Why Should You Start Practising 360 Degree Feedback?

by Kylee Stone Jul 15,2020
Engagedly
PODCAST

The People Strategy Leaders Podcast

with Srikant Chellappa, CEO

Feedback is an integral part of every organization as it facilitates communication. Increased communication not only helps in building employee engagement but also in improving employee retention. But, a very common issue in managerial or one-on-one feedback is, it is often subjective and biased and offers a limited perspective. For a more balanced and objective approach, everyone is either slowly shifting to 360 degree feedback or at some places, both are being used together for review.

What is 360 Degree Feedback?

360 degree feedback, often referred to as multirater feedback, is a process where employees receive confidential and anonymous feedback from people who work around them. Multiple stakeholders give their inputs about the employee, which includes managers, senior leadership, vendors, customers, peers, and direct reports. It evaluates employee’s performance, behavioral skills, and competency, which helps in self-development and will eventually help in team and organization growth.

Due to the comprehensive and balanced nature of the process, 360 degree feedback has been implemented by many founders and CEOs of K-12 schools, to evaluate their teachers. It not only helps in improving their knowledge and teaching capabilities but also makes them open to feedback that helps in their professional growth. If you have not implemented it till now, here are some reasons why you should.

Personal Development

A successful 360 degree feedback helps in increasing the self-awareness of an employee. It makes one conscious of their personality traits and helps them to recognize their hidden strengths and weaknesses. They understand their behavior better, which helps them realize how they work. This also helps the management to understand what prevents employees from working together.

Career Development

As per the Skills Gap Report of 2017, nearly 80% agree that there is a skills gap, and more than a third of them said it affected them personally.

A multirater feedback helps one in identifying their training needs to develop their skills. As employees are self-aware, they take up the responsibility to sharpen their existing skills and build new ones. The employer just needs to facilitate an environment for them in which their need for career development is encouraged and supported. When employees see that their growth and development needs are supported, employee engagement and retention increase.

Also Read: 4 Features of Employee Feedback Software That Simplify Managers’ Lives

Multiple Sources

In a multirater or 360 degree feedback, the employee receives feedback from multiple sources, that makes it objective. An individual gets multiple inputs for their role, performance, and ideas. Colleagues’ perception helps one to know how others perceive them and their work. It helps employees to know and analyze themselves better.  As it provides a well-balanced view of the behavior and skills, it is more acceptable to the employees.

Method Over Outcome

The 360 degree feedback focuses on the method instead of the outcome. It is more important to do things the right way, even if it does not produce an outcome. There is a higher chance of achieving success when employees focus on the process instead of the outcome.

When employees are from the teaching industry, they need to know the importance of doing things the right way and teach the same to their students.

Also Read: A 7 Step Guide To A Successful 360 Degree Feedback Process

Enhanced Working Relationships

As traditional feedback is one-sided, the employee has nothing to say from their side, and there is no sense of personal connection. But as a 360 degree feedback involves everyone in the process, it improves working relationships and communication within the team. Since one knows how they are perceived by others, it helps them work seamlessly as part of a team. 

Reduced Discrimination

As feedback is received from different sources who are at different levels, biases based on race, age, gender, etc. are significantly reduced. The “horns and halos” effect of the traditional feedback process is also minimized. The feedback which an employee receives in a 360 degree feedback is often impartial and based on their outlook towards their work.

Also Read: The Downsides of 360 Degree Feedback And How To Fix It

Open Culture

As every employee is part of the feedback process, they feel that their inputs and opinions are given importance to. It helps in promoting a sense of open culture in the organization where everyone can share the opinion without any fear of their superiors.

Find out more about Engagedly’s 360 feedback software by requesting for a free demo!


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Kylee Stone

Kylee Stone supports the professional services team as a CX intern and psychology SME. She leverages her innate creativity with extensive background in psychology to support client experience and organizational functions. Kylee is completing her master’s degree in Industrial-Organizational psychology at the University of Missouri Science and Technology emphasizing in Applied workplace psychology and Statistical Methods.

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