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360 degree feedback, also referred to as multi-rater feedback, 360 appraisals, or 360 degree assessments, is a process by which individuals can ask others to provide them with feedback on their performance, including the behaviours, skills, and competencies they display in their job.
Those taking part typically invite feedback from across-section of work colleagues and even clients. Feedback is usually given anonymously (apart from the manager), although more organisations are starting to introduce some attributed feedback, too.
A 360 appraisal intends to provide individuals with comprehensive feedback on a variety of factors, such as their performance, behaviours and/or competencies, from different perspectives. This offers individuals a more well-rounded picture of their strengths and weaknesses, boosting self-awareness and personal and professional development.
360 feedback is known for its versatility, and it has a number of different applications, such as for employee, team and leadership development, to inform performance appraisal or to embed cultural values. It’s also increasingly being used to aid career conversations, helping individuals see where they need to focus to progress.
Many different employees and employers can benefit from using 360 degree reviews.
- Teams and Singular Employees
Employees can get a balanced view because feedback comes from multiple sources instead of just one source (line manager). This has arguably become of even greater value in modern workplaces where managers and their teams sometimes don’t work in the same office or country. Managers may, therefore, not always be best placed to provide feedback on a person’s day-to-day behaviour.
By inviting those you work closely with and who have plenty of opportunities to observe you, you’re more assured of getting valuable, well-informed developmental feedback. And when acted upon, this can prove a great catalyst for personal development.
Furthermore, where a traditional performance review will focus on what you’ve achieved, a 360 degree review is about how you work as an employee. It can be particularly effective in helping you to improve key ‘soft’ or transferable skills such as leadership, working collaboratively, and communication.
- Senior Leaders and Managers
While traditionally, 360 feedback was seen as a tool for senior leadership development, it can be invaluable for many other employee groups, too. People managers at all levels are one such example. Developing managerial capabilities and behaviours in this group has the potential for far reaching benefits both for the individual and the organisation.
While the population you target will depend on the programme's aims, most multi-rater feedback processes start with the senior team before being cascaded down the management levels. The benefit of this approach is that others see senior leaders taking part first, building confidence and buy-in to the programme. Explore more about how to ensure 360 feedback offers great value for leaders.
When introducing a 360 feedback review, active stakeholder support at a senior level is invaluable. If others see senior leaders, starting at the very top, taking part in a 360 process, this will help to embed the process and encourage uptake elsewhere.
For this reason, when introducing it for the first time, a number of our clients start the process with their most senior populations and then roll out more widely. Clear communication is arguably the other key factor. Ensure the messaging is very clear about what the 360 process is for, how data will be used, who will see it, and how the participants benefit from participating.
The typical steps involved in introducing 360 feedback are:
1. Administration and initial set-up (either names added to a group or by self-registration)
2. Participant accesses 360 tools to invite feedback providers
3. Line manager approves chosen feedback providers (this is an optional step and will depend on the context)
4. Participant completes a self-questionnaire, and raters also complete feedback
5. Report released to the participant (once required raters have all provided feedback)
6. Feedback session between participant and coach/manager to agree on development actions.
To take a look at an example in practice, explore how Nationwide and Brighton & Hove City Council use 360 feedback.
So, now that you know more about what 360 feedback is, you need to be able to choose the right 360 feedback provider for you. This will ensure that your feedback process is effective and aligns with your company’s goals.
Think – are you looking for:
- Just the 360 software or an online platform?
- A platform for yourself, your company or a third-party organisation?
- A standalone platform or app, or one that can be 'installed' and integrated with your existing HRIS?
- Template question sets or support to design your own bespoke questionnaires?
While the majority of providers out there only offer a feedback tool, some will be able to offer you a full service. A premium 360 feedback provider should be able to provide customisable feedback tools tailored to your individual requirements, and should have the power to grow in accordance with your organisation, meaning you can expand the feedback process as your business expands.
At ETS Plc, we specialise in crafting bespoke 360-degree feedback solutions, ensuring your process is as relevant to your team, industry, and workflows as possible. You can take advantage of our experience delivering360 feedback for different purposes (i.e., appraisal or cultural change) and work with a partner who can support your team with follow-up coaching, training, or e-learning resources
If you’re looking for a full service 360-degree feedback partner, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us to find out more.
To fully understand what a 360 degree review is, take a look at how you can benefit when you implement 360 feedback properly and what can go wrong if it is implemented incorrectly.
When executed properly, you can benefit from:
- Open communication:
360 feedback reviews can foster a strong and open feedback culture. Receiving regular, constructive feedback about how you’re doing in general or how you fared on a recent project is something we could all find helpful.
- Improved engagement and performance:
Ideally, such formal and informal feedback conversations should be happening at all levels between peers, managers, and subordinates, as this will help to improve things like employee engagement and performance. For its part, a 360 process can help establish a level of comfort with giving and receiving feedback so that this becomes the norm.
- Increased self-awareness:
With a 360 feedback appraisal, employees can better understand how they are performing. Taking this further, individuals can advance their personal and professional growth by identifying strengths and areas for improvement.
- Reduced bias:
Because 360 feedback is gathered from various sources, the review process can decrease the impact of individual biases and create a more balanced and fair assessment.
However, when executed poorly, 360 feedback could result in:
- Inaccurate feedback:
If poorly managed, the 360 feedback could be impacted by personal biases and misunderstandings. The feedback could reflect more on personal relationships than employee performance in these cases.
- Damaged team cohesion:
If handled poorly, feedback may be perceived as critical or unfair, resulting in resentment and trust amongst your team. This could decrease morale and collaboration in the long run.
- Time and resource drain:
If implemented poorly, the 360 feedback review process could considerably drain time and resources while failing to deliver meaningful results. Thus, this makes it integral to structure the process properly and ensure it is aligned with clear business goals.
If you’re ready to boost the potential of your team with our solutions, learn more about our 360degree feedback services and explore how tailored feedback can improve individual employee performance, enhance personal growth, and ultimately drive your company’s success.
Here are some of the most frequently asked questions our team receives about 360 feedback appraisals. If you have a question that isn’t answered here, please get in touch, and a team member will be happy to help.
Pre-360 Feedback Review Questions: What You Should Know
Q. How much does 360 degree feedback cost?
A. The cost of 360 feedback is usually £50-£150 per participant. Pay-per-use is the most common pricing model, whereby you pay an agreed price or credit amount for each person using the tool. But it's worth noting that the overall cost of introducing a 360 degree feedback tool can vary wildly depending on scale and complexity and, more obviously, the total number of people who are to use it.
Also, make sure you factor in any upfront costs. For a customised tool, you’ll have to pay for the development work and, when buying off-the-shelf, you’ll need to buy the software.
Q. Should 360 feedback be used for development or appraisal?
A. It can be either but should never be both. More commonly, 360 feedback is considered a development tool, and most of our clients still use it as such. It can be useful as part of a performance review too, but it is crucial that the feedback culture is mature enough for this.
Where companies are interested in using it to measure performance, we often recommend introducing a 360 programme first for development and then transitioning at a point in the future once the business is ready.
Q. How do you prepare participants?
A. There’s no denying that having other people evaluate how you work and offer their views on you can bean uncomfortable experience. However, it can also be a richly rewarding and enlightening one. Here are some important points to keep in mind:
- Nobody is judging you; they’re simply offering their views based on what they’ve observed.
- You don’t have to agree with all feedback. There’s no right or wrong, and everything is open to your interpretation
- Embrace this as a learning exercise that gives you pointers on what to consider changing in order to develop and achieve your goals
- You are free to decide on what you do with feedback, what aspects you agree with and what to act on. But please, be open-minded!
Creating Your 360 Feedback Review
Q. What 360 feedback questions should you include?
A. As for choosing the questions for your 360 feedback review, ideally you tailor them to your company’s specific needs. Ensure you focus on key skills, behaviours, and qualities you want to assess, such as teamwork, communication, and creativity.
It’s important not to overload the questionnaire with irrelevant questions, so ensure you only concentrate on the most relevant areas and that each question targets a single behaviour. This will allow for actionable and clear feedback.
Check out our article on 360 feedback questions for more detailed guidance.
Q. What's the best 360 feedback rating scale to use?
A. As with the types of questions to include, there’s not one rating scale that is better than all others. However, the different rating scales will have different pros and cons. Furthermore, positive bias is a common phenomenon and can often be a symptom of the organisation's culture or the relative immaturity of a 360 programme.
Fortunately, choosing the right rating scale can go a long way to avoiding the ‘clustering’ of scores. The key to deciding between the various scales is considering what the organisation’s feedback culture is like, whether participants have experienced 360 feedback before, and what it is being used for (development or assessment).
Discover more about best practices for 360 degree feedback rating scales, or check out a quick rundown of the types of feedback scales used below:
- Effectiveness scale
- Observed frequency scale (four or six points)
- Anchored observed frequency scale (typically our recommended approach where 360 is being used for behavioural development)
- Developmental or strengths-based scale
Q. Should you go for levelled questionnaires?
A. Lots of organisations choose to employ levelled 360 questionnaires. This allows internal competency frameworks and target behavioural questions to be lined up to particular levels of seniority/roles, e.g. by providing more stretch in questions seen by more senior leaders or asking more stretching behavioural questions of certain populations.
However, this approach is not right for all organisations. For example, if there is a single leadership framework in place, or where a 360 programme questionnaire is based on values, there is an argument for all participants seeing the same version of the questionnaire, regardless of seniority or hierarchy.
This sends the message about the behavioural standards valued within the business (from everyone), which should form part of the workplace culture. As a by-product, this can also encourage greater use of the full scale.
Post-360 Feedback Review Questions
Q. What data should you include in a 360 feedback report?
A. We suggest offering two different report formats for those participating in a 360 degree review: a single-page summary report for an ‘at a glance’ view and a detailed report for deeper analysis.
A summary report would normally contain a summary of key strengths, development areas, and perception gaps, where either others rated you higher than you did yourself or vice versa. Where available, it may also include a historical comparison.
On the other hand, a detailed report provides greater insight into how each feedback provider group has responded. This is valuable in fully understanding results and is often used in one-to-one feedback facilitation and coaching.
Q. What can you do to encourage follow-up and behavioural change?
A. The involvement of a manager or a coach can be particularly useful immediately afterwards, helping the participant understand the feedback and identify the areas they need to act on (which won’t necessarily simply be those lowest-scoring). At the same time, they can also help participants increase their accountability for acting on the feedback. The participant should then be encouraged to build any actions into a personal development plan.
However, the process mustn’t end there; it should become a cycle. To encourage behavioural change in participants, follow-up is essential. And that doesn’t just mean once. Set a timescale for a ‘follow-up 360’ and make this a recurring check-in. This should happen between six months to a year after the initial process, and it could feature questions just relating to agreed development actions to assess progress.
Have a Question about 360 Degree Reviews?
So, there you have it! Hopefully, you now have a better idea about what 360 feedback is and how you can implement it in your current business.
Need help to revise or optimise an existing 360 feedback process, or looking to design and introduce a completely new platform? We can help; please get in touch for a chat.
Additionally, for more information regarding 360 feedback, explore our valuable resources, such as guidelines for feedback providers.
