A Complete Guide to 360 Degree Feedback
360-degree feedback is a method used by HR to collect employee feedback. Receiving active feedback from employees helps the organization understand what actions need to be taken for organizational and individual growth. Organizations that regularly conduct employee feedback have 15.1% lower turnover rates than those who do not receive feedback. feedback also helps in accurately assessing strengths for improvement and creating an overall plan that aligns with the employee's career path and the organization's growth and productivity plans.
What is 360 degree feedback?
360 degree feedback is used to measure an individual's competencies, strengths and weaknesses. business can use this data to gain structured analysis and develop plans over the period of time. As an HR with such valuable insights, HR can promote an open business culture and increase employee engagement. This technique is designed so that multiple people who interact with an employee can provide feedback, and a more accurate and holistic assessment can be made on collected feedback. The individual who is the focus of the feedback should also self-assess and in doing so a clear comparison can be drawn.
Implementing 360 degree feedback
As we have looked at what is a 360 degree feedback let now take a quick overview how businesses can implement it in their interest. For better understanding Let’s divided the process into two steps:
1. Collecting Feedback
A group is selected of professionals like managers, peers and, in some cases, even customers who come into contact with the individual. They are divided into groups according to the level of interaction they have with the employee. Questions are usually based on things like employees ability as a leader or ability to communicate well. A ranking system is provided so that participants can rank the individual based on each of the skills required. The individual employee whom the survey is centred around will also complete a self-evaluation survey. Questions should be based on tangible, observable and therefore quantifiable factors.
2. Processing Feedback
Feedback is provided by taking the average scores provided by the groups of professionals. For example, the average manager score on a particular issue might be 8 out of 10, with a descriptive remark or comment. Comments help highlight critical areas the employee needs to focus on in development. This information, once collected, can be used by HR departments to create a workable development plan for that employee. The person providing the feedback should have adequate training and knowledge. They can then constructively structure the feedback towards a specific outcome. Once the development plan is created and implemented, the right system or staff should guide the employee in their development. Another round of comments made after a certain period of time can measure that employee's development in the areas highlighted.
Benefits of 360 degree feedback
Increases Self-Awareness in individuals
A 360 review is a great way for highlighting the problem area and scope for development. Traditionally only the level 1 manager provides feedback about the performance but with 360 degree feedback an individual's performance can be measured with multiple reviews this provides a clear view of employee overall performance and behavior.
Builds Morale
360 degree feedback effectively increases the confidence of employees when they receive positive feedback from their peers and senior management. begin to feel valued to boost the moral and performance of the employee at the workplace. The focus of this feedback is to bring transparency to assign training and bring the best of them.
Change Company’s Culture
Individuals should not be stagnant but change for their growth, the same goes for any organization. The problem with business change is that it requires paradigm shifts on everyone's part and is difficult to implement. This kind of change has to come from within. You must increase your employees before you see any substantial changes in the organization. The basis of 360 degree feedback is to effect personal change that encourages professional change.
Balanced view
360 degree feedback reviews aids the employee as they provide a complete and balanced view of their skills and behaviors. 360 degree feedback is not only given by the individual's supervisor, but by a variety of people in the organization. This gives a fair and more precise picture of the behavior displayed by the employee.
Employee development
The most important aspect of 360 degree review is that they provide individuals with a starting point to develop behaviors and new skills. The 360 process gives individuals responsibility for their own improvements through the creation of personalized development plans. This encourages individual responsibility and gives employees control over their career path. Playing a central role in your own development also increases employee engagement in the feedback process.
Challenges with 360 degree feedback
Tenure - The accuracy of the report is highly dependent on the stability of the employee and the people providing the feedback. You can't expect to get precise results from a newly formed team that has never worked together before.
Differing views - Since sample data is collected from individuals with different skills and abilities, they may differ in how they perceive the subject. While the data collected varies widely, no averaging can help with employee development.
Feedback questions - While the structure of the questions plays a role here, it is possible that the feedback comes from a personal level. This can end up lacking the constructive qualities necessary to make the 360 degree feedback system successful with a crystal review.
Picking on - A poorly structured feedback questionnaire can leave the employee demotivated and perceived negatively. It is essential to balance the questionnaire to ensure that the feedback is constructive especially in the case of freshers and new joinees. This issue need to be identified in early stages to avoid any misunderstandings of feedback.
Best tool for performance management
Performance management is more than an annual performance review. Rather, it should be an ongoing process with regular checks between managers and their team members that leads to better performance of employees, and better coaching. Effective performance management takes work, but there are a number of tools available to help you manage performance at the individual, team, and organizational levels. Humanware HRMS software is a complete HRMS solution with Performance management tools like 360 degree feedback, 9 box matrix, normalization and bell curve, Humanware HRMS is a perfect fit for your enterprise.
Conclusion
The 360 degree method is a strong feedback system for companies whose teams have been working together for some time and want to know how effective individuals are in their roles. It allows you to get solid and useful feedback from a wide range of business stakeholders, subordinates, colleagues, leaders, and even clients with 360-degree feedback. It enables continuous real-time feedback with a user-friendly interface, insightful analyzes, customizable configurable quizzes and, most importantly, an anonymity feature. It is recommended to use this tool in combination with other types of survey and assessment tools. The most important aspect of the 360 degree feedback system is that organizations should conduct it repeatedly and consistently.