360 Degree Feedback - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Bernard Marr
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Performance reviews can be the lowlight of an employee’s year — not to mention HR! I’ve written before about ways to improve the performance review process, but more and more companies are turning to 360 degree feedback processes.
Three-sixty degree feedback is all about answering the question, “How well are our people performing in the eyes of those who have a stake in their performance?” It provides an individual with a broad assessment of their performance based on the views of those who have a stake in their performance, including their supervisor/boss, reporting staff members, co-workers, customers, suppliers, and so on. Results are confidentially tallied and presented to the employee, usually by a manager.
These insights are often used by companies in employee training and development, but they can also be used for making administrative decisions around pay and promotions.
But there’s a great deal of controversy surrounding the implementation and application of 360 degree feedback.
The Good
The results of 360 degree feedback reviews are often viewed as more valuable than traditional top-down appraisals because they rely on many different points of view instead of just one. Traditional performance reviews can be biased based on the reviewer’s personal feelings toward the employee.
If an employee and his manager don’t get along personally, he could have terrible traditional reviews, but the negative views of the manager might be the outlier in a review that came from his peers, customers, etc.
Three-sixty degree feedback aims to democratize the review process by weighing the opinions of many people. If employee A is seen as distant by his co-workers, but well loved by his clients, that helps HR understand where development is most needed.
The Bad
Costs and effort of collecting 360-degree feedback scores can be very high as it will require significant time commitment for scoring, evaluation and feedback. There are few ways of bringing costs down other than simplifying data collection through the use of software and electronic data collection.
Another problem that can arise is that because the feedback is anonymous, employees have no way to clarify criticisms or request additional feedback. That’s why it’s very important to have coaches — HR staff or managers in most cases — trained to help employees understand and interpret their feedback and develop an action plan based on that feedback.
Finally, some employees may become very defensive if they believe that their co-workers and other people beyond supervisors and managers are deciding whether or not they get a pay rise. It can be helpful, then, to make sure that employees understand that the 360 degree feedback is only one factor of many determining promotions and pay — not the sole determining factor.
The Ugly
The biggest problems arise when 360 degree feedback surveys are not conducted properly. For example, confidentiality (or lack thereof) is the biggest negative factor I see. If it’s possible to trace comments back to reviewers, negative feedback could engender bad feelings between co-workers and lead to a hostile work environment. To ensure confidentiality:
- Select a neutral administrator (e.g. an external consultant or human resources representative).
- User-names and passwords should be required to access the survey and the response data should be encrypted.
- Ensure that online systems are encrypting the data and storing the results on a secure server.
Also, to make sure that participants have enough time to complete the surveys thoroughly and accurately, they should contain as few questions as possible. If survey items are carefully researched to ensure relevance, the number of questions should not exceed 10.
Have you used or participated in a 360 degree feedback survey? Do you like it or not? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.
360 degree feedback is one of the KPIs I discuss in my new book 'Key Performance Indicators for Dummies'.
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Here are some other related posts I have written
- The Seven Secrets of Top Performers
- The Top 5 Performance Management Tools: Good News And Cautionary Tales
- Big Data: The 5 Vs Everyone Most Know
- The 25 KPIs Every Manager Needs to Know
About : Bernard Marr is a globally recognized expert in strategy, performance management, analytics, KPIs and big data. He helps companies manage, measure and improve performance. His new books are 'Key Performance Indicators for Dummies' and ’Doing More with Less: Measuring, Analyzing and Improving Performance in the Government and Not-for-Profit Sector (co-authored with James Creelman)
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Lover of a good story. Builder of a good strategy. | MBA @ NYU Stern
8 年Hi Bernard I know I am late to the game here, but I have a question. Do you know of any cases where real companies have been adversely impacted by 360-degree reviews? Just trying to put this into real-world impact a bit better. Any thoughts you have would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Leadership Development Specialist | Mentor and Mentee Trainer | Executive Coach | 360 Feedback Provider | Team Facilitator and Coach
8 年I am in agreement with the view that 360 feedback should never be used for performance appraisals. Using it this way almost guarantees that people won't be honest and will give "vanilla" feedback making it a waste of time and energy for all concerned. Done well, 360 can be transformational but sadly, for many, it's a forgettable experience at best and damaging one at worst.
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9 年Thanks for sharing the article. I totally agree that the biggest problem of 360 reviews is that they were not carried out properly. If done well, all the "bad" aspects of a 360 review can be eliminated.
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9 年360 degree feedback was implemented at my last place of employment about 8 months before I left. I found the report to be somewhat confusing with the feedback scattered all over the place. It indicated that I was either very good at what I was doing or didn't know what I was doing; there didn't seem to be any middle ground. I found some of the questions asked were very vague and so broad-based that there was no way that the various respondents could answer all of them in a meaningful way. The real downfall, I suppose, was that in the time before I left, I did not get the opportunity to review the report with anyone from HR. I am all for getting useful feedback that can help one to develop an awareness of potential weaknesses, but my one experience with 360 was confusing and less than useful. I find that implementing my own 360 degree feedback process that encourages open dialogue with my co-workers on an on-going basis allows all of us to identify opportunities for improvement.
Private Investor
9 年Development issues can be imlemented based on 360 degree evaluation. If the people can't know awareness of their weakness how can they improve theirself?