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You must have already heard about appraisal management at enterprises for effective employee management. But do you know the benefits and best methods? Do you know what is 360 degree appraisal?
This blog will help you learn definition of 360 appraisal management and unique methods to perform. Let’s start with definition of 360 degree performance appraisal-
What is 360 degree performance appraisal?
In its simplest, 360 degree performance appraisal is an advanced form of providing appraisals to employees at organisation. It involves feedbacks from different associated groups of organisation and outside (clients).
The group of people or reviewers may include manager, HR, colleagues, and client they worked with.
The feedback is collected in the form of reviews from people and provides data for appraisals accordingly based on reviews.
In other words, 360 degree appraisal method includes multi source feedbacks for the employees affected by their performance throughout the period.
Importance of 360 degree performance appraisal:
When we talk about business performance and growth, what most important? Definitely your employees, their well-being and what else?
Now, what could be better than feedback appraisal for employees based on their performance. The activity helps motivate your employees to perform better every time. Accurate and fair 360 appraisal system makes it very popular asset when it comes to effective employee management at organisation.
Related – 4 Tricks to set-up a Fair and Transparent Appraisal system!
360 degree appraisal method-
- Rating scale method
- Ranking method
- Free form method
- Confidential reporting method
- BARS method
In detail below…
Rating scale method
Rating scale is one of the most common methods of assessing an employee’s performance. This method includes a scale of 1 to 10 points. The parameters of the scale rating are delivery, attitude, attendance, regularity, and accountability, which are rated for the employee accordingly. Many performing companies are using this method to have an effective and simple activity at place. The reviewing people are selected based on the employee’s role and nature of the job. The number of points scored for all the columns are finally added. Employees are therefore recognised and given a raise based on the performance and ratings.
This method makes the 360 degree performance appraisal management easier and fool proof.
Ranking method
This traditional method includes comparison of performance of the employees with other employees at same tier and with same rank. Here a manager is allotted to provide the comparison report based on numbers and graph. A fixed percentage of employees are allotted different performance categories like excellent, good, average, below average, poor etc. Ranking method is generally used when the manager has to make decision as to which person is the best worker for a given period of time. When someone has to be promoted or needs to be laid off, ranking methods is the best and quick way to rank.
The biggest advantage of this method is that it comes handy to HR manager and makes the complicate reviewing process easier.
Free form method
It is also called the ‘Essay appraisal method’. This is because the superior provides a detailed description of the selected employee’s performance. This includes supporting documents and examples of his/ her performance. This method could be highly biased at providing feedbacks. The reviewer under this method also uses the rating scale method (described earlier in the blog) to rate the weaknesses and strengths of an employee to validate the essay report. This method is very time consuming as the reviewer is required to collate all the documents and submit a brief.
Free form method is considered to be one of the non-quantitative evaluations for performance appraisal.
Confidential reporting method
This method is very popular among governmental organizations. Here the superiors need to write a confidential report on the subordinates, who needs to be reviewed, with respect to his/ her behaviour and duties at organization. The report prepared here would not be exposed to anyone. This is only referred by the top management or the human resource. In India this method is being used by most of the government organizations like the Armed Forces, Police department, CBI etc. The main factors assessed here are:
- Temperament
- Promptness
- Attendance
- Sincerity and trust-ness
- His/her behaviour with the subordinates
BARS method
BARS (Behaviourally Anchored Rating Scale) method is one of the new age methods to provide accurate feedback. The method consists of a set of behavioural statements that explain the performance of an employee towards a particular job.
This method acquires a set of parameters and decided points for each. The performance parameters could include good, bad, average, must be laid off, and so on.
360 degree performance appraisal advantages and disadvantages-
Appraisal management system could be very powerful asset for businesses. Yet, every resource has its own advantage and disadvantage.
Advantages of 360 degree appraisal
- Self-development of employees
- Fair and accurate reviews
- No biasing with 360 degree feedback
- Motivated workforce
- Provides a comprehensive view of employee performance
- Persuasive opinions from participants
- Better morale of employees
- Positive work environment
Disadvantages of 360 degree appraisal
- Process could be time consuming
- Data mix concern
- Tracking concerns
- Too much data at place
- Data is not available to everyone. Can create a suspicious environment
- Needs proper training to execute
Takeaway-
Committing to performance appraisal on your own without any software assistance could be difficult and error prone. Data handling could be the biggest hurdle.
Instead, dedicated software like appraisal management system can help conclude with yearly appraisal skilfully and easily. Pocket HRMS is one such integrated HR solution!
Visit Pocket HRMS to get cloud based HR solutions today. Also, follow our recent blogs here to learn new HR strategies and HR solution. Write to us at . You can also reach out to us at our Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook page.
Also, do not forget to ask for a FREE demo!
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Written by: the Officevibe Content Team
Updated on: May 19, 2022 | Published on: May 1, 2017 | Reading time: 9m
A smart way for teams to get a more complete picture on an employee is to use 360 degree feedback.
Traditionally, employees get feedback only from their direct managers, which creates a 1-1 feedback process. To get a more complete picture, you want to get feedback from as many sources as possible.
There are many pros and cons to using 360 feedback that we’ll go through, but one important thing to understand is that it’s used to measure an employee’s strength and weaknesses, not their performance.
This is why it might not be the best idea to include 360 feedback as part of an annual performance review. If you’re planning to use it, it might just be part of your overall feedback and performance management process.
In this post, we’ll explain what 360 degree feedback is, talk about the pros and cons, give you some examples of questions, and some pro tips to get you started quickly and easily.
Before we do, make sure to grab this free guide on how to give better employee feedback.
What is 360 degree feedback?
360 degree feedback is when you collect feedback about your strengths and weaknesses from everyone around you, hence the name 360 degree.
As a manager, if you were the one receiving 360 reviews, you’d collect feedback from your direct manager (if you have one), your employees, your coworkers, and potentially even your customers. Many times there is also a self-assessment that is included in the process.
It’s important that the process is anonymous and that everyone rating you gets the same questions about you. At the end, one person (usually your manager) will compile all the results and discover any patterns about where you could improve.
Remember, a 360 review is about strengths and weaknesses.
A performance review is about the job someone is doing, a 360 review is about an employee’s skills.
The goal is to help anyone in the organization (senior leaders and employees) improve their personal skills and behaviors at work. By combining multiple sources of feedback, you’ll get a more complete picture of the employee.
There are many pros to 360 feedback, they’re an amazing tool to use, but it’s important for you to remember that it’s all part of a larger feedback process which includes employee surveys, one-on-ones, annual reviews, etc.
1. More Complete Assessment
Because you’re collecting feedback from so many different sources, you have a broader (and potentially more accurate) assessment. You’ll likely notice recurring themes and patterns that you should be focusing on.
According to Officevibe data, 18% of employees feel like the feedback they receive is lacking precision.
By implementing 360 degree feedback and increasing the number of respondents, you are more likely to have a better picture of your employee’s work and relations, hence making the feedback more specific. Also, it’s likely that colleagues or customers have feedback that you might not have, so you’ll get a more complete picture of your employee’s strengths and weaknesses.
2. Create Better Teamwork
In theory, if everyone identifies their strengths, weaknesses, and behaviours that they need to work on, they’ll end up becoming better coworkers and the team will be happier and more productive.
3. See How Others See You
It’s great to see how others perceive you. The 360 review gives colleagues a chance to anonymously express how they feel about their coworkers, something that doesn’t regularly happen at work.
If you’re able to handle feedback and not get too upset about it, you’ll want to know how others see you. The key to handling feedback is to develop a growth mindset and look at it as an opportunity to grow.
4. More Feedback Is Always Better
One of the biggest issues that employees face in their workplace is a lack of frequent feedback. Employees crave feedback, and the 360 review gives them a chance to get more of it from more people.
Employees will likely also perceive the feedback as more fair since it’s coming from multiple sources.
5. 360 feedback is anonymous
In most cases, 360 feedback is anonymous. This can sometime be an advantage of 360 feedback as some employees might feel more comfortable giving feedback. This is especially the case for constructive and negative feedback.
If some of your team members are scared to share negative feedback about a colleague, then 360 feedback can be a safe space where they are able to flag these issues to their manager and the colleague in question.
Cons of 360 feedback
360 feedback isn’t perfect, and unfortunately many teams will implement it for the wrong reasons. You need to be very careful when doing this. If your culture already has an issue of trust or the team isn’t getting along well, this might only worsen the problem.
1. It Can Create A Negative Culture
If the feedback received is negative, it can create a lot of resentment on the team, where the receiver is angry at their colleagues or customers, inducing emotions like fear and anger.
To prevent this from happening, you can teach your employees about constructive feedback. This will help your employees to turn a negative comment into an actionnable statement and will be much more beneficial for the concerned employee and your team in the long run.
2. It Might Not Be Accurate
The feedback that’s received might not be 100% accurate. Your colleagues might want to be nicer that what they really feel, or maybe due to internal politics they’re dishonest to be mean.
If you’re on a small team and everyone’s friends with each other, can we really be that critical of each other?
On the flipside, if you’re on a very large team, do the people reviewing you really know you well enough to give you an accurate assessment?
Remember, feedback is often about perceptions. Because a certain employee feels some way about a colleague, it might not be the absolute truth. In the case of negative feedback, make sure you take the time to discuss it with the concerned employee to make sure that everyone is on the same page.
The point is, be careful with the data you’re collecting.
3. Too Focused On Weaknesses
The review can focus too much on an employee’s weaknesses and not enough on their strengths, which can be pretty discouraging.
It’s okay to highlight areas for improvement, but remember to focus on strengths and how that strengths can be leveraged more on the team.
4. You can’t track anonymous feedback
Anonymous feedback is great to make your employees more comfortable to share their opinions, but it can sometimes be a double edged sword. If a critical issue arise during a 360 feedback loop, it’s impossible for you to know the identity of the employee sharing the negative feedback. This makes it harder for the manager to address and solve the conflict effectively.
5. It’s time consuming
While the assessment you obtain might be more complete, this quality of information comes at a cost. First, it takes time for your employees to fill feedback surveys. For the manager, analyzing the feedback and finding insights from the surveys is also a time consuming task.
If you chose to conduct 360 feedback for many team members, the time taken by all parties is multiplied. Since managers usually have busy schedules, it’s important to ask yourself if the insights coming from 360 feedback are worth the time invested into it for you and your employees. Typically, they are. And the juice is worth the squeeze because gaining different perspectives and revealing your own blindspots is essential to better understand your team.
Should you implement 360 feedback on your team?
As presented earlier, 360 feedback comes with many pros and some cons. If you’re wondering whether or not to implement 360 feedback on your team, the answer is it depends.
Different teams have different challenges, and as a manager you know what’s best for yours.Collecting 360 feedback is great every 6-12 months to get a high level view of your team’s performance through different eyes, but, collecting frequent ongoing feedback is essential to have an real-time view of your teams pains and sentiments.
Here are a few situations where 360 feedback might benefit your team:
- When you notice team dynamics issues and need to grasp how employees are collaborating with their peers.
- Before performance reviews or compensation adjustments so you have an accurate picture of their contribution
- Before promoting an employee internally so you see what areas need refining before shifiting roles.
Keeping a balance between different feedback collection methods will help you have an accurate view of your team and its needs. For situations where 360 feedback might not be the best option for your team, you can use Officevibe’s feedback features to take the pulse of your team without loading your already busy schedule.
360 Feedback sample questions
Since managers have busy schedules, implementing a new feedback process can be time consuming.
The exercise of 360 feedback can give you the opportunity to address some critical areas such as autonomy, expertise and impact. In order to save you some time, here are a few sample questions you can use for your 360 feedback review:
- Does this employee seem motivated at work?
- Do you feel like this team member is autonomous on their day to day.
- When conflicts arise, does this employee handle it well?
- When challenges arise, does this employee take the initiative of proposing solutions?
- On the daily, do you consider this employee to be proactive or reactive?
- Does this employee’s work impact colleagues outside of his direct team?
- Is this employee committed to the success of the organization?
- Does this employee display leadership skills?
- Is this employee in charge of his/her professional development?
- Have you experienced any problems with this employee personally?
- Does this employee pay attention to detail in their work?
- Is this employee a good communicator?
- Does this employee manage their time well?
- Do you trust this employee that they’ll do what they say they’ll do?
If you’re looking to get started with 360 feedback, here are a few tips to keep in mind as you get started.
Set Goals For The Process
You need to have a reason for why you’re doing what you do, how you’ll use the results, and what people should expect.
Ask yourself questions like:
- What skills/strengths are important for us here? (hint: tie them to your core values).
- What are we going to do with all of the data we collect? How will we keep that going over time?
Remove The Fear
If you’re just getting started with 360 reviews, it’s natural that employees might be a bit nervous or scared about what to expect. It’s your job as a manager to remove that fear and explain exactly how to process will work.
Explain how the anonymity works, that they should be honest, why you’re doing this, etc.
Keep The Survey Short
One last tip to keep in mind is not to make your survey too long. Survey fatigue kicks in very quickly, and with something like this you want the information to be as accurate as possible.
Take the survey a few times yourself to see how long it is and where you could potentially remove to make the process as simple as possible.
Do You Use 360 Degree Feedback?
Anything to share with our community about how you do it at your organization?