How can you conduct a 360-degree performance appraisal?

Understanding why you're conducting the 360-degree appraisal and who will use the results is foundational. By aligning the appraisal with organizational goals and clearly defining its scope, I ensure that both the process and outcomes are relevant and actionable. This step lays the groundwork for an effective evaluation, linking individual performance with broader organizational values and objectives

Steps for 360 Appraisals Establish criteria for rating each employee. Choose who'll assess each employee. Send surveys. Send the survey to the employee. Schedule the 360 evaluation. Review ratings with employee. Follow up about progress.

For senior leaders, it can be very helpful to include 360 feedback to kick off an executive coaching engagement. That way the coach can help facilitate the feedback collection, debrief and interpret the feedback with the leader and use it to establish actionable goals for the coaching engagement.

Each review should generally include the performance side (hard skills / achievements) as well as the human side (soft skills). Typically there is a formal cycle to reviews, say, once or twice a year, however it is important to receive continuous feedback throughout the year. A formal feedback should never be a surprise to any party, all metrics having been assessed and communicated during regular feedback rounds. The feedback categories must be aligned with the immediate priorities of the organisation, adding strategic goals as well as broader values to the mix. Then it is easy to determine how the individual contribution is matching the company's aspirations and what role the individual has played in its success.

Also important to define if 360 feedback is going to be the only method for performance evaluation. And if not to what extent to we want to value it among the various evaluation methods and data points. More important, is to reflect and recognize whether we want to use this method to stack rank people’s performance or creating customized individual development plan. Two are very different things. I see more value in the latter.

A long lasting problem with selection of feedback provider has been with defining whether it should be based on individuals choice or automatic selection of all team members/ stakeholders. Neither of the approaches is perfect. Specially when feedback is meant for use in someone’s performance assessment. Its difficult to ensure individuals will reach out to everyone including people who will possibly give them negative feedback. Automatic selection on the other hand is forced and can never fully capture every stakeholder. However if used for development, feedback discussions will be more meaningful and will not need documentation which by the very definition imply permanence and ever lasting record of a point in time.

In my work, selecting the right mix of feedback providers is crucial for an accurate and balanced view of an employee's performance. I involve the employee in this selection, fostering trust, while also ensuring that those chosen can provide honest and objective feedback. This approach ensures that the appraisal reflects diverse perspectives and builds employee engagement with the process.

360-degree reviews provide a wholistic feedback for an employee and should include diverse representation including self, subordinates, peers, colleagues from different functions, supervisor. Also, the people may be from different backgrounds & cultures, to have balanced feedback. The organizations must be transparent and seek nominations from the employee and approve by the line manager to maximize the trust and honest feedback.

In my experience, it’s a good idea to ask the employee and their leader to discuss who should provide feedback. That way they can work together to identify a diverse cross section of stakeholders to participate. Including the leader early in the process also means they can help coach their employee on the feedback results.

When selecting feedback providers, one should ask themselves "I would like them to give me feedback. Am I also in a position to provide them with my feedback that matters?". Feedback is always a two-way street. In order to ensure genuine and truly 360-degree feedback, not all the feedback providers should be chosen by the employee. Some of them must be determined based on the org structure, e.g. in an immediate team or within a specific project group all members are required to provide each other with feedback.

Designing tools that are clear, concise, and pertinent to the employee's role is a vital step. Whether using surveys, interviews, or other methods, I ensure that the tools are user-friendly and focused on the key performance aspects. By providing guidelines and setting deadlines, I facilitate smooth participation and enhance the quality of the feedback collected.

There are many PMS tools and platforms available which support 360-degree reviews seamlessly process and workflow wise. Work on a process map defining each stage, each template, work flow and timelines. Conduct training workshops for employees helping them understand the objective and the process. Prepare and share the tutorials for easy access.

Many organisations are lacking a decent and proper feedback culture. Selecting the right and useful tool can actually help establish or improve the situation and install trust in the entire feedback process across the firm. Feedback providers must have an ability to rate certain aspects on a scale or in a predefined set of categories and also have a room to express their thoughts in a free format. An interview process is useful when assessing senior leaders in the organisation via a curated / guided routine, tailored to measuring the performance of the executives and specifically addressing characteristics that have impact on the entire organisation.

A 360-degree performance appraisal: It includes evaluations from others, i.e. it: ? Self ? Admin ● Multidirectional evaluation ● It is also a self-assessment ● Evaluation of other people ● Multi-source evaluation ● Complete circuit evaluation ● Performance review by group Who is a 360-degree performance appraisal for? ? 360 degree assessment is used for managers, leaders and senior executives. ? It can also be used by anyone within the organization and is used in all sectors and in all fields. ? It is widely used in ministries, government departments and non-profit institutions.

In my experience, this is the most critical step. There has to be an optimal balance between the length of the questionnaire and the spread of aspects covered as part of the feedback process. Mostly, in trying to be as comprehensive as possible, organizations tend to design long questionnaires (25-30 questions) with complex worded questions and rating options. Now, imagine a respondent giving feedback to 6 colleagues. That means, they have to answer around 150-180 questions in a time rushed manner. Such feedback is almost always found to be middling, where the respondent chooses the safe option of choosing the 'Good' rating option from the scale. Our best practice thumb rule has been 10 questions of 10 words each.

My experience has shown that presenting feedback in an understandable and actionable manner is essential for success. Using standardized methods to aggregate feedback, I create clear reports highlighting strengths, weaknesses, and areas for growth. The focus is on constructive insights, supplemented by concrete examples that the employee can relate to.

Sharing the feedback in a constructive manner is a challenge for most of the managers. As People professionals, we must enable the managers through workshops & trainings on how to provide clear & concise review highlighting the strengths, addressing the areas of development and planning the next KPIs/ Objectives with specific examples and suggestions.

By simply relying on the numeric scales or metrics, it is easy for the organisation to build some sort of trends, charts or categories of performance profiles. However such scoring is often impersonal and the employees cannot directly relate to the results or take actions to improve. Just imagine, you get a rating 3 out of 5 in communication skills assessment or "customer-centric behaviour" - what does this even mean? The ratings and themes should at most serve the leaders of the firm as a guidance on where to increase employees training or coaching to improve the overall performance metrics. For the employee to act on the feedback - it must be concrete and specific, i.e. descriptive of the employee's personal development situation.

The features of the 360-degree performance appraisal: ■ It based on a standard competency framework ■ It can be used based on standard competencies, or customize an organization-specific set of competencies. ■ The assessment results report must be detailed and contain: ● Comprehensive comparisons of assessments of self and others with illustrative graphs. ● Statement of the highest and lowest 4 evaluation items. ● Self-awareness indicators and four-way network analysis. ● Blind spots and hidden strengths ● Open comments ● Individual ?development plan. This is what makes us initially focus on the topics and questions that the 360-degree evaluation must address and select them carefully and carefully.

Making sense of the feedback data is the most critical step. Thus, the first step design of the feedback program plays a very important role here. How are the different ratings for each of the question going to indicate what for each participant? How are comparative ratings to be analysed across participant groups to infer what recommendations and classify employees into? Standard analysis frameworks like the Johari Window, 9 Box Grid provide tested options for organizations in case they are not sure what they want to analyse and how. But beyond that, it is mandatory for the 360 process designer to be extremely clear on the correlation between feedback scores and actionable insights to be recommended.

Having the employee participate in the evaluation process is essential. The employee should complete a self evaluation and also an assessment on their supervisor:manager. They should feel comfortable in providing the feedback as it will create an open dialogue,

It is essential to seek feedback from the employees about the review process and incorporate the suggestions to help enhance the experience and growth of employees.

Since we are talking about appraisals and not evaluation criteria; then we are determine the performance of med and senior management. The appraisal will be conducting in quiet place with soft talking at macro level tasks. (We Perspective) is highly recommended in this process to ensure engagement and mutual direction for all parties.

Sharing positive feedback is always easy! Sharing areas of improvement, especially when the feedback has direct implication on, say, promotion or bonus, is often far more difficult. The discussions often take undesired directions like "if I compare myself with XYZ who just got promoted, I feel I am performing much better!" This is where the true benefit of the 360-degree review comes into play, as then the feedback becomes more than a one-direct-manager-show but rather a collective perception of employee's performance by a group of colleagues. It is still important for the feedback provider to be able to handle the often emotional situations during the review session, and, more importantly, beyond it.

Purpose of using the 360-degree performance appraisal: According to the American Management Association (AMA), 90% of Fortune 500 companies use 360-degree assessments for the following purposes: ● Leadership development ● Learning and development ● Performance management ● Job replacement (succession). ● Team building ● Rewards and promotions ■ Research has proven that 360-degree assessment can: ● Provides outstanding performance data ● Enhances participant self-awareness ● Helps change behavior.

One unique example that I wanted to share is where we program managed a 360 feedback exercise, where the questionnaire was designed by the employee collaboratively with the manager, within limits of certain aspects that were laid down as part of the program. This was innovative as otherwise typically, the questionnaire becomes a common generic one. Here by allowing the employee to design the questionnaire, specific questions that the employee was keen to get feedback on could be asked. This would make the feedback more personalized and relevant.

When conducting a 360-degree performance appraisal, it's vital to consider confidentiality, cultural sensitivity, and technology integration. Ensuring ongoing support, mitigating biases, complying with legal standards, aligning with other performance measures, and providing training can further enhance the process. Emphasizing clear communication, transparency, and regular assessment of the appraisal's effectiveness ensures a nuanced and impactful evaluation. These considerations reflect a comprehensive approach that goes beyond mere assessment, fostering a culture of continuous growth and development within the organization.