Everyone likes to give and receive appreciation. This natural human tendency can be leveraged successfully to implement the 360-degree feedback.

First thing first! Let us know what 360-Degree Feedback is

360-Degree Feedback or Multi-rater feedback is a feedback of an employee from a variety of stakeholders including self, peers, managers, coworkers, subordinates, vendors or customers. It helps you get a holistic assessment of the employee’s performance, soft skills and his leadership qualities.

Why do you need a 360-Degree Feedback?

You can assess the performance of an employee from the manager’s ratings. However, to nurture leaders or to create an individual development plan you need an in-depth assessment. You need to find the strength and weaknesses of the employees’ behavior. Their ease of communication, listening skills and their ability to plan and work as a team are assessed by persons who work with them on a day-to-day basis. This all-inclusive assessment gives us a clear picture to define the development plan for the individual.

Make your Employees Ready

You can’t spring any new ideas just like that, as it can be counter-productive in a social environment. All new process needs an effective implementation and assimilation plan to become a success. Hence, you have to train your employees to give and receive 360-degree feedback effectively. Explain the feedback process in detail and how you plan to use them to improve the work culture. Discuss the concept of anonymity and encourage them to be honest and fair. Assist them to develop comprehensive action plans based on the feedback result.

Prepare your managers emotionally to manage the feedback results. Initially, it may be hard to accept criticism from the subordinates. Proper training and orientation sessions prepare them to take feedback in the right sense and make the best out of it.

How to Implement 360-Degree Feedback

1. Chart a clear course:Identify the intent and purpose for which you are creating the 360-degree feedback. Align it with the core organizational values. Decide on the raters and frequency of feedback survey.
2. Identify the mechanism:Zero-in on the tool you are planning to use. Check out the versatility of the tool and its ease of use in collecting feedback from external stakeholders like vendors or clients.
3. Keep the survey simple and short:The questionnaires must be brief and precise. You can either use open-ended questions or provide descriptor statements with scaling responses in the survey form.
4. Make the Action Plan Ready:Be prepared with the definitive action plan, which is the key to the success of 360-degree feedback.

Benefits of 360-Degree Feedback

• Know Thy Self:It increases self-awareness and also helps employees get to know others perception. Management can find the perception gap and initiate suitable action. If used correctly, this can be used as a tremendous tool for employees to readjust their persona and succeed in their goals.
• Know the ‘How’ aspect:It gives a different dimension for measuring your performance. Rather than what you achieved it helps you measure how you achieve, what you achieved.
• Develops Right Frame of Mind:360-degree feedback is not a one-way street. An Employee gives feedback to others and gets many such feedbacks from others. Thus, it helps in developing the right attitude towards giving and receiving fair and honest feedbacks.
• Improves Collaboration and Team Work:Employees naturally put some effort to establish a good rapport with colleagues and subordinates.
• Drives High Performance: The de-facto positive outcome is improved performance and success in achieving organizational goals.

Generally, Organizations uses 360-degree feedback for a variety of purposes. You can use it for assessing the leadership qualities perceived by self and others or you can use it as a part of an appraisal process. Whatever maybe your purpose, proceed with clarity and use the data wisely with a definitive action plan. There are several sophisticated tools and PMS systems such as Synergita are available in the market, which can help you automate the 360-degree feedback process. Identify the leaders with 360-degree feedback, who can lead your organization on the path to success.