360-Degree Feedback Can Help Employees Grow

Successful organizations understand providing good, actionable feedback is essential to developing employees and helping them to do their best work. But traditional performance reviews often aren’t the best way to deliver useful feedback. One way to improve performance reviews is by adding 360-degree feedback to the review process. This feedback doesn’t replace a performance review, but helps offer employees additional perspectives that can help them gain insight into their performance, strengths and weaknesses.This week, I’ve been reading about 360-degree feedback -- how it can help and mistakes companies make in providing it. I think you’ll find these recent blog posts and articles useful.  A 360 Can Give You the Honest Feedback You Need. GoToMeeting: “A great benefit of the 360 programme is that, when implemented correctly, it can provide a truthful, accurate picture of what those around you think. It’s a confidential process as no individual’s responses are revealed, but are instead amalgamated with other people’s. In this way it encourages truly honest feedback. An external supplier often runs the programme and good briefing by them helps people to appreciate that if they provide honest feedback, their boss will be better able to support them. It’s win-win.”The Definitive Guide To Employee Feedback. Officevibe: “While there are many pros of 360-degree feedback, it’s important to remember that they are part of a larger, more holistic feedback process, that includes things like employee pulse surveys, performance reviews, and other kinds of reviews and evaluation processes. Frequent feedback loops are a good thing. Getting feedback from different people can help you create a global view of who you are and what your strengths and weaknesses are. You’ll start to see patterns and repeated themes from all of the feedback that comes in. If employees participate and provide positive, yet, constructive criticism, everyone is helping each other improve on the day to day to become better employees. In the long term, this will help your company grow.”People and Talent Management in Risk and Control Functions. Consultant-News.com: “Across industries, many companies still lack the ability to effectively measure and reward outstanding performance in the field of risk management….Benchmark practice, however, includes consistent measures across roles that link to impact against risk objectives. Appraisals are conducted as multifaceted 360-degree feedback on automated interfaces. Feedback, an integral part of the key performance indicators that are set for senior managers, follows a multiyear perspective. Compensation consists of a variable based on the 360-degree feedback as well as individually predefined milestones (for example, a specific project to be completed). In addition, recognition can take the form of mini-bonuses, public appraisals, or reward cupboards to allow for instant gratification. Companies using such innovative tools have reported very positive experiences at the team or department level, since such measures are quick to implement and clearly linked to individual job performance.”360 Degree Feedback Pros and Cons. Brandon Gaille: “When using the 360 degree feedback approach, everyone involved with an employee gets the chance to provide feedback about their performance. This includes more than just their managers and any direct reports. It also includes other co-workers, customers, and even networking relationships within other organizations. By drawing information from several resources, the goal is simple: to get a complete picture of what a person is doing….In the manager/employee relationship, tunnel vision tends to develop. Certain decisions tend to define the employee in good or bad ways. By opening up the evaluation process to all those with whom an employee interacts, the broader perspective goes past defining decisions to the everyday decisions and actions instead.”8 Glaring Reasons Why 360 Performance Reviews Flop. TINYpulse: “While crowdsourced feedback can be helpful in understanding an employee’s complete performance, it’s inherently flawed because it’s not coming from people trained to evaluate other people. Often, survey questions elicit opinion-based answers rather than performance-based responses, so personality problems can worm their way into a performance review. Coworkers who are competitive could exploit the review to complain about issues that aren’t necessarily related to an employee’s performance or development. Employees who don’t like a manager’s leadership style may use the review as an avenue to seek retribution. In either case, the review favors personality-related comments over performance-related feedback.”Need help with 360-degree feedback at your organization? Contact us; we’re happy to assist.Success Labs is a leadership development and management consulting firm in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. For more than 25 years, our expert team of consultants has worked with hundreds of companies to explore their business potential and improve their company and cultural performance. Contact us to get proactive about your people strategy.