Many organizations avoid conducting a 360 degree feedback because of its complexity. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of misunderstanding about 360-degree feedback, as it can be a powerful tool for helping leaders and individual contributors improve their performance, particularly at the higher levels in an organization. Let’s perform a quick check-in to understand what 360 feedback survey is and review 4 practical ways your organization can benefit from 360 feedback survey.
What is 360-degree feedback?
Whether you’re using a 360 feedback online survey tool or organizing a 360 feedback interview, the objective is the same: Collect feedback on an employee’s performance by gathering perspectives of multiple team members who interact with the employee. This generally includes the employee’s manager, peers, and direct reports in the case of leaders. In the majority of the cases, the employee him or herself also provides feedback. Because all participants are responding to the same survey, a report allows the employee to see where his or her views differ from the perceptions of others.
The benefits of 360 degree feedback:
1. Opens the Channels of Communication
The 360-degree feedback practice allows employees in the organization to comment on each other’s work. This opens an environment rich in communication and allows problems to be brought into the open and ultimately resolved. Organizations that communicate effectively are more likely to retain the best employees.
2. Better Feedback from different Sources
Receiving feedback from colleagues, seniors and oneself proves to be more beneficial compared to receiving feedback from just one individual, such as one’s direct manager (common with standard performance appraisals). The benefit of this is that each key perspective is surfaced to provide one holistic perspective.
3. Improved Team Development and Communication
Feedback from team members creates a sense of support and accountability. Team communication is important. In fact, research has suggested that a lack of open, honest communication harms employee morale and is associated with increased turnover.
4. Career Development
360 feedback surveys provide employees with valuable feedback about what they need to do to improve their performance. With a 360 process, an employee is given multiple opportunities to learn what they are doing well and where they need to improve.
The value of 360-degree feedback
360s feedback surveys work because they take subjectivity out of the equation. It’s not just one person providing a review; rather, it’s a group—all looking at an employee from a vertical, horizontal, and diagonal perspective. This helps minimize biases inherent in traditional performance reviews.
Don’t forget, 360 Degree Feedback should be just part of the ongoing conversation with employees. They’re worth implementing, but make sure that you have a strategy in advance and then follow up and take action where required.
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