Tag: Pros and cons of 360 degree review

Importance of 360 Degree Feedback for Hybrid and Remote Employees

Some observe that certain large, well-known organizations such as General Motors Co., Citigroup, Ford Motor Co., Nationwide, and IBM have adopted a hybrid model of working as they see it as the trend of the future. Having mentioned this, there are many other companies that are going fully remote. Currently, both trends are gaining traction after the pandemic. The hybrid system is becoming a more accepted form of a working model, as it allows an employee to work from home on certain days and go to the office on the remaining days. 

Also, as aforementioned, there are many employees who want to work from home. It is expected that most of the workforce will prefer to work remotely by 2028. Thus, remote and hybrid models of working are growing in popularity and are here to stay.

Hybrid/remote working models: Overcoming the challenges

Though hybrid and remote working models are necessities of the present times, organizations will have their own set of challenges in training employees for these models. One of the major challenges is providing constant feedback to the team members to ensure that all are on the same page. This is where a 360 degree review survey can be a handy review system that would ensure that timely feedback is provided to the employees, irrespective of adopting any working model. 

One can also use a 360-degree feedback software as offered by Engagedly, which offers the feature of providing real-time feedback to employees who work in a hybrid or remote work environment.

This blog post will focus on what is the 360 degree feedback process; why opt for a 360-degree feedback system for hybrid and remote employees? How to employ a 360-degree feedback system in hybrid and remote environments, and its benefits.

Understanding 360 degree feedback and its significance 

360° feedback system focuses on employees’ feedback; colleagues’ feedback; a manager’s feedback, and customers’ feedback. One of the best aspects of the 360° feedback mechanism is that it is impartial as it offers feedback from all avenues. 

The 360-degree feedback system plays a big role in identifying and nurturing future talents; bringing collaboration among the employees and managers, and fostering an open and transparent workplace culture. 

In the present hybrid and remote working age, a 360-degree feedback method provides employees with the required insights into their performance and helps them to improve themselves, aligned with the company’s objectives.

Also Read: Everything You Need To Know About 360 Degree Feedback

Importance of a 360-degree feedback survey for hybrid and remote employees

Managers can bolster hybrid and remote employees’ productivity in several ways by using the 360-degree feedback review mechanism, as described below:

Understanding team’s concerns and suggestions: 

A company can lose billions of dollars in profits if it ignores disengaged employees’ concerns and feedback. This is where a 360-degree feedback system can help a manager understand his team‘s concerns and suggestions so that the team‘ productivity can give consistently increasing outputs. As per a research study, employees who feel their voices are heard are more likely (4.6 times) to feel encouraged and would give their best efforts. This holds true for both hybrid and remote employees.

Empathy:

The current workplace scenarios are such that a lot of work has to be done in less time period. In such situations, employees may get stressed and may not have enough time to spend time with their families. This is where managers can act as a coach so that employees can learn to complete their work in less time and maintain a work-life balance. 

Thus, the 360-degree feedback system helps managers to identify if an employee is finding it difficult to balance or draw a line between his personal and professional life. 96% of employees are of the thoughts that caring and empathic managers can increase employee retention.

Understanding the level of employees’ stress: 

There will be a high level of absenteeism in the workplace if employees are overworked and they have the feeling of being isolated and disengaged. This is highly prevalent in a remote working model wherein the employees feel they have to work more to prove to their efficiency and productivity to their managers. 

With the use of 360-degree feedback review, managers will come to know about the level of stress experienced by an employee, through the employee himself and his colleagues. Managers can guide the remote employee and address his fears.  

Eliminating the biased nature of the feedback system:

Sometimes, unfortunately, hybrid or remote employees may not get the desired reviews or may be the subject of biased reviews from the managers for their performance. This may happen as managers may not be aware of the remote or hybrid employees’ contributions as much as they have knowledge about in-house employees’ contributions. So remote employees can feel helpless and isolated, and they may leave the company. 

When a 360-degree feedback system is implemented, it can eliminate such a biased nature of the review, as colleagues and clients take part in the review process.

Implementing a 360-degree feedback process for hybrid and remote teams

A 360-degree feedback process is undoubtedly an effective means of enhancing employees’ performance and productivity. However, this is only possible if you implement the 360-degree review process correctly. You can follow the below techniques to implement the 360-degree feedback process for hybrid and remote teams.

Face-to-face approach:

The best way to communicate with your employees is by talking to them face-to-face. Sending feedback through emails can be cold and impersonal and may give a feeling to the employees that their managers aren’t open to the idea of addressing their issues. 

Sending feedback through the email over a longer duration can make employees feel they are not a part of the team and their contribution to the company is insignificant. Thus, it is always better to talk to the employee on a one-to-one basis during the review process. For remote employees, a face-to-face conversation can be carried out over a video call embedded within a 360-degree performance review software.

Agenda for 360 degree feedback process:

The agenda of the 360° feedback review process should be made clear to the employees so that they feel that the review process is for their own good. If your employees don’t understand the scope and purpose of the survey, there is a possibility that they may shy away from sharing the relevant information with you. Thus, before the review process, communicate to the employees that this feedback will improve their performance and help them reduce their workload and stress. For remote employees, you can use performance review software for conveying the agenda.

Anonymous review system:

Most of the companies implement a 360-degree feedback system in an anonymous fashion so that employees may not have to fear their feedback will be leaked out of the discussion room. For implementing the anonymous review feedback, use Engagedly’s 360-degree performance review software which allows the employees to share their feedback and concerns with their higher management on the software itself.

Eliminating favoritism: 

There is always a possibility that a manager may prefer certain employees for promotion over others, which may lead to a biased review. When performance review is conducted using a performance review software that allows feedback to flow in from managers, colleagues, and clients, it can prevent such biased decisions. Interestingly, a system like this should also help employees to bond better, since employees who deserve credit will receive appreciation from their colleagues.

Simplifying the feedback:

You, as a manager, need to ensure that your feedback is easy to understand for your team members. This is possible when you use a 360-degree performance review software that allows you to demonstrate your ideas for improvements using charts and graphs. Once you have explained the areas of improvement to your team members, you can explain a defined plan for their self-improvement and suggest baseline employee performance for the company’s growth.

Understanding what is working and what is not working:

The 360° feedback review system would help managers to understand what processes are working and what are not working and, they can tweak them so that the overall productivity increases. Importantly, the feedback review system would bring better transparency and would make communication among employees easier within hybrid or remote work models.

Also Read: How To Conduct An Effective 360 Degree Feedback?

Benefits of 360° feedback review system for hybrid and remote employees

Given below are some benefits of using the 360° feedback review system for hybrid and remote employees.

Self-understanding 

A 360-degree feedback system helps employees to understand when they are going wrong and how they need to improve. They come to know the areas for improvement from their managers, peers, and clients. This way they can self-understand their limitations and develop their skills as per the company requirements. Further, employees become more productive and efficient because of self-awareness. 

Enhance communication and collaboration 

Since the covid-19 outbreak, communication and collaboration have been challenging for various businesses. Managers and subordinates find it difficult to build close relationships when working remotely. Sometimes, managers make use of certain jargon during a long-distance video call that employees may not understand. Here is where 360-degree feedback can help managers to understand various communication challenges that employees face and jargon that should be avoided so that it doesn’t cause problems for the employees. 

Eliminate biases

Remote or hybrid working employees may feel that employees who work on the site daily often receive more benefits than them. This kind of perception may affect the overall productivity of the company. In order to avoid such circumstances, managers can make use of a 360-degree feedback system to provide clear communication and maintain transparency among employees.

Bring cohesiveness

360-degree feedback evaluates an employee’s performance individually and as a team. The 360-degree evaluation ensures that employees’ efforts are aligned with the company’s mission, objectives, and vision. 

Develop strong leadership skills

360-degree review surveys are meant not only for employees but also for managers too. Reviews offered by employees help managers to improve their leadership skills. Through anonymous survey platforms as offered by Engagedly’s performance review software, employees need not fear about their reviews being read by managers. Thus, employees can freely express their opinions regarding a manager’s team handling capability and performance to higher management. This may help managers to develop even their own leadership skills.

Improve employee engagement

Engaged employees can be highly efficient and productive. They’re even ready to go that extra mile to achieve their goals. With the use of a 360-degree feedback survey, you can get to know as a company what you should do so that employees will be highly engaged and motivated to do their jobs. Again here, you can make use of Engagedly’s performance review software to carry out anonymous surveys.

Also Read: 10 Benefits of 360-degree feedback

Summing up:

As hybrid and remote work environments become more prevalent, 360-degree feedback should become the norm. Management needs to adopt an innovative technical solution, such as Engagedly’s 360-degree performance review software, to understand the challenges faced by the employees and boost their performance.

Our 360-degree performance review software gives employees and their managers insight into their progress toward goals and key results. The solution can also help you to break down a larger goal into smaller ones that can be tracked and monitored. This would ensure that the employees are making advancements in the right direction. 

Want to know how Engagedly can help you manage your hybrid employees better? Request us for a demo.

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360 Degree Review: Enhancing Organization, Employees, and Culture

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. 

360-degree review process: What is it?

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.

Also Read: Everything You Need To Know About 360 Degree Feedback

Why implement a 360-degree review process?

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.

Does a 360-degree feedback help to change an employee’s outlook and performance?

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.

Also Read: Know How To Implement 360 Degree Feedback in Your Startup

How will a 360-degree review add value to your organization?

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.

360-degree review gives you a comprehensive picture

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.

Establishes Communication Channels

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.

Reinforces company values

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.

Agility

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.

How 360-degree review benefits employees?

The following are some of the most significant advantages of a 360-degree feedback system for employees:

All voices get heard and valued, and it promotes openness

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.

Corrective plan and employee improvements

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.

Customized training programs based on employees’ unique requirements

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.

Avoid discrimination and avoid communication gaps

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.

Fosters self-improvement and teamwork

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.

Contribution of employees to all stakeholders

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.

Remuneration based on feedback

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.

Contributes to increased employee retention

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.

Constructive criticism

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.  

Also read: 10 Benefits of 360 degree feedback

How 360-degree review helps to improve your work culture?

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.

  1. Enhance employees’ self-awareness

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.

  1. Fostering a strong sense of trust between the employee and the organization

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.

  1. Helps to maintain a constant dialogue with employees.

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. 

  1. Eliminate bias and foster bonds of solidarity

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.

What is the easiest way to get started with 360-degree feedback?

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.

Also Read: How To Choose The Best 360 Feedback Software For Your Company?

Want to know how Engagedly can help you manage your hybrid employees better? Request us for a demo.

Request A Demo