raters, such as managers, peers, vendors, direct reports, subordinates, clients, consultants, and contractors, and includes employee self-evaluation. The important point to note is that all the raters involved in the feedback process have a working relationship with the employee being rated.
Commonly used as an employee development tool, 360-degree feedback helps employees gauge their own performance by taking feedback from multiple sources and providing them with actionable insights. The presence of multiple raters helps remove bias from the process and offers a clear picture of an employee’s strengths and weaknesses.
The insights collected from the feedback process highlight the personal traits, attributes, behaviors, competencies, and skills that are required for performing the duties and thereby achieving organizational goals.
Feedback is crucial for the growth and development of employees. Multiple research studies have highlighted the importance of regular and structured feedback on the performance of the workforce.
It has been substantiated that feedback helps employees understand their weaknesses and blind spots and provides them with the opportunity and processes to improve their performance. Furthermore, by highlighting the positive aspects of their performance, 360 feedback aids in improving employee morale and boosting motivation towards work.
There are certain aspects of performance that are not easily visible to the employee but can be easily gauged by the people working with them. By highlighting such specific personality traits and attributes that are important for the employee’s development, feedback assists them in achieving their highest potential.
In a traditional feedback system, organizations relied heavily on the judgment of the managers to provide insights into their team’s performance. But recent developments in the field of organizational psychology have shown that such a system is ineffective in bringing positive results. The traditional system is loaded with biases and can even hamper employees’ performance in the long run.
360-degree feedback impacts every aspect of the organization. It helps in finding leaders in organizations, creates an environment of self awareness, trust, and loyalty, and increases workforce output in the long run.
The effectiveness of the multi-rater feedback system depends a lot on how it is implemented, and based on that, changes can be observed in the organization’s performance.
360-degree feedback has become ubiquitous; more than 85% of Fortune 500 organizations are now using it for multiple purposes.
Also Read: The importance of 360-degree feedback in healthcare industry
The benefits of well-thought-out and structured 360 degree feedback can be felt in different realms of the organization. Other than making employees more accountable for their development by highlighting their strengths and improvement areas, it helps in reducing attrition, establishing transparent and open communication channels, and encouraging more dialogue in the organization.
The following are some of the upsides of having a 360 degree feedback system in the organization:
For Employees
Employees want more feedback from their employers. The changing technical landscape and short shelf life of skills are putting extreme pressure on employees to be much more involved in their learning and development. Furthermore, it helps employees improve their performance.
Research conducted by Gallup to understand the effect of regular feedback on the performance of employees found that 26% of employees strongly agreed that feedback helped them perform better in their job duties.
360 degree feedback helps employees become more invested in their personal and professional growth and aids in achieving the following:
For Employers
Providing meaningful feedback is the key to improving productivity and engagement in the workplace. Be it a remote, hybrid, or in-office setup, it is important that employers provide regular, relevant, and meaningful feedback to support their employees’ growth.
Employers can realize the following benefits with an efficient multi-rater feedback system:
Souce: Gallup.com
Even with all the brouhaha surrounding the 360 degree feedback, there are instances where multi-rater feedback fails to provide any benefits to organizations.
While there are multiple reasons why omnidirectional feedback doesn’t work, most of it comes down to how the process was planned and implemented in the organization. Here are some of the other reasons why a 360-degree feedback system fails.
All the aforementioned issues can lead to the failure of a multi-source feedback system. It is therefore important to discuss the disadvantages of 360-degree feedback before planning to implement it in the organization.
Careful planning and implementation are necessary for 360-degree feedback to harbinger accurate results. Organizations should first understand the purpose of implementing a multi-rater feedback system, whether it is to enhance employee engagement, productivity, or development, or to focus on other key business areas.
It is important to have experienced leaders who are well versed in the planning, strategy, and implementation processes to get multi-source feedback started in the organization.
The following section highlights the 360 degree feedback process steps required to deploy it in the organization:
Refer to the below infographic for quick access to the 360-degree feedback process in organizations.
360 Degree Feedback Best Practices GuidelinesThere is no one-size-fits all approach to creating a 360 degree feedback system in an organization. It requires a thorough analysis and a good understanding of the industry, employees, and organizational culture to get the most out of the multi-rater feedback process.
The following best practice guidelines should be at your disposal to seamlessly implement the multi-source feedback process:
Refer to the below infographic on the best practices for 360 degree feedback to effectively plan and execute it in your organization.
Drafting the right 360 degree feedback questions is important to get accurate feedback from employees. You have to keep in mind the purpose of the process, the competencies to be assessed, and the clarity of the questions to solicit genuine and actionable feedback from the workforce.
The following questions will help evaluate the specific competencies of a manager:
It is important to assess leadership skills using different parameters and provide employees with input to enhance their abilities. The following questions will help gauge their leadership strengths and weaknesses:
To carry out the feedback process effectively, it is imperative to have a thoughtfully laid out, researched, and customizable template.
Engagedly’s 360 degree feedback form template encompasses multiple competencies that will enable you to find leaders in the organization and provide input for improvement plans. You can also customize the template by selecting the required competencies along with the behavioral indicators.
Download 360 Degree Feedback Form Template
A 360 assessment certification prepares leaders, HR managers, consultants, and 360 assessment administrators to effectively plan, strategize, and deploy the multi-rater feedback process in the organization.
This certification prepares you to analyze the results, prepare reports, and provide actionable and data-driven recommendations for enhancing workforce productivity.
After going through Engagedly Academy’s Building & Designing Your 360 Degree Feedback Tool Certification, you will be able to do the following:
Get Your 360 Assessment Certification Online
A 360 degree feedback software like Engagedly seamlessly integrates the whole process of planning, strategizing, and deploying multi-rater assessments. It helps in executing the performance management strategy by providing regular, effective, and actionable feedback and further substantiating the growth and development of employees.
Through interactive dashboards and quick analysis of assessments, it provides personalized and action-packed reports to employees. With Engagedly, you can conduct a 360 process for leadership assessments, competency assessments, and even client feedback.
Even the best-performing and self-aware individuals fail to see their strengths and weaknesses in their work and workplace behaviors. The purpose of a well-designed 360 degree assessment is to understand and coach individuals and leaders on their areas of strengths and opportunities so that they can be effective in their organization.
Engagedly’s expert practitioners work with you to design, execute, analyze and provide insight and coaching on customized 360’s for your organization. The table below highlights the various activities, descriptions, and the time allotted for each activity for conducting the assessment.
| Activity | Description | Time Allotted To Complete |
| 360 Goals and Plan | Develop goals and a plan to execute a 360 assessment | 1-2 Weeks |
| Launch | Communicate the purpose, conduct a webinar and launch 360 | 1 Week |
| Analyze Results | Collect results, analyze and develop a report readout | 2 Weeks |
| Coaching Plan | Develop a coaching plan for each individual based on the results | 1-2 Weeks |
The importance of feedback cannot be undermined in the current business scenario. It is critical for the learning and development of employees and for organizations to stay ahead in a competitive global market. By making employees accountable for their own growth, 360-degree feedback helps improve productivity, engagement, and efficiency of the organization.
Ans. 360 degree feedback is an employee assessment or evaluation process wherein employees receive feedback from multiple sources, including their manager, direct reports, and peers. It is unbiased, confidential, anonymous, and holistic feedback.
Ans. The central feature of a 360-degree feedback system is the use of multiple raters to solicit feedback about an employee’s skills, competencies, behaviors, and traits. This feature keeps the feedback free from any sort of bias or inconsistency.
Ans. A typical 360 degree feedback process should include the following competencies:
Ans. In 360 feedback, an employee receives reviews on their performance from their manager, direct reports, peers, vendors, contractors, and clients. It is worth noting that raters should have direct working relationships with the employees being evaluated.
